Ross v. State

Summary

The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed Qwauntico Ross’s conviction and five-year minimum mandatory sentence for possession of a firearm by a person prohibited. The court held that Delaware Code title 11, section 1448(e)(1)c unambiguously requires the five-year minimum when a defendant has been convicted on two or more separate occasions of a violent felony, and declined to apply the rehabilitation-based interpretation used for the habitual offender statute. A dissent argued that mandatory enhanced penalties should require an opportunity for rehabilitation after a prior conviction.

Holdings

1. Section 1448(e)(1)c is unambiguous because the statutory definition of conviction includes an accepted guilty plea and limits the term to that meaning.
2. The sequencing requirement developed under the habitual-offender statute does not apply to the PFBPP sentencing statute.
3. Ross's two prior convictions for Possession with Intent to Deliver Cocaine were separate violent-felony convictions within section 1448(e)(1)c, requiring a five-year minimum sentence.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Delaware Code title 11, section 1448(e)(1)c, requiring a five-year minimum sentence for a prohibited person previously convicted on two or more separate occasions of a violent felony, is ambiguous.
2. Whether the sequencing and rehabilitation-opportunity requirement applied to Delaware's habitual-offender statute also applies to section 1448(e)(1)c.
3. Whether Ross's two prior cocaine convictions qualified as two separate violent-felony convictions under section 1448(e)(1)c.

Disposition

affirmed