Summary
The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s denial of Alonzo Morris’s motion to correct his sentence under Superior Court Criminal Rule 35(a). The Court held that the motion was untimely and that Morris’s claim that his sentence was vindictive lacked merit because the later sentence for the original convictions was not greater than the earlier sentence; the additional eighteen months related to separate violation-of-probation charges.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Morris's Rule 35(a) motion to correct an allegedly illegally imposed sentence was barred because it was filed more than ninety days after sentencing and no extraordinary circumstances were shown.
- Whether the 2002 sentences for the substantive convictions and the 1996 probation violation exceeded the corresponding 2000 sentences and therefore triggered a presumption of vindictiveness under North Carolina v. Pearce.
Holdings
- A motion to correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner must be filed within ninety days of sentencing unless extraordinary circumstances are demonstrated; Morris's motion, filed more than ten years after sentencing, was procedurally barred because he showed no extraordinary circumstances.
- Morris's vindictive-sentencing claim failed because the 2002 sentences for the PDWDCF and assault convictions and the 1996 probation violation were the same as the corresponding 2000 sentences; the additional eighteen months imposed in 2002 were attributable to separate, deferred probation-violation charges.
Factual background
Morris was arrested in 1999 after allegedly beating a 74-year-old man in the head with a pipe, causing serious injury. He was convicted after retrial in 2002 of possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony and first-degree assault and received a total sentence of thirty years at Level V, with twenty years mandatory. The Superior Court also imposed sentences for a probation violation in a 1996 case and resolved deferred probation-violation charges in four 1994 cases. Morris later claimed that the 2002 sentence was greater than his original 2000 sentence and therefore presumptively vindictive.
Procedural history
Morris was convicted and sentenced after retrial on charges of possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony and first-degree assault, along with violations of probation. This Court affirmed the convictions and sentences in 2004. In August 2013, Morris moved under Rule 35(a) to correct his sentence, arguing that his 2002 sentence was presumptively vindictive because it exceeded his 2000 sentence. The Superior Court denied the motion, and the Supreme Court affirmed after granting the State's motion to affirm.