Justia Delaware Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In October, 2014, a Superior Court jury convicted Irvan Adams of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, possession of ammunition by a person prohibited, carrying a concealed deadly weapon, and conspiracy second degree. The Superior Court judge sentenced Adams to five years at Level V on the conviction for possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, and suspended the terms of imprisonment on the remaining offenses for probation. On appeal. Adams argued the Superior Court abused its discretion when it refused to admit into evidence a prior consistent statement of Adams's brother, Javan Cale. Adams claimed the affidavit supported Cale's exculpatory testimony at trial and rebutted the State's implication of recent fabrication on Cale's part. The trial judge refused to admit the affidavit, ruling it was superfluous. The Supreme Court found that the trial court erred when it sustained the State's objection and excluded the affidavit from evidence, and that the exclusion was not harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court therefore reversed Adams's conviction and remanded for further proceedings. View "Adams v. Delaware" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Akeem Cropper was indicted on multiple firearms possession charges. He filed a motion to suppress, which was denied after a hearing. Following a bench trial, the Superior Court found defendant guilty of Possession of a Firearm by a Person Prohibited and Possession of Ammunition By a Person Prohibited. On appeal, defendant argued the warrantless seizure and pat-down search was not supported by reasonable suspicion, and the evidence seized from him should have been suppressed. After review of the superior court record, the Supreme Court concluded defendant's argument on appeal lacked merit, and affirmed his conviction. View "Cropper v. Delaware" on Justia Law

"Adam" was born in early 2015 addicted to narcotics. Adam was eventually released to his parents, David Hunt and Carey Land. A few months later, Adam was found unconscious and unresponsive. He was transported to the hospital. The parents offered no explanation as to why Adam had been found unresponsive or unconscious. Though they were home when emergency personnel arrived, neither parent accompanied the child to the hospital. Due to the seriousness of the child's condition, he was transported to a trauma center. Medical personnel determined the child had sustained multiple trauma caused by "unexplained abusive trauma." In addition to multiple fractures, Adam's other diagnoses included chronic bilateral subdural hematomas, destruction of brain tissue, seizures, respiratory failure, malnourishment and splitting of the layers of the retina in his left eye. Emergency custody would ultimately be awarded to the Department of Family Services. This expedited proceeding was the parents' appeal of a Family Court decision granting the attorney guardian ad litem's motion to instruct Adam's medical providers to de-escalate intervention and place a do-not re-intubate order and a do-not-resuscitate order and a "comfort measures" order on Adam's medical chart. The appeal presented four issues for the Delaware Supreme Court's review: (1) whether the Family Court had jurisdiction to de-escalate medical care, a no re-intubate order and do not resuscitate order on the minor's chart; (2) whether the Family Court had authority to allow such orders when the parental rights have not been terminated; (3) whether the Family Court violated the parents' procedural due process rights by not providing the parents adequate notice and process prior to issuing the orders; and (4) were the parents' due process rights violated without receiving evidence from an independent medical expert. The Supreme Court found no reversible error in the Family Court's decision, and affirmed. View "Hunt v. DFS & Office of the Child Advocate" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit certified a question of Delaware law to the Delaware Supreme Court: "If a shareholder demands that a board of directors investigate both an underlying wrongdoing and subsequent misstatements by corporate officers about that wrongdoing, what factors should a court consider in deciding whether the board acted in a grossly negligent fashion by focusing its investigation solely on the underlying wrongdoing?" The plaintiffs in this case made a demand that the board of JPMorgan Chase & Co. investigate two related issues regarding a high-profile situation, what the Second Circuit has called the "London Whale debacle." According to the Second Circuit, these issues were: (1) the failure of JPMorgan‘s risk management policies to prevent the trading that resulted in corporate losses; and (2) supposed false and misleading statements made by JPMorgan management in the wake of the emergence of the problem. According to the plaintiffs, the board investigative committee only made findings as to the former issue by arguing that what management knew when it made disclosures was the subject of several pages of the report. In the Delaware Supreme Court's view, Delaware law on the relevant topic required that the decision of an independent committee to refuse a demand should only be set aside if particularized facts were pled supporting an inference that the committee, despite being comprised solely of independent directors, breached its duty of loyalty, or breached its duty of care, in the sense of having committed gross negligence. The Court concluded that the determination of what constituted gross negligence in the circumstances by definition required a review of the relevant circumstances facing the directors charged with acting. The Court requested more information from the Second Circuit prior to answering the certified question. View "Espinoza v. Dimon, et al." on Justia Law

The Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families (the “Department”) appealed a September 18, 2014 Family Court order finding that the Department failed to establish probable cause at a Preliminary Protective Hearing (“PPH”) to retain an infant in the Department's custody. The Department filed an emergency ex parte petition on September 12, 2014, alleging that A.F., a newborn infant, was dependent, neglected, or abused by Mother, John Tower, and Unknown Father. An investigative worker for the Department, testified that the Department received a hotline report on August 1, 2014, claiming Mother had given birth into a toilet and had appeared to the hotline reporter to be high on drugs, with glassy eyes and slurred speech. The worker contacted Mother at St. Francis Hospital, where Mother and child had been taken following the birth. A.F. was born with methadone and benzodiazepines in his system and remained in the hospital at the time of the PPH for opiate dependence treatment. After hearing all the evidence, the Family Court concluded in its September 18 order that the Department did not establish probable cause to believe that A.F. was dependent, neglected, or abused in the care of Mother and Tower. According to the Family Court, the Department failed to establish that any of the drugs Mother was taking were taken without a doctor's knowledge of her condition or in violation of her physicians' instructions. The court also credited Tower's account of the circumstances of A.F.'s birth over the report from the hotline. The court viewed the remainder of the Department's evidence as insufficient to justify removal of the child from the custody of his parents. The Department argued on appeal that the Family Court failed to apply the correct probable cause standard when it dismissed the Department's petition. The Supreme Court found no merit to the Department's argument and affirmed the Family Court. View "Dept. of Serv. Children Fam. v. Fowler" on Justia Law

Appellant, Murphy & Landon, P.A. (the “Firm”), disputed the decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board which found that Chelsey Pernic, a paralegal at the Firm, had not been fired for just cause and was thus entitled to unemployment benefits. The Firm appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Board's conclusions were not supported by substantial evidence in the record. Further, the Firm contended that this error resulted largely because the Firm was unfairly restricted from presenting evidence of the broader scope of Pernic's poor job performance, including her lateness, disrespectful and uncooperative attitude, and shirking, in its hearing before the Appeals Referee. After review, the Supreme Court found that the Board's conclusions were not rationally grounded in the record, and thus, the Court found no need defer to them. "The uncontradicted record evidence shows that Pernic received a warning that her insubordination and poor performance could lead to her termination, but she continued to act disrespectfully and was therefore terminated. The Firm should not be penalized because it did not anticipate the precise form that Pernic's last act of misconduct would take. Nor should it be penalized for allowing Pernic time to improve her deficient performance. To do so would create a perverse incentive for an employer to discharge an employee at the first instance of poor performance in order to avoid the outcome that the Firm suffered here." Accordingly, the case was reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Murphy & Landon, P.A. v. Pernic" on Justia Law

Defendant Rondaiges Harper was convicted by jury of carjacking in the first degree, kidnapping in the first degree, and two counts of conspiracy in the second degree. On appeal he argued that his convictions should have been reversed because the crime of carjacking was completed by the time he joined the two teenagers who had stolen the victim's car and confined her in the trunk. After review, the Supreme Court concluded, based on the language and legislative history of Delaware's carjacking statute, that the crime of carjacking was not a continuing crime, but instead was completed at the point when all the elements of the crime have been satisfied. In this case, because the carjacking of the victim's vehicle was completed before Harper's involvement, and each of Harper's convictions depends upon carjacking as a predicate crime, the Court reversed his convictions and remanded for further proceedings. View "Harper v. Delaware" on Justia Law

Defendant Bruce Worthy allegedly threatened his mother and brother at gunpoint. Worthy’s mother, Valerie Coleman, called 911 to report the threat, leading to Worthy’s arrest and a number of criminal charges. At trial, Coleman was one of the State’s main witnesses. The State subpoenaed Coleman to testify, but she failed to appear. The State tracked her down and put her in jail on a material witness capias. When the State brought her from jail to testify, Coleman was uncooperative and tried to end her testimony by "plead[ing] the Fifth." The trial judge removed the jury and spoke with the prosecutor, who in response to prompting from the trial judge, said that the State was giving Coleman "full immunity . . . [o]n everything," including perjury. The trial judge instructed Coleman that "[e]ven if you commit a crime by your testimony the State has basically said that you cannot be prosecuted." Coleman reluctantly continued her testimony after the judge’s instruction. A jury found Worthy guilty of aggravated menacing against Coleman, but acquitted him on all other counts. On appeal, Worthy argued that the prosecutor erred in granting Coleman immunity against prosecution for perjury, and that the legal error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. After review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court agreed, reversed and remanded for a new trial. View "Worthy v. Delaware" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court found no merit to defendant-appellant Melvin Morse’s arguments on appeal and affirmed his conviction by jury on child abuse charges. Defendant physically abused his step-daughter, A.M. The abuse spanned two years and consisted of, inter alia, suffocating and "waterboarding" A.M. as punishment for what he deemed to be misbehavior. On appeal, defendant argued: (1) the trial court abused its discretion by admitting evidence of other uncharged abusive acts against A.M. in violation of Delaware Rule of Evidence (“D.R.E.”) 403.6; and, (2) the trial court erred in allowing the jury to re-watch videotaped statements of A.M. and her younger sister, M.M., after the jury requested to view them during deliberations. In regard to defendant's second argument, the Supreme Court found that it was not an error to allow the jury to re-watch the statements, but used the occasion of this opinion to discuss a jury’s request to rehear a section 3507 statement during deliberations. A request to rehear such a statement is an exception to the general rule, and applies when the jury requests to rehear a section 3507 statement of its own accord. "This exception was created with the understanding that the request would be spontaneous in nature, not made at the encouragement of counsel. As the State admitted at oral argument before this Court, this action is not 'best practice,' and it should not be repeated in the future. Attorneys should not direct the jury to make requests to the trial judge to review testimonial evidence that is otherwise not permitted during deliberations." View "Morse v. Delaware" on Justia Law

Appellant Heather Rybicki was convicted by a jury of driving under the influence of alcohol (“DUI”). She was sentenced to two years of Level V incarceration, suspended after three months for one year and six months of Level IV home confinement, suspended after six months for one year of Level III probation. On appeal, Rybicki argued: (1) there was no probable cause to issue the search warrant to obtain a blood sample used to determine her BAC; (2) there was no probable cause for her warrantless arrest; (3) absent the BAC evidence, there was insufficient evidence for conviction; (4) the State did not lay a sufficient foundation for the BAC evidence; and (5) two jury instructions given by the trial court were improper comments on the evidence. Rejecting all of appellant's contentions on appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Rybicki v. State" on Justia Law