State v. Adkins
| Decision Date | 25 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | 1407011882 (R-2),Cr. 1411014640 |
| Parties | State of Delaware v. Tyrone Adkins, |
| Court | Delaware Superior Court |
Tyrone Adkins SBI# 00252296 Sussex Correctional Institution
Dear Mr. Adkins:
On August 5, 2021, I received your second pro se Motion for Postconviction Relief under Delaware Superior Court Rule Criminal Rule 61 (the "Motion"), dated July 29 2021, with respect to the above-referenced matter.[1] The sole ground that you state for relief is that there is new evidence of your actual innocence in fact. Your Motion requests the appointment of postconviction counsel and an evidentiary hearing.
On August 26, 2015, you were found guilty by a jury after a trial on two counts of drug dealing (heroin), and on October 9, 2015, you were declared to be a habitual offender and sentenced to a total of twenty (20) years of incarceration at Level 5.[2]Your direct appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court was denied on November 1, 2016. On November 15, 2016 you filed your first Rule 61 Motion with this Court, which was dismissed on December 8, 2016.[3]
I first address the four procedural bars of Rule 61.[4] If a procedural bar exists, as a general rule I will not address the merits of the postconviction claim.[5] A Rule 61 Motion can be barred for time limitations, successive motions, failure to raise claims below, or former adjudication.[6]
First a motion for postconviction relief exceeds time limitations if it is filed more than one year after the conviction becomes final.[7] In this case, your conviction became final for purposes of Rule 61 at the conclusion of direct review when the Delaware Supreme Court issued its mandate on November 1, 2016. You filed the Motion on August 5, 2021. Therefore, consideration of the Motion would normally be barred by the one-year limitation.
Second second or subsequent motions for postconviction relief are not permitted unless certain conditions are satisfied.[8] Since this is your second motion for postconviction relief, consideration of the Motion would normally be barred.
Third grounds for relief "not asserted in the proceedings leading to the judgment of conviction" are barred unless certain conditions are satisfied.[9] You assert new claims, which were not raised at trial, and based on more recent, unrelated cases, that Detective Dallas J. Reynolds omitted, fabricated, and embellished facts in his affidavit in order to obtain a search warrant. Therefore, consideration of the Motion would normally be barred for "matters not asserted' below.
Fourth, grounds for relief formerly adjudicated in the case, including "proceedings leading to the judgment of conviction, in an appeal, in a post-conviction proceeding, or in a federal habeas corpus hearing" are barred.[10] Your search and seizure claims under both the Delaware and United States Constitutions and your search warrant claim under Franks v. Delaware[11] were formerly adjudicated at your trial below after a Suppression Hearing held on July 23, 2015. You also raised those claims on direct appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court, in a prior Rule 61 Motion in this Court, and in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. Therefore, consideration of the Motion would normally be barred for "matters formerly adjudicated."
Generally, the law favors the finality of criminal judgments after the exhaustion of applicable post-trial motions, appeals and collateral proceedings. In this case, you have exhausted your remedies of a direct appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court, a motion for postconviction relief in this Court, and petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. There is an exception, however, on public policy grounds where there is particular new evidence that creates a strong inference that you are actually innocent in fact of the acts underlying the charges of which you were convicted. You should not be denied the right to prove your actual innocence based on new facts. That being said, the bar for creating a strong inference in my mind that you are actually innocent of the offenses of which you were convicted by a jury is quite high. A mere assertion of actual innocence will not suffice. Innocence of the requires "more than innocence of intent; it requires new evidence that a person other than the petitioner committed the crime."[14]
The most recent Delaware Supreme Court case addressing actual innocence in fact is Purnell v. State [15] which you cite as authority for my granting your Rule 61 Motion. In Purnell, the Supreme Court found that not only did trial counsel have a conflict of interest, but also that certain critical evidence was not obtained or presented by trial counsel at trial. The Supreme Court found that this evidence was "new" under the language of Rule 61 and included: ballistic evidence that favored the defendant; a recantation of a statement by a fellow inmate of the defendant that the defendant had confessed to the offense while they were both in jail; evidence inculpating two witnesses who testified against the defendant at trial (including a former client of trial counsel and the defendant's fellow inmate who recanted); impeachment evidence from the parents of the co-defendant who testified against the defendant at trial; and, impeachment evidence that was not raised on cross-examination of a key government witness due to trial counsel's conflict of interest. The Court stated:
We observe that legitimate claims of actual innocence are exceedingly rare. Indeed, this is the first case where a defendant has satisfied the actual innocence exception to the procedural bars in Rule 61. Because they are so rare, the actual innocence exception, in our view, poses no threat to our State's interest in finality. We believe the result in this case strikes the appropriate balance between our justice system's interests in "finality, comity and conservation of judicial resources, and the overriding individual interest in doing justice in the 'extraordinary case.'"[16]
The United States Supreme Court has also stated that findings of actual innocence in federal habeas corpus cases are reserved for the "rare" or "extraordinary" case.[17]
In Purnell, the Delaware Supreme Court analyzed the applicable persuasive burden for a claim of actual innocence in fact and concluded that the defendant must satisfy a two-pronged test: he must establish that his evidence is both (1) new and (2) sufficiently persuasive.
Federal courts employ an analogous doctrine for "actual innocence" in analyzing habeas corpus claims. In those cases, Schlup v. Delo[18] and its progeny, "actual innocence" constitutes an equitable exception to procedural barriers to a habeas petition set forth in federal statute that are analogues to Rule 61's procedural bars.[19] Schlup was concerned with cases where "a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent."[20] Envisioning a test in which a petitioner is "required to make a stronger showing than that needed to establish prejudice," the Schlup Court established this formulation: "it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in the light of the new evidence."[21] Federal habeas petitions are "gateway innocence claims" because satisfying Schlup permits a federal court to review the petitioner's grounds for relief despite an unexcused procedural default, even though the Supreme Court has "strongly suggested" that proof of actual innocence is not itself a ground for relief.[22] As the Schlup Court explained:
[I]f a petitioner … presents evidence of innocence so strong that a court cannot have confidence in the outcome of the trial unless the court is also satisfied that the trial was free of nonharmless constitutional error, the petitioner should be allowed to pass through the gateway and argue the merits of his underlying claims.[23]
After the 2014 amendments to Rule 61, the Superior Court in Sykes v. State[24]noted a dearth of Delaware authorities on what constitutes "new" evidence for purposes of the Delaware postconviction remedy, and so it relied on federal cases analyzing Schlup's actual innocence test for the "newness" prong.[25] In subsequent cases, the Superior Court has relied on Schlup's formulation for the "persuasiveness" prong as well, [26] or for both prongs of the actual innocence inquiry.[27]
In Purnell, both the State and the defendant argued for a three-prong test to govern both the newness and persuasiveness prongs of the actual innocence exception requiring a showing: (1) that the evidence is such as will probably change the result if a new trial is granted; (2) that it has been discovered since the trial and could not have been discovered before by the exercise of due diligence and (3) that it is not merely cumulative or impeaching. This three-part test is the standard for a new trial based on...
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