Opinion
No. 59 2013.
2013-12-9
Karl OWENS, Defendant Below–Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below–Appellee.
Read together, subsections 4204(k)(1) and (3) allow a trial court to suspend a portion of the maximum sentence and refuse to award specified benefits that would effectively diminish the unsuspended portion of the sentence. Here, the trial court took exactly such action by sentencing Owens to the maximum sentence of eight years at Level V, suspended after eighteen months. In lieu of serving the remaining six and a half years of his sentence, Owens was required to serve only eighteen months of probation concurrent with other his probation sentences for separate convictions. The trial court did no more than what was permitted by the plain language of section 4204 and thus remained soundly within its statutory limits.