Can I charge my iphone from my macbook pro (late 2013) without turning the laptop on? I am trying to charge my phone using my laptop but that requires the laptop to be on. 
On my Lenovo, I can do that without turning the laptop on. 
Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.
A Macbook Pro USB port will supply power to devices if the Macbook is on or asleep. It will not do so if the Macbook is powered off, completely shutdown. 

See here for more details on how the power is supplied, it can get tricky:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4049