Opinion
ID. No. 1308017055 RK13-09-0011-01
03-27-2015
STATE OF DELAWARE v. KING RAMOS, Defendant.
Verify Address (F)
ORDER
The Defendant, King Ramos ("Ramos") pled guilty on November 12, 2013 to one count of Verify Address, 11 Del.C. § 4120. He had also been charged with Breach of Release. The additional charge was nolle prossed by the State in exchange for his plea in this case. The State and the Defense recommended a presentence investigation and the State moved to have Ramos declared an Habitual Offender. The order to Declare Defendant an Habitual Offender was granted on January 16, 2014. The Court sentenced Ramos to two years at Level V, followed by various levels of probation. The Court agreed with the recommendation in the Plea Agreement and sentenced Ramos as set forth above.
Ramos did not appeal his conviction or sentence to the Delaware Supreme Court; instead he filed the pending motion for postconviction relief pursuant to Superior Court Criminal Rule 61 motion after filing several motions to modify sentence. In his Rule 61, he raises three grounds for relief:
Ground one: Non-compliance of Court order.
Judge Robert Young, sentenced Petitioner to one year at
SNU. JTVCC hasn't complied with Court order.This comprises Ramos motion in toto. It is clear that Ramos is not claiming that his guilty plea was invalid or that his sentence itself was invalid or wrong in any degree.
Ground two: Petition for work release/or I-Adopt Pgrm (sic).
Petitioner ask (sic) court to resentence him to work release, or Governor's I-Adopt Program for the one year at Level 5, SNU.
Ground three: Court Rules, Rule 61-1-(e).
Petitioner request (sic) the appointment of counsel for his First Postconviction relief Petition.
"SNU" is defined as "Special Needs Unit" in the Sentence Order entered January 16, 2014.
Under Delaware law this Court must first determine whether Ramos has met the procedural requirements of Superior Court Criminal Rule 61(i) before it may consider the merits of his postconviction relief claim. This is Ramos' first motion for postconviction relief and it was filed within one year of his conviction becoming final, so the requirements of Rule 61(i): (1) - requiring filing within one year and (2) - requiring that all grounds for relief be presented in initial Rule 61 motion, are met. Ramos' claim was not raised at the plea or sentencing. Therefore, it is barred by Rule 61(i)(3), absent a demonstration of cause for the default and prejudice. Ramos has not raised any cause for his failure to raise his claim sooner.
Bailey v. State, 588 A.2d 1121, 1127 (Del. 1991); Younger v. State, 580 A.2d 552, 554 (Del. 1990). --------
Furthermore, Superior Court Criminal Rule 61(a)(1) allows a defendant to petition to set aside a criminal conviction based "on the ground that the Court lacked jurisdiction or on any other ground that is a sufficient factual and legal basis for a collateral attack upon a criminal conviction or a capital sentence." Nowhere does Ramos cite any authority for the proposition that a failure of the Department of Corrections to place him in the Special Needs Unit provides a basis for relief. His motion appears to be more of a request for modification of his sentence, not a valid postconviction motion.
In conclusion, I find that Ramos has failed to raise a claim for which relief can be granted. Furthermore, he has not met the procedural requirements of Rule 61 by his complete failure to have alleged any cause or prejudice for failing to raise his claim sooner. Therefore, I deny Ramos' motion as meritless and procedurally barred by Rule 61(i)(3). The request for appointment of counsel is moot.
SO ORDERED this 27th day of March, 2015
/s/ Robert B. Young
J. RBY/dsc
oc: Prothonotary
cc: Susan G. Schmidhauser, Esq.
Suzanne E. MacPherson-Johnson, Esq.
King Ramos, VCC