State of Delaware v. Jones.
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IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE IN AND FOR NEW CASTLE COUNTY ) ) ) Case I.D. 9911016309 ) ) ) ) ) STATE OF DELAWARE, v. MICHAEL JONES, Defendant. Submitted: December 10, 2004 Decided: January 27, 2005 UPON DEFENDANT S MOTION TO DECLARE DELAWARE S DEATH PENALTY STATUTE UNCONSTITUTIONAL DENIED. ORDER Kevin J. O Connell, Esquire, Assistant Public Defender, New Castle County, State of Delaware, and Jerome M. Capone, Esquire, Wilmington, Delaware, Attorneys for Defendant. Stephen M. Walther, Esquire, Deputy Attorney General, and John A. Barber, Esquire, Deputy Attorney General, State of Delaware, Wilmington, Delaware, Attorneys for the State. ABLEMAN, JUDGE 1 Upon consideration, Defendant s Motion To Declare Delaware s Death Penalty Statute Unconstitutional must be DENIED. It appears to the Court that: 1. Defendant Michael Jones has been convicted of two counts of first degree murder, a capital offense. Defendant now moves the Court to declare that Delaware s Death Penalty statute, 11 Del. C. § 4209, violates the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Defense counsel s primary support for this motion, which he candidly informed the Court that he files for every first-degree murder defendant, are the familiar cases of Ring v. Arizona1 and Apprendi v. New Jersey.2 In the defense s view, these cases invalidate so-called hybrid death penalty statutes such as Delaware s. The Court disagrees. 2. The Delaware Supreme Court carefully considered Ring, Apprendi, and the post-Ring amendments to § 4209 in the 2003 case of Brice v. State.3 The Brice Court found that § 4209 fulfills Ring s requirement that all facts necessary to enhance a defendant s sentence from life to death must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Specifically, Delaware satisfies this requirement by making a defendant death eligible only if the jury finds, beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence of one of twenty-two statutorily enumerated aggravating factors. Under 1 536 U.S. 584 (2002). 530 U.S. 466 (2000). 3 815 A.2d 314 (Del. 2003). 2 2 the Supreme Court s interpretation of § 4209 in Brice, this finding is the only one necessary for a defendant to receive the death penalty. 3. The jury then makes a recommendation whether, in its opinion, a preponderance of the evidence shows that all the aggravating circumstances in the case outweigh all the case s mitigating factors. This recommendation may be nonunanimous, and is not binding upon the trial judge, who makes the final sentencing decision. The function of the jury s recommendation is only to advise the judge of the conscience of the community regarding a particular defendant; it is in no way a finding of fact necessary for the trial judge to issue the death penalty, nor does it remove any of the judge s sentencing authority. In fact, when the Delaware Supreme Court attempted to limit the trial judge s traditional sentencing discretion by enhancing the importance of the jury s sentencing recommendation4, the General Assembly promptly and emphatically rejected the change.5 4. This motion urges the Court to do what the United States Supreme Court specifically declined to do in Ring, i.e. find that the only constitutional capital system is one in which the jury decides whether to impose the death penalty, leaving the judge no room for input or discretion.6 Even if the Court were inclined 4 Garden v. State, 815 A.2d 327 (Del. 2003). House Bill No. 287, 74 Del. Laws Ch. 174. 6 Ring, 536 U.S. at 612-613, Scalia concurring. ([T]he unfortunate fact is that today's judgment has nothing to do with jury sentencing. What today's decision says is that the jury must find the existence of the fact that an aggravating factor existed. Those States that leave the ultimate lifeor-death decision to the judge may continue to do so--by requiring a prior jury finding of 5 3 to so find, I cannot ignore the fact that the General Assembly has made its rejection of this judge-as-a-figurehead regime crystal clear, on numerous occasions.7 Nor can I, sitting as a trial judge, overrule Brice to find that Ring made § 4209 unconstitutional after all. While the Court appreciates that defense counsel must raise these arguments in anticipation of ultimately appealing to the United States Supreme Court, at this level, the Motion must be and hereby is DENIED. IT IS SO ORDERED. Peggy L. Ableman, Judge cc: Kevin J. O Connell, Esquire Jerome M. Capone, Esquire Stephen M. Walther, Esquire John A. Barber, Esquire Prothonotary aggravating factor in the sentencing phase or, more simply, by placing the aggravating-factor determination (where it logically belongs anyway) in the guilt phase.); see also Arkansas v. Sullivan, 532 U.S. 769, 772 (2001) ( [W]hile a state is free as a matter of its own law to impose greater restrictions on police activity than those this court holds to be necessary upon federal constitutional standards, [it] may not impose such greater restrictions as a matter of federal constitutional law when this Court specifically refrains from imposing them. ) (emphasis in original, internal quotation marks omitted).. 7 § 4209 was amended in 1991, 2002, and 2003 with the obvious intent of lodging capital sentencing authority with the trial judge, and keeping it there despite evolving Supreme Court precedent. 4
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