Crosby v. State, 8, 2002.
| Decision Date | 30 May 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 8, 2002.,8, 2002. |
| Citation | 824 A.2d 894 |
| Parties | Chris A. CROSBY, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Delaware |
Todd E. Conner, Esquire and James D. Nutter, Esquire, Assistant Public Defenders, Wilmington, Delaware, for appellant.
Kim E. Ayvazian, Esquire, Department of Justice, Georgetown, Delaware, for appellee.
Before VEASEY, Chief Justice, WALSH,1 HOLLAND, BERGER and STEELE, Justices, constituting the Court en Banc.
The defendant-appellant, Chris A. Crosby, has challenged his life sentence as a habitual offender, following his conviction for Forgery in the Second Degree. According to Crosby, that sentence is grossly disproportionate to the severity of his offense, and, therefore, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This Court remanded Crosby's appeal to the Superior Court twice for additional proceedings.
In response to the most recent remand, the Superior Court concluded that "Crosby is serving a life sentence calculated on the basis of 45 years." The Superior Court reached that determination on the basis that a life sentence under section 4214(a)2 of the habitual offender statute is to be considered as a fixed term of 45 years, pursuant to section 4346(c).3 We have concluded that the Superior Court's construction of section 4214(a) is correct.
We have also concluded that Crosby's life sentence of 45 years violates the Eighth Amendment. In doing so, we have considered the most recent opinions on that subject, which were issued by the United States Supreme Court within the last few months.4 Accordingly, the judgment of the Superior Court is reversed.
On May 31, 2001, Crosby was arrested on several misdemeanor drug offenses. When he was being questioned by a police officer, he provided a false name, John Crosby, and a false date of birth. He also signed a State Bureau of Identification fingerprint card, an official document, using the name John Crosby. When the police officer subsequently learned that the defendant's real name was Chris Crosby, he arrested him for Forgery in the Second Degree and Criminal Impersonation.5
On September 17, 2001, Crosby, represented by counsel, entered a guilty plea to Forgery in the Second Degree and Criminal Impersonation. During the guilty plea colloquy, Crosby acknowledged that the forgery conviction qualified him as a habitual offender under title 11, section 4214(a) of the Delaware Code. Crosby also indicated he was aware that he could be sentenced up to life imprisonment.
The State subsequently filed a motion to have Crosby declared a habitual offender under title 11, section 4214(a) of the Delaware Code. The State cited five previous felonies: (1) Burglary in the Third Degree (IN98-11-0691) in 1999; (2) Forgery in the Second Degree (IN94-06-0144) in 1995; (3) Possession of a Deadly Weapon by a Person Prohibited (IN88-11-1556) in 1989; (4) Possession with Intent to Deliver (IN89-07-0672) in 1989; and (5) Burglary in the Second Degree (IN86-02-0421) in 1986. The Superior Court declared Crosby a habitual offender by order dated October 1, 2001.
At the sentencing hearing on December 7, 2001, the State recommended a sentence "close to the ten-year range." The Superior Court instead sentenced Crosby to life on the forgery conviction, as a habitual offender, under section 4214(a); followed by six months at Level III supervision; and one year at Level V on the criminal impersonation conviction, suspended for one year at Level II. This is Crosby's direct appeal.
The sentencing judge's first remand report to this Court reflected that Crosby's life sentence was based, in part, on the judge's belief that Crosby would be "eligible for a significant sentence diminution by earning good time." The sentencing judge stated that Delaware law equates Crosby's life sentence, as a habitual offender under title 11, section 4214(a) of the Delaware Code, to a sentence of 45 years. Therefore, the sentencing judge concluded that the availability of earning good time credit means that Crosby will be eligible for conditional release before the expiration of the sentence, i.e., before the end of Crosby's natural life. The sentencing judge reported that he relied on this interpretation of the applicable statutes when he sentenced Crosby to life in prison, expressly stating: "Delaware's statute permitting good/time conditional release was a factor I took into account."
Because of an apparent conflict with this Court's prior holding in Jackson, we remanded Crosby's case a second time and asked the sentencing judge to state whether Crosby's sentence was either a life sentence or a 45-year sentence. In response to that second remand, the sentencing judge wrote that the question could not be answered "either or" because "Crosby is serving a life sentence calculated on the basis of 45 years." The sentencing judge also concluded that Crosby's Eighth Amendment rights were not violated.
This Court's ultimate resolution of Crosby's Eighth Amendment argument is dependent, in part, upon whether Crosby's life sentence as a habitual offender under section 4514(a) is considered to be a term of 45 years, with the possibility of earning a substantial sentence diminution through good time credits; or is considered to be a natural life sentence with no possibility of reduction or release prior to death. The sentencing provisions of the Delaware criminal justice system are found in several different statutes that have been separately enacted and amended on numerous occasions over the last few decades. Thus, this Court must apply and, if possible, reconcile two fundamental principles of statutory construction. First, we must read all of the statutes, as amended, in pari materia to accomplish the intentions of the General Assembly. Second, we must, if possible, construe the applicable statutes in a manner that causes them to operate in a manner that comports with the requirements of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
We begin our inquiry with an examination of the applicable sentencing statutes' legislative history. Delaware's first habitual criminal statute was enacted in 1953. It provided a single basis for a habitual criminal designation. The statute applied only to four-time convicted felons. That statute made no distinction as to the seriousness of either the prior convictions or the most recent triggering felony conviction. Enacted effective July 15, 1953, 49 Del.Laws, c. 413 provided:
Accordingly, in Oney, this Court recognized that habitual criminal status in Delaware was originally predicated solely upon the commission of any four felonies, without regard to the nature of either the three prior felonies or the fourth triggering felony.7
The Delaware habitual criminal statute8 remained unchanged until 1970 when section 3911 was rewritten.9 Old section 3911 was redesignated subsection (a) of new section 3911, but restated to provide as follows:
(a) Any person who has been three times convicted of a felony, other than those which are specifically mentioned in subsection (b) hereunder, under the laws of this State, and/or any other State, United States or any territory of the United States, and who shall thereafter be convicted of a subsequent felony of this State is declared to be a habitual criminal, and the Court in which such fourth or subsequent conviction is had, in imposing sentence, may, in its discretion, impose a life sentence upon the person so convicted.
The italicized words in subsection (a) represented new language not found in old section 3911. Subsection (b) was also added and provided in part:
(b) Any person who has been two times convicted of a felony hereinafter specifically named, ... and who shall thereafter be convicted of a subsequent felony, hereinafter specifically named, of this State is declared to be a habitual criminal....
Subsection (b) was a completely new statutory enactment and made habitual criminal status applicable to a person two times convicted of specifically named felonies. The habitual offender statute remained basically the same for the next two decades.
In 1964, the General Assembly enacted section 4348 and section 4346.10 Section 4348 entitled, Release Upon Merit and Good Behavior Credits, provides in pertinent part:
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
McCleaf v. Carroll
...a Class G non-violent felony with a maximum prison sentence of two years. 11 Del. C. Arm. §§ 861(b)(2)(b), 4205(b)(7); Crosby v. State, 824 A.2d 894, 896-97 (Del. 2003). 1. Whether Petitioner's sentence under the habitual offender statute violated his Constitutional rights to Due Process an......
-
Bradshaw v. State
...factors," including the framework established in Solem [v. Helm]. [Id., 501 U.S. at 1000, 111 S.Ct. at 2704-05]. Crosby v. State, 824 A.2d 894, 905-906 (Del. 2003). (a) Citing the recognition in Humphrey v. Wilson, supra, 282 Ga. at 527, 652 S.E.2d 501, that the "most recent legislative ena......
-
Shockley v. Carroll
...The premise for both claims is petitioner's belief that, in accordance with the Delaware Supreme Court decisions in Crosby v. State, 824 A.2d 894 (Del.2003) and Evans v. 2004 WL 2743546 (Del. Nov. 23, 2004)("Evans I") (withdrawn by Evans v. State, 872 A.2d 539 (Del.2005)("Evans II")), his p......
-
Smith v. Caple
...Ewing, 538 U.S. at 29. When deciding that Petitioner's sentence did not violate the Eighth Amendment, the Superior Court cited to Crosby v. State, in which the Delaware Supreme Court announced a two-part test to determine whether a sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment:To determ......
-
Struck out looking: continued confusion in Eighth Amendment proportionality review after Ewing v. California.
...Andrade] as precluding any Eighth Amendment challenges to sentences by defendants charged as habitual offenders.") with Crosby v. State, 824 A.2d 894 (Del. 2003) (upholding an Eighth Amendment challenge by a repeat offender). There are also judges who, instead of being confused by the Court......
-
Chapter 1, HB 31 – AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 10 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE CASE OF WARD T. EVANS V. STATE OF DELAWARE, 2004 WL 2743546 (DEL. SUPR.) AND GENERALLY THE INTERPRETATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF DELAWARE LAWS BY DELAWARE JUDICIAL OFFICERS
...v. Multi-Purpose Criminal Justice Facility, 700 A.2d 1203 (Del. 1997)), but in 2003 the Court reversed that decision (Crosby v. State, 824 A.2d 894 2003)); and (4) as a result of the Court's 2004 holding, the Evans case was reversed and remanded to the Superior Court for a determination of ......