Thomas v. State
Annotate this CaseAfter a two-day bench trial in 2021, a superior court judge convicted Marlon Thomas of second degree rape, third degree unlawful sexual contact, and other charges. The judge sentenced Thomas to fifty-five years in prison, suspended after twenty-five years for decreasing levels of supervision. Thomas did not testify in his defense. Thomas raised one issue on appeal: whether the superior court erred by failing to raise with Thomas his right to testify and failing to ensure that his waiver of the right to testify was voluntary, knowing and intelligent. The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed Thomas’s convictions for three reasons: (1) Thomas waived his state constitutional claim by failing to support it on appeal; (2) there was no federal constitutional requirement that the trial judge have a colloquy with the defendant before waiving his right to testify; and (2) given that the fact finder was the judge and not a jury, the trial judge handled the right to testify issue with appropriate sensitivity to avoid prejudicing Thomas’s decision whether to testify.
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