Swan v. State

• Citation: 248 A.3d 839
• Decision Date: 01 March 2021
• Docket Number: No. 150, 2020,150, 2020
• Parties: Ralph SWAN, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

248 A.3d 839

Ralph SWAN, Defendant Below, Appellant,

v.STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

No. 150, 2020

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: December 2, 2020

Decided: March 1, 2021

Stamatios Stamoulis, Esquire, STAMOULIS & WEINBLATT, LLC, Wilmington, Delaware; Attorney for Appellant, Ralph Swan.

John Williams, Esquire, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Dover, Delaware; Attorney for Appellee, the State of Delaware.

Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; TRAYNOR and MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Justices.

MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Justice:

The appellant, Ralph Swan, appeals the denial of his most recent motion for postconviction relief and motion to recuse. For the reasons set forth below, this Court holds that the Superior Court did not abuse its discretion by denying Swan's motion for postconviction relief. Nor did the court err by denying his motion to recuse. Thus, we AFFIRM the judgment of the Superior Court.

I. BACKGROUND

On the evening of November 4, 1996, two masked and camouflaged men crashed through the glass patio door of Kenneth Warren's home.¹ Warren was fatally shot in front of his wife and child during the subsequent struggle. Tina Warren, Kenneth's wife, observed that one assailant appeared to have been shot in the shoulder.² The investigation went cold until Bridget Phillips, ex-wife of co-defendant Adam Norcross, contacted Delaware State Police in 1999.³ She explained that Norcross and Swan had planned to rob a house but found it occupied.⁴ Phillips added that the victim fired a shot and died because he tried to play hero.⁵

Delaware State Police arrested Norcross on February 9, 2000.⁶ The next day, Norcross admitted that he was present during the incident.⁷ On February 25, 2000, the Delaware State Police arrested Swan.⁸ Swan and Norcross⁹ were indicted on April 3, 2000, on (i) three counts of first degree murder (one count of intentional and two counts of felony murder), (ii) one count of first degree robbery, (iii) one count of first degree burglary, (iv) one count of second degree conspiracy, and (v) multiple counts of possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony.¹⁰ Swan was ultimately convicted of all charges on June 30, 2001.¹¹ The jury recommended that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, and Swan was sentenced to death.¹² On April 9, 2003, this Court affirmed Swan's conviction and sentence.¹³ The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 6, 2003.¹⁴

Swan obtained new counsel and filed his first motion for postconviction relief under Superior Court Criminal Rule 61 on January 3, 2006.¹⁵ Swan also concurrently filed his second motion for a new trial, which was ultimately denied.¹⁶ While his Rule 61 motion was still pending in the Superior Court, Swan appealed the denial of his second motion for a new trial.¹⁷ Swan argued that potential DNA evidence could affect the disposition of the motion for a new trial. This Court remanded the case, requiring the Superior Court to consider the DNA evidence in connection with the then-pending motion for postconviction relief.¹⁸

Swan filed an amended Rule 61 motion for postconviction relief on December 14, 2006.¹⁹ A second amended motion was docketed on October 2, 2007.²⁰ The Superior Court conducted a five-day evidentiary hearing in November 2007²¹ and July 2008,²² and ultimately denied Swan's motion for postconviction relief and the second motion for a new trial.²³

In April 2010, Swan appealed the Superior Court's denial of the motion for postconviction relief and the second motion for a new trial.²⁴ This Court remanded the case, again, to the Superior Court for further determinations.²⁵ The Superior Court resolved the issues raised in the second remand.²⁶ Thereafter, this Court affirmed the Superior Court's denial of Swan's motion for postconviction relief and a new trial.²⁷ The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari.²⁸

On September 27, 2011, Swan filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, which he amended on January 24, 2012.²⁹ The State argued that seven of the fifteen claims raised in the habeas petition had never been raised in State court.³⁰ Swan petitioned the federal court to stay the habeas proceedings to allow him to return to state courts to exhaust all unexhausted claims.³¹ The District Court granted the stay.³² Swan filed another Rule 61 motion for postconviction relief in the Superior Court on October 21, 2013.³³

On February 21, 2017, following this Court's 2016 death penalty and retroactivity decisions in Rauf v. State ³⁴ and Powell v. State ,³⁵ respectively, the Superior Court resentenced Swan to "life without the possibility of parole or probation or any other reduction of sentence."³⁶ Swan filed an "Amendment to Corrected Motion for Postconviction Relief" on March 28, 2017.³⁷ The Superior Court conducted a hearing on the applicability of the procedural bars of Rule 61(i)(1)-(4) to Swan's pending postconviction relief motion on May 23, 2017. After consideration, the Superior Court identified six claims that "for the moment [are] not dismissed on procedural grounds."³⁸

On March 14, 2019, Judge Graves was assigned to handle Swan's pending motions. On April 4, 2019, the parties attended an office conference to address the status of the motion and the schedule going forward.³⁹ The defense filed a Motion of Recusal on June 19, 2019, which the court denied on June 20, 2019.⁴⁰ The court held evidentiary hearings on June 20, 2019, June 26, 2019, October 8, 2019, and December 18, 2019.⁴¹ The parties filed final memoranda on February 3, 2020.⁴² On February 21, 2020, the Superior Court denied Swan's motion for postconviction relief.

II. ANALYSIS

In this appeal, Swan challenges two decisions of the Superior Court. First, he argues that the Superior Court erred, for many reasons, in denying his Rule 61 motion for postconviction relief. Second, Swan argues that the Superior Court erred by denying the motion to recuse.

This Court reviews the Superior Court's denial of a motion for post-conviction relief for an abuse of discretion.⁴³ We review "legal or constitutional questions, including ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, de novo ."⁴⁴ We review a trial judge's recusal decision for an abuse of discretion.⁴⁵

A. The Superior Court Did Not Err in Denying Swan's Rule 61 Motion

Swan first contends that the Superior Court erred in denying his Rule 61 motion for postconviction relief. When the 2013 postconviction motion was filed, the "old" version of Rule 61 was in effect and therefore is applicable to this appeal.⁴⁶ The 2013 version of Rule 61(i), which governs procedural bars to a defendant's motion for postconviction relief, states as follows:

Bars to relief. (l) Time limitation. A motion for postconviction relief may not be filed more than one year after the judgment of conviction is final or, if it asserts a retroactively applicable right that is newly recognized after the judgment of conviction is final, more than one year after the right is first recognized by the Supreme Court of Delaware or by the United States Supreme Court.

(2) Repetitive motion. Any ground for relief that was not asserted in a prior postconviction proceeding, as required by subdivision (b)(2) of this rule, is thereafter barred, unless consideration of the claim is warranted in the interest of justice.

(3) Procedural default. Any ground for relief that was not asserted in the proceedings leading to the judgment of conviction, as required by the rules of this court, is thereafter barred, unless the movant shows:

(A) Cause for relief from the procedural default; and

(B) Prejudice from violation of the movant's rights.

(4) Former adjudication. Any ground for relief that was formerly adjudicated, whether in the proceedings leading to the judgment of conviction, in an appeal, in a postconviction proceeding, or in a federal habeas corpus proceeding, is thereafter barred, unless reconsideration of the claim is warranted in the interest of justice.

(5) Bars inapplicable. The bars to relief in paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of this subdivision shall not apply to a claim that the court lacked jurisdiction or to a colorable claim that there was a miscarriage of justice because of a constitutional violation that undermined the fundamental legality, reliability, integrity or fairness of the proceedings leading to the judgment of conviction.⁴⁷

In Younger v. State , this Court noted that the procedural requirements of Rule 61 must be applied before consideration of the merits of the underlying claims for postconviction relief.⁴⁸ All of the procedural bars are in play; thus, this appeal focuses on the exceptions to the bars.

Swan begins by arguing that Rule 61(i)(1) should not apply because the State engaged in needless litigation in the District Court, which contributed to the delay in addressing the unexhausted claims in Delaware. Swan first raised this argument in a January 10, 2020 filing. Swan did not explain why he waited until the last possible minute—at the end of years-long proceedings, after five days of evidentiary hearings and multiple rounds of filings—to address this argument. As the Superior Court noted, at that late time the State did not have the opportunity to properly respond. Further, Swan offers no authority to support the expansion of the equitable tolling doctrine in the manner that he suggests. Thus, we hold that Swan waived this argument.

Turning to the exceptions outlined in the text of the rules, Rule 61(i)(2) and Rule 61(i)(4) contain an "interest of justice" exception. The interest of justice exception applies when (i) "the previous ruling was clearly in error or there has been an important change in circumstances, in particular, the factual basis for issues previously posed," or (ii) there is an "equitable concern of preventing injustice."⁴⁹

Rule 61(i)(5) provides an exception to the bars of Rule 61(i)(1), (2), and (3) for a colorable claim that there...