I don’t generally write about pending cases. But the high-profile homicide trial of Raymond Cook has recently wrapped up, and there’s a discrete aspect of the case that I found especially interesting. First, a brief synopsis of the facts: Cook was a physician. After drinking at a country club, then later at a bar, his BAC was twice or three times the legal limit. Nonetheless, Cook got in his car and drove very fast through the streets of North Raleigh, crashing into the rear of a car driven by Elena Shapiro, a 20-year-old apprentice with the Carolina Ballet. Shapiro was killed, and Cook was charged with, inter alia, second degree murder. The case went to trial, and the jury acquitted Cook of murder, instead convicting him of, inter alia, felony death by vehicle. He was sentenced to the maximum possible aggravated sentence for that offense, 36 to 53 months in prison. Here’s the part of the case that particularly caught my attention: Cook did not speak at the sentencing hearing. A legal dictionary defines allocution as “a formal speech, especially one made by a defendant at the time of sentencing.” In non-capital cases, North Carolina provides a right of allocution by statute. G.S. 15A-1334 (“The defendant at the [sentencing] hearing may make a statement in his own behalf.”). The denial of the right is reversible error. State v. Miller, 137 N.C. App. 450 (2000) (remanding for resentencing because the trial judge denied the defendant’s request to allocate). By contrast, the defendant [...]
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