Purnell v. State

Summary

The Delaware Supreme Court reversed Mark Purnell’s murder conviction, vacated the judgment, and remanded for a new trial. The Court held that Purnell satisfied the actual-innocence exception to the procedural bars governing an untimely and successive Rule 61 motion, based on newly available evidence and the circumstances surrounding trial counsel’s conflict of interest. The Court concluded that the conviction followed a manifestly unfair trial.

Holdings

1. To qualify for Rule 61's actual-innocence exception, a movant must identify with particularity new evidence that was unavailable at trial and would not have been available despite due diligence, and must show that the evidence, considered with the entire record by a properly instructed jury, would probably change the result and create a strong inference of factual innocence.
2. Evidence that was knowable or even known at the time of trial may nevertheless qualify as new for purposes of the actual-innocence exception when counsel's disabling conflict prevented the defendant from investigating, obtaining, or presenting it.
3. Trial counsel's prior representation of Dawan Harris created a conflict that materially constrained Purnell's defense, including the investigation and presentation of evidence that Dawan and Kellee Mitchell could have committed the robbery and murder.
4. Because Purnell had spent more than fourteen years imprisoned following a manifestly unfair trial and the existing record established the basis for relief, remand for an additional evidentiary hearing would serve no useful purpose; the proper remedy was reversal, vacation of the conviction, and a new trial.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Purnell's untimely and successive Rule 61 motion satisfied the actual-innocence exception by presenting new evidence that was unavailable at trial despite due diligence and created a strong inference of factual innocence.
2. Whether evidence known or knowable at trial could qualify as new when trial counsel's disabling conflict of interest prevented counsel from investigating or presenting it.
3. Whether trial counsel's prior representation of Dawan Harris created a conflict that materially constrained the defense investigation, theory, cross-examination, and presentation of evidence.
4. Whether the extraordinary circumstances required reversal and a new trial rather than remand for an evidentiary hearing.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded