# Green v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · April 17, 1961 · 365 U.S. 301

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422124

## Case

- **Full name:** Green v. United States
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** April 17, 1961
- **Citations:** 365 U.S. 301; 81 S. Ct. 653; 5 L. Ed. 2d 670; 1961 U.S. LEXIS 1646
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stewart
- **Judges:** Stewart, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Brennan, Clark, Harlan, Whittaker
- **Cited by:** 622 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Disagreed with by State v. Valedon, 261 Conn. 381 (2002).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422124

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that the district court did not deny the defendant the allocution opportunity to which Rule 32(a) entitled him where the trial judge’s question, “Did you want to say something?,” without being addressed to any particular person, “may well have been directed to the defe…
- holding that failure to afford a defendant the opportunity to speak to the sentencing court was a violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(a), and constituted a denial of due process, yet stating that such an error could be harmless
- holding that under: Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the right of allocution is personal to the defendant, and is not satisfied by affording counsel an opportunity to speak on the defendant’s behalf
- finding that the district court did not deny the defendant the allocution opportunity to which Rule 32(a
- finding that the defendant was accorded his right to allocution where the trial judge uttered “the single pertinent sentence ... ‘Did you want to say something.’ ”

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Stewart,
concurring.
I join in affirming the judgments. Rule 32 (a) does not seem to me clearly to require a district judge in every case to volunteer to the defendant an opportunity personally to make a statement, when the defendant has a lawyer at his side who speaks fully on his behalf. But I do think the better practice in sentencing is to assure the defendant an express opportunity to speak for himself, in addition to anything that his lawyer may have to say. I would apply such a rule prospectively, in the exercise of our supervisory capacity. See Couch v. United States, 235 F. 2d 519 .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422124. Public record. Not legal advice.