Burroughs v. State
| Docket Number | 144,2022,130 |
| Decision Date | 30 August 2023 |
| Parties | TYRESE BURROUGHS, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE OF DELAWARE, Appellee. IN THE MATTER OF THE § PETITION OF TYRESE § BURROUGHS FOR WRIT § OF PROHIBITION |
| Court | Supreme Court of Delaware |
Submitted: June 28, 2023
Upon appeal from the Superior Court. .
ELLIOT M. MARGULES, Esquire, OFFICE OF DEFENSE SERVICES, Wilmington Delaware, for Appellant Tyrese Burroughs.
ANDREW J. VELLA, Esquire, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Wilmington, Delaware, for Appellee State of Delaware.
Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA, TRAYNOR, GRIFFITHS, Justices and NEWELL, Chief Judge, [1] constituting the Court en banc.
It is reasonable to conclude that a previously convicted drug dealer, who is prohibited by law from possessing firearms but who is again arrested for drug dealing, this time while in possession of a loaded firearm, poses a risk of danger to the community. Even so, the past-proven and currently putative gun-toting drug dealer says that, as a matter of federal and state constitutional law, he should have been released into the community while his new charges were pending free of any financial conditions to his release; money bail, according to the accused, is, to the extent it is designed to protect public safety, prohibited. We disagree.
In arriving at our decision, we recognize that a bail system that allows a dangerous, but affluent, defendant to gain pretrial release while a non-dangerous defendant without bail resources is detained pending trial is a system in need of repair. At present, our bail framework expressly discourages the latter scenario, but recent legislative efforts to foreclose the former have come up short.
In this case, we are presented with neither of the contrasting scenarios described above. Instead, we are asked to decide whether, in light of our state constitutional right to bail, it is permissible to attach unaffordable financial conditions to a dangerous defendant's pretrial release on bail and, if it is, what procedural protections must be observed when such bail is considered. We subject the first question to strict scrutiny and answer in the affirmative. As to the second, we hold that the determination to set cash bail must be supported by clear and convincing evidence that (i) the defendant is a flight risk or poses a substantial risk to the community, victims, witnesses, or other persons, and (ii) nonmonetary conditions of release will not alleviate that risk. When such evidence is adduced, the setting of cash bail-even at an amount that the defendant may not be able to afford-does not offend the "sufficient sureties" clause found in Article I, § 12 of the Delaware Constitution. And because these answers are consistent with, and yield the same result as, the Superior Court's decision on appeal, we affirm.
In 2019, Tyrese Burroughs was convicted of felony drug dealing. As one consequence of that conviction, Burroughs was, from then on, prohibited from possessing a firearm or ammunition. According to an affidavit of probable cause, on November 25 2020, the police caught Burroughs engaging in a hand-to-hand drug transaction while in possession of a "Smith and Wesson Walther .380 firearm loaded with seven live rounds."[2] Burroughs initially tried to flee but was quickly apprehended and searched by Wilmington police. The gun was discovered in his waistband along with fifty-eight bags of heroin and small amounts of crack-cocaine and marijuana. Burroughs was arrested and charged with six felonies, one misdemeanor, and one civil violation: possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, possession of ammunition by a person prohibited, two counts of drug dealing, carrying a concealed deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and possession of marijuana. Together, these charges carried a minimum-mandatory of eight years and a statutory maximum of 77 years in prison.
Following his arrest, Burroughs was brought before a Justice of the Peace Court Magistrate who set cash bail-his firearm charges carried a presumption of cash bail under Delaware's bail statute-at $110,501; the top end of his SENTAC bail-guidelines range.[3] Burroughs did not post bail. Burroughs's preliminary hearing in the Court of Common Pleas (via Zoom) was scheduled for December 14, 2021, but because the arresting officer was on medical leave, the hearing was continued for one week. The Court of Common Pleas did, however, entertain Burroughs's request that the court lower his bail. He did not request that his bond be released from all financial terms, only that it not be secured by cash only. The State opposed this request, but the court granted it in part, modifying Burroughs's bail to $20,000 to be secured by cash only and $14,501 subject to a secured bond.
A week later, the Court of Common Pleas conducted a preliminary hearing. After the arresting officer described what appeared to him to be a "hand-to-hand drug transaction"[4] between Burroughs and an unidentified female, his approach to Burroughs, Burroughs's flight and eventual apprehension, and the discovery of the loaded firearm and illicit drugs on Burroughs's person, the court found probable cause to believe that Burroughs committed the charged offenses and Burroughs was bound over for further proceedings in the Superior Court. The court, having "heard the actual facts,"[5] acted sua sponte to "review and reset bail,"[6] reinstating the original $110,501 cash bail. Burroughs was unable to make bail and was thus detained through the duration of his proceedings.
A Superior Court Commissioner rejected these arguments, holding that "the State ha[d] sufficiently demonstrated that [Burroughs] poses a flight risk and a danger to the community if released, and after considering all less restrictive alternatives ([i.e.,] non-monetary conditions of release) . . . that monetary bail is appropriate [given] the State's goals of ensuring [he] appears at his future hearings and safety of the community."[12] The Commissioner thus concluded that Burroughs "h[ad] not established that his right to equal protection was violated, nor that he was deprived of his right to substantive and procedural due process."[13] The Commissioner also rejected Burroughs's argument under the "sufficient sureties" clause of the Delaware Constitution.
Burroughs filed a "Motion for Review of Commissioner's Order," arguing that the Commissioner erred by failing to test his motion under the strict-scrutiny standard of review on the grounds that he either fell into a suspect class by virtue of his indigency or that his pretrial detention deprived him of his fundamental liberty right under substantive-due-process principles. If the Commissioner had properly conducted a strict-scrutiny review, Burroughs contended, then the State would have had to prove by clear and convincing evidence that "no other non-monetary conditions of release [could] accomplish" its "compelling interest in preventing crime."[14] Burroughs questioned the State's ability to meet this burden.
Burroughs also argued that the Commissioner's order undermined his procedural-due-process rights and that his cash bail violated Article I, § 12 of the Delaware Constitution, which provides, by Burroughs's lights, "a right to bail [that] is violated when bail is set at an amount deliberately calculated to incarcerate."[15] The Superior Court Judge reviewing the...
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