342 Pa. Super. 249 - Commonwealth v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

19 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A bare denial of the right to allocution, without evidence that appellant had something to say, will not require the vacation of an otherwise proper sentence. That which he wished to say, moreover, must be such as would likely have influenced the sentence imposed. To require a vacating of the sentence and a subsequent re-sentencing, appellant will have to show that the sentencing judge was either misinformed or uninformed regarding one or more relevant circumstances. The sentence need not be vacated in order to provide appellant an opportunity to speak if he has nothing significant to say. Commonwealth v. Rivera, 309 Pa.Super. 33, 39 , 454 A.2d 1067, 1070 (1982). The right to allocution is neither constitutional nor jurisdictional. The failure to ask a defendant if he has anything to say before sentence is imposed is not a fundamental defect inconsistent with rudimentary requirements of due process or an error inherently resulting in a miscarriage of justice. Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 428 , 82 S.Ct. 468, 471 , 7 L.Ed.2d 417, 421 (1962). Thus, as the Supreme Court held in Hill , collateral relief is not available when a petitioner shows merely a formal failure to comply with a rule requiring the court to invite a defendant to speak before sentence is imposed.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Thomas · 347 Pa. Super. 265 - Commonwealth v. Polk

2. “From a practical standpoint [it is] pointless in the extreme to vacate appellant’s sentence so that the sentencing court could have the benefit of appellant’s as-yet undisclosed allocution____ [A]s a practical matter it is far more reasonable to follow those cases which require a petitioner to state to the PCHA and appellate courts what he would have said at sentencing. Ordinarily, a petitioner has had a considerable amount of time to think between sentencing and appeal. If even after that time he still cannot formulate for the reviewing court what of significance he wished to say at sentencing, it will undoubtedly be a futile, uneconomical, and wasteful judicial exercise, as well as a hollow gesture of relief for the appellant, to remand for resentencing so that he may address the sentencing court. This Court should not so exalt the abstract right to allocution that we lose sight of its procedural purpose in the criminal justice system—that is, to permit a realistic opportunity for the defendant to attempt personally to influence the deliberations of the sentencing judge. As important as the right to allocution is, it is not absolute, and may be waived or abandoned not only at the time of sentencing, but also thereafter if the defendant demonstrates that he really had nothing to say anyway. Appellant has now had ten years to think since he was sentenced. If there is still a serious question whether he actually had anything to say at sentencing, we are certainly not asking to”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Thomas

3. “Unlike the requirement of the Opinion in Support of Affirmance that a claimed denial of one’s right to allocution is factually deficient and requires supplementation as to what one would have said had he/she been given the opportunity to speak, our Supreme Court created no such condition precedent ... Id., 342 Pa.Superior Ct. at 263, 492 A.2d at 752 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 411 Pa. Super. 312 - Commonwealth v. Jones