Williams v. Delaware

Defendant-appellant Robert Williams was convicted of two counts of robbery in the first degree, two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, one count of conspiracy in the second degree, and one count of assault in the third degree. He was sentenced to twenty-two years at Level V incarceration, followed by probation. He appealed a Superior Court order that denied his motion for postconviction relief, arguing: (1) the trial court should have found that his trial counsel was ineffective because he failed to file a motion to suppress a statement that Williams made to the police approximately fifteen hours after he was taken into custody; and (2) the trial court should have determined that his trial counsel was ineffective because he failed to investigate and present readily available mitigating evidence at Williams’ sentencing hearing. The Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court, but took the opportunity to discuss its decision with regard to Williams second "novel" contention regarding a mitigation investigator in a non-capital case. "Given the seriousness of Williams’ criminal record, the chances he had to get on the right track, and the pre-sentence report that detailed his difficult childhood and the fact that his parents were poor role models, there is not a basis to conclude that there was a reasonable probability that Williams’ twenty-two year sentence, which was well below the 103 years he could have received, would have been lesser had the evidence Williams now points to been presented." Furthermore, the Court found that Williams' argument that a mitigation specialist should have been retained in a serious non-capital case as an invariable requirement of effective representation was without legal basis. View "Williams v. Delaware" on Justia Law