Opinion
ID No. 9606015413.
Submitted: February 14, 2006.
Decided: March 8, 2006.
Upon Consideration of Motion for Postconviction Relief. DENIED.
ORDER
This 8th day of February, 2006, upon consideration of Defendant's Motion for Postconviction Relief pursuant to Superior Court Criminal Rule 61, it appears that:
1. Nathaniel Slade ("Slade") has filed a third pro se Motion for Postconviction Relief, pursuant to Superior Court Criminal Rule 61. For the reasons set forth below, Slade's Motion is DENIED.
2. On June 12, 1997, a jury found Slade guilty of First Degree Murder and Possession of a Deadly Weapon During the Commission of a Felony. On July 11, 1997, the Court sentenced Slade to life imprisonment. Slade appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, which affirmed his sentence on July 29, 1998.
Slade v. State, 1998 WL 666727 (Del.Supr.).
3. Slade filed an original Motion for Postconviction Relief which was denied on May 24, 1999. The Supreme Court affirmed on December 7, 1999.
State v. Slade, 1999 WL 463682 (Del.Super.).
Slade v. State, 1999 WL 1319346 (Del.Supr.).
4. Slade filed a second Motion for Postconviction Relief. That Motion was also denied on January 30, 2001. The Supreme Court dismissed Slade's appeal as untimely.
State v. Slade, 2001 WL 112067 (Del.Super.).
Slade v. State, 2001 WL 433463 (Del.Supr.).
5. On November 17, 2005, Slade filed a third Motion for Postconviction Relief. He asserts relief on the grounds that: 1) the court failed, in his second motion for postconviction relief, to determine whether the expert opinion of the medical examiner was necessary; and 2) the State failed to meet its burden under Delaware Rule of Evidence 705 because the medical examiner did not identify the facts and data upon which he based his opinion.
D.R.E. 705, states in pertinent part:
(a) Disclosure of facts or data underlying expert opinion. The expert may testify in terms of opinion or inferences and give reasons therefore without first testifying to the underlying facts or data, unless the court requires otherwise. The expert may in any event be required to disclose the underlying facts or data on cross-examination.
6. Before addressing the merits of any postconviction relief claim, the Court must first determine whether the defendant has met the procedural requirements of Superior Court Criminal Rule 61. To protect the integrity of Delaware's procedural rules, the Court will not consider the merits of a postconviction claim if Defendant's claims are procedurally barred. Rule 61(i) imposes four procedural imperatives: 1) the motion must be filed within three years of a final order of conviction; 2) any ground for relief that was not asserted in a prior postconviction proceeding is thereafter barred; 3) any basis for relief must have been asserted at trial or on direct appeal as required by the court rules; and 4) any ground for relief must not have been formerly adjudicated in any proceeding leading to the judgment of conviction.
Younger v. State, 580 A.2d 552, 554 (Del. 1990).
Id.
7. Slade's motion is procedurally barred pursuant to 61(i)(1) which provides that "[a] motion for postconviction relief may not be filed more than three years 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 three years after the right is first recognized by the Supreme Court of Delaware or by the United States Supreme Court." Slade's reliance upon Short v. State, to support his contention that he has filed his motion within three years is misplaced. The Court in Short held that expert testimony is only necessary if "scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue. . . ." The holding in Short was not that an expert could not testify, instead, it was that an expert did not need to testify. Slade has not asserted a retroactively applicable right which is newly recognized. Consequently, he was required to file the motion within three years after the judgment of conviction was final. The three year time period began to run when the direct appeal process was complete, which was the date of the issuance of the mandate under Supreme Court Rule 19. That date was July 29, 1998. Slade's period for filing a Rule 61 Motion ended on July 29, 2001. Therefore, his motion filed on November 17, 2005 is time-barred.
865 A.2d 512, 515, n. 8 (Del. 2004).
Id. at 515.
Id.
Jackson v. State, 654 A.2d 829, 833 (Del. 1995).
8. Even if Slade's motion was not time-barred, it is procedurally barred pursuant to Superior Court Criminal Rule 61(i)(4).
9. Superior Court Criminal Rule 61(i)(4) provides that "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." Interest of justice has been narrowly defined to require the movant to show that the trial court lacked authority to convict or punish. "The term `authority' [to convict or punish] includes not only the concept of jurisdiction, but also encompasses any constitutional error meeting the two-part test of Teague." That is, "new constitutional rules of criminal procedure will not be applicable to those cases which have become final before the new rules are announced, unless the rules fall within one of two exceptions." Under the first Teague exception, "a new rule should be applied retroactively if it placed `certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal lawmaking authority to proscribe.'" Under the second Teague exception, a rule may apply retroactively if it "requires the observance of `those procedures that . . . are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'"
State v. Wright, 653 A.2d 288, 298 (Del.Super.Ct. 1994).
Bailey v. State, 588 A.2d 1121, 1126, n. 5 (Del. 1991) (citing Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989)).
Flamer v. State, 585 A.2d 736, 749 (Del. 1990).
Id.
Id. (footnote omitted and citations omitted).
10. In Slade's second Motion for Postconviction Relief he contended that he should be afforded postconviction relief on the basis that he was deprived of a fair trial due to improper testimony by the medical examiner. Specifically, Slade alleged that he was denied a fair trial because an expert witness, "impermissibly invaded the jurys [sic] exclusive province to decide issues of witness credibility." He claimed that the medical examiner "essentially" told the jury that the victim's death was a homicide. The Court found that this claim was procedurally barred under Rule 61(i)(2) because it was not raised in his prior motion for postconviction relief. The Court further found that consideration of this claim was not warranted pursuant to Rule 61(i)(5), which states that the procedural bars contained in Rule 61(i)(1), (2) and (3) are inapplicable, "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 a judgment of conviction." Slade had not claimed that the Court lacked jurisdiction over him nor did the Court find that Slade had made a colorable claim of a deprivation of a constitutional right. Therefore, Slade had not overcome the procedural bar of Rule 61(i)(2). That Motion for Postconviction Relief was denied and subsequently dismissed by the Supreme Court on April 25, 2001.
Slade, 2001 WL 112067, at *1.
Id.
Id.
Id. at 2.
Id.
Id.
Slade, 2001 WL 433463.
11. Slade now relies upon Weedon v. State, to support his argument that reconsideration of the claim is warranted in the interest of justice. In Weedon, the court noted that in their view, Rule 61(i)(4)'s bar on previously litigated claims was based on the "law of the case" doctrine. In determining the scope of the "interest of justice" exception, the court recognized two exceptions to the law of the case doctrine. First, the doctrine did not apply when the previous ruling was clearly in error or there had been an important change in circumstances, in particular, the factual basis for issues previously posed. Second, the court held that the equitable concern of preventing injustice may trump the "law of the case" doctrine. Specifically, in Weedon the court found that there had been an important change in factual developments that had formed the basis for issues previously posed which defeated the presumption that the motion for postconviction relief was procedurally barred. Unlike Weedon, the present case does not involve subsequent factual or legal developments that would defeat the procedural bar. Nor does this Court find that the previous ruling was clearly in error. Therefore, the Court sees no reason in the interest of justice that Slade's grounds for relief should be reconsidered. The subject matter of this Motion was afforded consideration by this Court in Slade's second Motion for Postconviction Relief. No further review is warranted. The Court finds the grounds for postconviction relief asserted here by Slade are barred by Superior Court Criminal Rules 61(i)(1) and 61(i)(4).
750 A.2d 521 (Del. 2000).
Id. at 527.
Id.
Id.
Id. at 528.
Id.
The Court, therefore, DENIES Slade's third Motion for Postconviction Relief.