State v. Madison

• Docket Number: Crim ID. 1312014951,Cr. A. 14-01-1239
• Decision Date: 29 July 2022
• Parties: STATE OF DELAWARE, v. JEROME MADISON
• Court: Delaware Superior Court

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STATE OF DELAWARE,
v.
JEROME MADISON

Crim ID. No. 1312014951

Cr. A. No. 14-01-1239

Superior Court of Delaware

July 29, 2022

Submitted: May 12, 2022

Upon Defendant Jerome Madison's Amended Second Motion for Postconviction Relief, DENIED.

Karin M. Volker, Deputy Attorney General Christopher S. Koyste, Esq.

ORDER

PAUL R. WALLACE, JUDGE

This is Defendant Jerome Madison's Second Motion for Postconviction Relief. Mr. Madison, who is serving a long period of mandatory incarceration for rape, assault and related charges, asks the Court to vacate its judgment of conviction and grant him a new trial based on post-trial DNA test results.

FACTUAL^[1] AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

(1) In December 2013, Mr. Madison was arrested by the New Castle County police for intruding into his ex-girlfriend's home and attacking her and a

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male acquaintance. Mr. Madison gave a post-Miranda statement confessing that he unlawfully entered the home when he saw that another man was inside.^[2]Mr. Madison admitted that upon seeing his former girlfriend being intimate with someone else, he physically assaulted both of them; he denied though that he sexually assaulted either.^[3]

(2) Mr. Madison was thereafter indicted for multiple offenses including first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping, second-degree assault, home invasion, a weapons offense, and terroristic threatening.^[4]

(3) His bench trial occurred in September 2014. The victims testified that, in addition to violently assaulting them, Mr. Madison forced them to perform oral sex on each other (though testimony conflicted as to whether one of the victims actually complied or only pretended to do so).^[5] Mr. Madison also threatened future harm to them and their families if they contacted the police.^[6] Despite these threats, the victims called the police and gave statements at the hospital while being treated for the injuries Mr. Madison had inflicted.^[7]

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(4) At the conclusion of his non-jury trial, the Court found Mr. Madison guilty of the following: one count each of-first-degree rape, attempted first-degree rape, first-degree unlawful sexual contact, home invasion, possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony, second-degree assault, and third-degree assault; and two counts each of-kidnapping first degree and terroristic threatening.^[8]He was later sentenced to serve an aggregate 42-year term of incarceration.^[9]

(5) The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed this Court's verdict, sentence, and denial of post-trial relief.^[10] With the assistance of appointed counsel, Mr. Madison litigated his first postconviction motion four years ago. The motion was ultimately unsuccessful.^[11] And our Supreme Court affirmed that denial.^[12]

(6) Mr. Madison, then pro se, filed a second motion for postconviction relief. He was eventually re-joined by counsel from his first postconviction round, who filed the now-pending Amended Second Motion for Postconviction Relief.^[13]

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Trial counsel and the State timely filed their respective submissions and responses.^[14]

(7) Given the unusual factual and procedural history that brought about the DNA testing results upon which Mr. Madison and his counsel base the present motion, the Court ordered some expansion of the record.^[15] Of particular import to the Court was gaining clarity on Mr. Madison's position on the procedural bar to a successive postconviction motion based on inconclusive, post-trial DNA results- particularly when trial counsel strategically declined to have DNA testing performed prior to trial and the Court had already denied postconviction relief on this claim.^[16]

MR. MADISON'S CURRENT POSTCONVICTION CLAIM

(8) Relying on post-trial DNA testing results, Mr. Madison contends that his present postconviction relief claim is not "on the basis of newly discovered evidence" under Delaware Superior Court Criminal Rule 61(d)(2)(i); but rather, one of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, "with the newly discovered evidence demonstrating the ensuing Strickland prejudice."^[17] He asks the Court to grant him

Reply to State's Resp. to Am. Second Mot. for PCR, State v. Jerome Madison, ID No. 1312014951 (Del. Super. Ct. Feb. 25, 2022) (D.I. 152).

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a new trial because, to him, the recently-generated DNA results "create[] a strong inference that [he] is actually innocent in fact of the acts underlying the charges of which he was convicted[.]"^[18] Mr. Madison's attempt to carefully navigate the obvious Rule 61 hazards, simply does not get him to ground on which his recycled complaint of ineffective assistance might stand.

APPLICATION OF RULE 61'S PROCEDURAL BARS

(9) Before the Court can consider the substance of any postconviction claim, it must first address Criminal Rule 61's procedural requirements.^[19] The procedural bars in Rule 61 are timeliness, repetitiveness, procedural default, and former adjudication.^[20] If any of these apply, then the movant must show entitlement to relief under Rule 61(i)(5).^[21]

(10) This postconviction motion-Mr. Madison's second-is both untimely and repetitive. So it is barred by Rules 61(i)(1) and (2). Mr. Madison also seeks to revisit an ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) claim that has been considered before and refused. So Rule 61(i)(4)'s bar of formerly adjudicated claims also

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precludes his lone prayer for relief here.^[22]

(11) In his first postconviction proceeding, this Court rejected Mr. Madison's IAC claim that alleged trial counsel's failure to have certain items tested for trace blood and to develop DNA evidence prejudiced the outcome of his trial.^[23] Trial counsel made a strategic decision when he chose not to seek such testing and that was a decision no court would be willing to disturb.^[24] Accordingly, Mr. Madison is not entitled to a re-examination of his earlier postconviction complaint "simply because the claim is refined or restated."^[25]

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(12) Now Criminal Rule 61(i)(5) does permit litigation of a claim otherwise procedurally barred under (i)(1), (2), or (4), but only if that claim satisfies the pleading requirements of Rule 61(d)(2)(i) or (d)(2)(ii).^[26]

(13) Alluded to by Mr. Madison here, subsection (d)(2)(i) requires a movant to plead with particularity that "new evidence exists that creates a strong inference that the movant is actually innocent in fact of the acts underlying the charges of which he was convicted."^[27]

MR. MADISON'S RECONSTITUTED POSTCONVICTION CLAIM IS NOT EXCEPTED UNDER RULES (d)(2)(i) or (i)(5)

(14) Under Rule 61(d)(2)(i), Mr. Madison shoulders a heavy burden in establishing that the existence of "new evidence" creates a strong inference of his actual innocence.^[28] The Delaware Supreme Court gave weight to the "actual innocence" standard recently in Purnell v. State.^[29] Indeed, Purnell was "the first case where a defendant [] satisfied the actual innocence exception to the procedural bars in Rule 61."^[30]

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(15) Of import here, a movant cannot successfully navigate the "actual innocence" standard with evidence that is "merely cumulative or impeaching."^[31]Thus, any new evidence "that goes only to the weight or credibility of that which was presented to the [factfinder] is almost never adequate to meet the demanding bar for being granted a new trial."^[32]

A. The DNA Evidence is Not "New".

(16) In Purnell, our high court adapted the "new evidence standard" Delaware courts have traditionally followed in the Lloyd^[33] and Downes^[34] line of cases.^[35] Those cases manifest a well-developed body of Delaware law that addresses actual innocence claims based on new evidence and requires that such evidence must be "discovered since the trial and could not have been discovered before by the exercise of due diligence."^[36]

(17) Mr. Madison holds up certain post-trial DNA test results as the "new evidence" establishing his actual innocence. He only now possesses this evidence

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because of Delaware's statewide Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a program that "sought to clear a backlog of previously untested [rape] kits."^[37] Through that program, the rape kit associated with this case was tested in October 2017-two years after Mr. Madison's trial and during the pendency of his first postconviction motion.^[38]

(18) Fatal to Mr. Madison's current effort, however, is the fact that the possibility of testing for trace DNA evidence was known to him and his counsel well before his trial.^[39] So, in Purnell terms, the DNA evidence he proffers is not "new."

(19) Simply because Mr. Madison now has DNA test results-results that don't appear to be any more- or less-favorable to him than no results at all-doesn't make it "new." No, the possibility of testing for trace DNA was available pre-trial and his trial counsel made the tactical decision to forgo such testing because, at best, it would have been "superfluous or irrelevant," at worse, "potentially prejudicial."^[40]The since-developed trace DNA results demonstrate trial counsel's prescience rather than any possible ineffectiveness.

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B. The Mostly Inconclusive Trace DNA Results Lend Weak Voice to Mr. Madison's Protestation of Actual Innocence.

(20) Mr. Madison posits that when the 2017 DNA testing results are considered together with the victims' testimony, it supports a conclusion that the sex crimes he was convicted of never occurred.^[41] If the victims are to be believed, says he, conclusive DNA evidence supporting their testimony must exist, e.g., blood would be present on the oral swabs^[42] or some DNA transfer found between the two victims. But the results are inconclusive at best and a far cry from evidence establishing Mr. Madison's actual innocence.

(21) Known blood samples and several latent evidence swabs were obtained from the two victims when the underlying offenses occurred in 2013. Consistent with Delaware's statewide rape kit testing initiative, those collected samples were...