Next there is this:
After pleading guilty, a defendant is typically offered a formal opportunity to address the court to express remorse, and explain personal circumstances that might be considered in sentencing. This is known as an allocution statement. These statements have a long and important history in the American legal system, serve a variety of functions, and, as “Teaching Legal Docs” explores here, produces an associated legal document.
The allocution statement provides an opportunity for defendants to accept responsibility, humanize themselves, and to mitigate their sentences to ensure that their punishment is appropriate for both the crime and the person who committed it.
From the court’s perspective, judges cannot simply accept a defendant’s guilty plea. They must determine that there is an “adequate factual basis to support the charge and the plea” and that the plea was “knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently made.” Allocution statements aid in making these determinations. With this in mind, not all defendants exercise their right to submit an allocution statement directly to the court. Lawyers may submit statements on the defendant’s behalf, or statements may be waived entirely. According to a 2014 survey of federal judges, 84 percent of defendants in federal court exercise their right to allocution.
Allocution statements are sometimes also used at other times in court, outside of sentencing. For instance, judges might allow allocution at resentencing, probation, or supervised release hearings. Allocution rights appear at the state level, though they vary across jurisdictions. Likewise, the protocols for delivering the statement might vary between being written or spoken. In fact, several famous allocution statements in history were spoken, including John Brown’s statement to the court after being sentenced to death in 1859, and Susan B. Anthony’s statement to the court after being arrested for voting in 1873. Here, “Teaching Legal Docs” will focus on allocution at the federal court level, which concerns written statements. In federal court, allocution is discussed in Rule 32(i)(4) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, providing an “opportunity to speak” prior to sentencing. The court must provide not only the defendant, but also the defendant’s lawyer and the government’s lawyer, with opportunities for allocution.
