State v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 10 June 1997
• Docket Number: No. 314,1996,314
• Parties: STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellant, v. Damond ANDERSON, Tyrone Reams, and Corey Wilson, Defendants Below, Appellees. . Submitted:
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 379

697 A.2d 379

STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellant, v. Damond ANDERSON, Tyrone Reams, and Corey Wilson, Defendants

Below, Appellees.

No. 314, 1996.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: June 10, 1997.

Decided: July 22, 1997.

Certified Questions of Law. Answered.

Court Below: Superior Court of the State of Delaware in and for New Castle County, Cr. ID Nos. 9510013781, 9510013775 and 9510013782.

Steven P. Wood (argued) Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, Wilmington, for Appellant.

Edmund M. Hillis (argued) Assistant Public Defender, Office of Public Defender, Wilmington, for Appellees Damond Anderson and Corey Wilson.

Joseph A. Gabay, Wilmington, for Appellee, Tyrone Reams.

Before VEASEY, C.J., WALSH, HOLLAND, HARTNETT and BERGER, JJ., constituting the Court en Banc.

WALSH, Justice:

We have accepted four certified questions of law from the Superior Court pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 41(a). These questions concern the application of 10 Del.C. § 1011, the reverse amenability statute, to the pending trials of certain juveniles in the Superior Court charged with possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Our answers to these questions, in effect, uphold the constitutionality of the legislative scheme that denies the reverse amenability process to juveniles above the age of 16 years who have been charged with a violation of the firearms statute. We further hold that other offenses joined with firearms violations continue to be subject to the reverse amenability process under the usual standards governing the joinder of offenses.

I

The stipulation contained in the certification provides the following factual background underlying the questions posed.

On December 4, 1995, co-defendants Damond Anderson, Tyrone Reams, and Corey Wilson were indicted by the Grand Jury on charges of Robbery First Degree, Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony, and Conspiracy Second Degree. On the date of the offense, October 20, 1995, the three co-defendants were between the ages of 16 and 18. On January 23, 1996, defendant Anderson filed a Motion for an Amenability Hearing pursuant to 10 Del.C. § 939, which is now 10 Del.C. § 1011. The other co-defendants subsequently joined in the motion. The State opposed the joint motion and, alternatively, requested that the Superior Court certify to this Court certain questions implicated by the reverse amenability request.

The questions ultimately certified by the Superior Court are as follows:

I. When a defendant between the ages of 16 and 18 is charged in Superior Court with possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony pursuant to 11 Del.C. § 1447A(e), is the case subject to transfer to Family Court pursuant to the reverse amenability process?

II. When a defendant between the ages of 16 and 18 is charged in Superior Court with possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony pursuant to 11 Del.C. § 1447A(e) and assuming that the charge is not subject to transfer to Family Court pursuant to the reverse amenability process, may other offenses which have been properly transferred to Superior Court pursuant to 10 Del.C. § 921(16) be transferred back to Family Court pursuant to the reverse amenability process?

III. If a reverse amenability hearing is permitted, is the hearing to be conducted in regards to all offenses or only those properly joined to the jurisdiction of the Superior Court?

IV. If a reverse amenability hearing is not permitted, does the recent amendment to 10 Del.C. § 921 violate a defendant's right to due process and/or equal protection as afforded by the Delaware and United States Constitutions?

The questions directed to the availability of the reverse amenability process are prompted, in part, by a 1996 amendment to 10 Del.C. § 1447A, that became effective July 31, 1996. Prior to the 1996 amendment, the firearm statute provided in pertinent part:

§ 1447A. Possession of a firearm during Commission of a Felony; class B felony

(a) A person who is in possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony is guilty of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony is a class B felony.

(b) A person convicted under subsection (a) of this section shall receive a minimum sentence of 3 years at Level V, notwithstanding the provisions of § 4205(b)(2) of this title.

* * * * * *

(e) Every person charged under this section over the age of 16 years shall be tried as an adult, notwithstanding any contrary provisions or statutes governing the Family Court or any other state law.

The 1996 amendment substituted the age of 15 years for the prior age of 16 years but repeated the language which required trial as an adult "notwithstanding ... any other state law." 70 Del.Laws c. 596, § 7.

Another statute, enacted by the General Assembly in 1995 bears upon the certified questions. That provision, 70 Del.Laws c. 261, § 2, now appearing as 10 Del.C. § 921(16), places a limitation on the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Family Court in the following language:

(16) Notwithstanding any provision of this title to the contrary, charges of delinquency based upon an alleged violation of any provision of Title 11, 16 or 21 of this Code which would otherwise be within the original civil jurisdiction of Family Court shall instead be within the original criminal jurisdiction of Superior Court if said charges may be joined properly with a felony pending against the same child in Superior Court, as determined pursuant to the relevant rules of the Superior Court.

The State advances a statutory construction argument seeking a restriction on the use of the reverse amenability process. It proceeds on the premise that the Family Court, as a creature of statute with its jurisdiction defined by the General Assembly, may be denied adjudication over such offenses as the legislature may from time to time decide. Thus, it is argued, if the General Assembly has determined that certain offenses must be adjudicated in the Superior Court, the reverse amenability process, whether applied to certain discrete felonies or to a combination of other offenses otherwise within the jurisdiction of the Family Court, does not apply. A corollary of this argument is that a defendant so charged in the Superior Court enjoys no constitutional entitlement to transfer the charges against him to Family Court.

The defendants, building upon the rulings of this Court in Marine v. State, Del.Supr., 607 A.2d 1185 (1992) ("Marine I "); Marine v. State, Del.Supr., 624 A.2d 1181 (1993) ("Marine II ") and Hughes v. State, Del.Supr., 653 A.2d 241 (1994), contend that the reverse amenability process is a matter of constitutional entitlement as a judicial check on prosecutorial discretion and cannot be denied to the defendants in this case.

II

Preliminarily, we note that in addressing certified questions of law, as distinct from review of trial court rulings, the normal standards of review do not apply. This Court must review the certified questions in the context in which they arise. Rales v. Blasband, Del.Supr., 634 A.2d 927, 931 (1993). Here, the certified questions arise in the context of a motion for a reverse amenability hearing and thus we address these matters to the same extent as if the motion were presented to us in the first instance. The questions embedded in the motion require this Court to interpret statutory provisions and to determine whether the statutes in question infringe upon State and Federal Constitutional rights. We thus consider this question as posing matters of law.

Although we have accepted four separate questions, upon analysis it appears that they overlap conceptually and can be answered in two rulings. Thus Question I, concerning the denial of the reverse amenability process to certain minors poses a separate and discrete issue of entitlement to a reverse amenability hearing. Questions II, III, and IV are interrelated factually and conceptually. All deal with the entitlement to, and extent of, a reverse amenability hearing with respect to offenses joined for prosecution with a violation of the felony/firearms statute.

A.

Our answer to Question 1 requires that, as a prelude, we restate certain holdings in our decisional law concerning criminal law jurisdiction of juveniles. As the repository of legislative authority, the General Assembly is vested with broad authority to define criminal behavior and to classify child offenders "based on their age for purpose of selecting the appropriate court for adjudication." Hughes, 653 A.2d at 248. That discretion is not absolute, however, and classification "must be founded on differences reasonably related to the purposes of the statute in which the classification is made." State v. Ayers, Del.Supr., 260 A.2d 162, 171 (1969). Age-based distinctions do not pertain to fundamental rights or affect a suspect class and such classifications, when attacked on equal protection or due process grounds, are presumed to be valid. They "will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be considered to justify it." Marine I, 607 A.2d at 1207 (quoting Traylor v. State, Del.Supr., 458 A.2d 1170, 1177 (1983)).

In Marine I this Court upheld the constitutionality of the Delaware statutory scheme for allocation of jurisdiction over children charged with criminal offenses. In Marine I and later in Hughes, we focused on two exceptions to the general policy in favor of proceeding against children in a civil setting by allowing juveniles to be prosecuted as adults. First, under 10 Del.C. §§ 1010(a)(1) and (a)(3), ¹ children, regardless of age, who are charged with certain serious felonies, are prosecuted as adults. Second, under 10 Del.C. § 1010(a)(2), the Family Court has the discretion to transfer the case of a child over nineteen years of age to the Superior Court for trial as an adult if the court...