Summary
The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed Solomon Collins’s convictions for first-degree murder, firearm offenses, and reckless endangering. The court held that out-of-court statements by two turncoat witnesses were properly admitted under 11 Del. C. § 3507 and that the trial court’s Allen charge was not coercive or otherwise reversible error.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the State established a sufficient foundation under 11 Del. C. § 3507 to admit Violet Gibson’s voluntary out-of-court statement as substantive evidence when Gibson’s trial testimony was inconsistent with or denied the statement.
- Whether the State established a sufficient foundation under 11 Del. C. § 3507 to admit Shakira Romeo’s out-of-court statement when Romeo denied making the identification but testified about the shooting, her interaction with police, and the photo array.
- Whether the trial court abused its discretion or committed plain error by giving an Allen charge that distinguished between majority and minority jurors, referred to the need to dispose of the case, permitted the jury to disregard comments of the court and counsel, and did not use the precise admonition requested by Collins.
Holdings
- The trial court properly admitted Gibson’s out-of-court statement because the evidence showed that it was voluntary, Gibson was present and subject to cross-examination, and her trial testimony touched on both the events she perceived and the content of her prior statement.
- The trial court properly admitted Romeo’s out-of-court statement because Romeo testified about the shooting, her interaction with police, and the photo array, thereby sufficiently touching on the content of her prior statement despite denying the identification.
- The trial court did not abuse its discretion or commit plain error in giving the Allen charge. The charge’s majority/minority references, instruction that the case must eventually be disposed of, permission to disregard comments of the court and counsel, and failure to use the precise wording requested by Collins did not render the charge coercive.
Key quotations
“A trial judge decides whether a statement was voluntarily made under a “preponderance of the evidence” standard.” (1018)
“The potential coercive effect of an Allen charge “can be eliminated by having the charge include an admonition that each individual juror not surrender his or her honest convictions and not return any verdict contrary to the dictates of personal conscience.”” (1020)
“In determining whether an Allen charge was coercive, we consider: (1) the timing of the instruction, (2) the words used in the instruction, (3) the length of the deliberations both before and after the instruction, and (4) the complexity of the case.” (1020)
Factual background
Tommear Tinnin was shot and killed while sitting in the back seat of a parked car in Wilmington. Two witnesses, Violet Gibson and Shakira Romeo, separately identified Collins as the shooter in statements to Detective Patrick Conner, but at trial they denied or could not recall making the identifications. Police later recovered a brown sweatshirt bearing “Roca Wear” lettering from a vehicle associated with the shooting and found Collins’s DNA and gunshot residue on it. After the jury deliberated for eleven hours and reported that it was hung, the trial judge gave an Allen charge, after which the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts.
Procedural history
After an eight-day jury trial, the Superior Court admitted two out-of-court witness statements under 11 Del. C. § 3507. Following approximately eleven hours of deliberation, the trial court gave an Allen charge after the jury reported that it was deadlocked; the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts approximately two hours later. Collins was sentenced to life imprisonment for first-degree murder and level V time on the remaining counts, and he appealed.