Case Title: Chambers v. Delaware

Citation: 

Docket Number: 663, 2013

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2014-05-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
 
KENNETH L. CHAMBERS,  
§ 
 
 
 
§ 
No. 663, 2013  
 
 
 
Defendant-Below, 
§ 
 
Appellant, 
§ 
Court Below:  Superior Court  
 
  
§ 
of the State of Delaware, in  
v.  
§ 
and for New Castle County  
 
 
§  
Cr. 1304014851 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
§ 
 
 
§  
 
 
Plaintiff-Below, 
§ 
 
 
Appellee. 
§ 
 
 
 
Submitted:  May 28, 2014 
Decided:  May 29, 2014 
 
 
Before STRINE, Chief Justice, BERGER, and RIDGELY, Justices.  
 
 
Upon appeal from the Superior Court.  AFFIRMED. 
 
 
Ferris W. Wharton, Esquire, Assistant Public Defender, Wilmington, Delaware for 
Appellant. 
 
 
Maria T. Knoll, Esquire, and Karen V. Sullivan, Esquire, State of Delaware 
Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware for Appellee. 
 
 
 
STRINE, Chief Justice: 
 
 
 
1 
 
The appellant, Kenneth L. Chambers, was arrested on April 26, 2013 after he 
failed a field sobriety test and was determined to have a blood alcohol level more than 
twice the legal limit.  Chambers was indicted for driving under the influence of alcohol 
(“DUI”).  Because Chambers had two prior alcohol-related driving offenses, one in 1989 
and one in 2008, the State filed a notice that it would seek to have him sentenced as a 
felon under 21 Del. C. § 4177(d)(3) for third offense DUI.   
Chambers filed a motion to preclude the felony prosecution.  Chambers argues 
that the ex post facto clause of the United States Constitution1 bars his two prior alcohol-
related driving offenses from counting as qualifying offenses and prevents his 
prosecution for felony third offense DUI in this case.  Chambers’ argument is based on 
the fact that before an amendment went into effect on July 1, 2012, 21 Del. C. 
§ 4177B(e)(2)(b) provided that a third offense DUI would be a felony only if the two 
prior offenses occurred within five years of the third offense.  After the amendment took 
effect, § 4177B(e)(2)(b) provided that all prior offenses shall be considered for 
sentencing, regardless of how long ago they occurred.  Chambers therefore argues that 
the amendment cannot be constitutionally applied to him because (i) more than five years 
had passed after his first DUI in 1989 before the amendment went into effect in 2012; and 
(ii) he reads those prior offenses as forever barred, under the ex post facto clause, from 
being considered to enhance the sentence for a future offense.2   
                                                 
1 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9. 
2 Opening Br. at 7-8; Appendix to Opening Br. at A-16, Tr. 15:4-9 (“We’re not arguing that . . . 
you can’t enhance penalties based on things that happened before the statute.  That’s not our 
2 
 
After hearing argument on Chambers’ motion, the Superior Court issued a bench 
denying Chambers’ motion and ruling that Chambers’ prosecution for felony third 
offense DUI was constitutionally permissible.  To reach this conclusion, the Superior 
Court relied upon this Court’s decision in Roberts v. State,3 and the Superior Court’s 
decision in State v. Hughes,4 both of which dealt with similar ex post facto arguments.  
This Court reviews claims of a violation of constitutional rights de novo.5   
Chambers is correct that before the amendment to § 4177B(e)(2)(b), the enhanced 
DUI sentence only applied if the third offense occurred within five years of the first 
offense; and that after the amendment went into effect on July 1, 2012, there was no such 
time limitation.  But this change does not constitute an unconstitutional retrospective 
criminalization of Chambers’ conduct.  Because Chambers was prosecuted for an offense 
that he committed on April 13, 2013, after the July 1, 2012 effective date of the 
amendment about which he complains, his argument that the State has extended a 
previously expired statute of limitations in violation of the ex post facto clause is without 
merit.  
The ex post facto clause prohibits the retroactive application of a law that 
“changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the 
                                                                                                                                                             
argument.  Our argument is that you can’t go back and revive something that was once dead and 
make it alive again.”). 
3 Roberts v. State, 494 A.2d 156 (Del. 1985) (enhancing the punishment for a second offense). 
4 State v. Hughes, 1998 WL 733104 (Del. Super. Sept. 17, 1998) (counting a conviction for 
reckless driving alcohol-related as a predicate offense for sentencing enhancement). 
5 Washington v. State, 836, A.2d 485, 487 (Del. 2003). 
3 
 
crime, when committed.”6  An ex post facto application of a law is one that “imposes a 
punishment for an act which was not punishable at the time it was committed; or imposes 
additional punishment to that then prescribed.”7  The critical question in evaluating an ex 
post facto claim “is whether the law changes the legal consequences of acts committed 
before its effective date.”8   
The United States Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of recidivist 
statutes, explaining that “[a]n enhanced sentence imposed on a persistent offender . . . ‘is 
not to be viewed as [an] additional penalty for the earlier crimes’ but as a ‘stiffened 
penalty for the latest crime, which is considered to be an aggravated offense because [it 
is] a repetitive one.’”9  Thus, statutes enhancing penalties for later offenses do not violate 
the ex post facto clause, even where, as here, the predicate offenses occurred before the 
enactment of the statute.10   
This Court has previously rejected ex post facto challenges to the applicability of 
statutory amendments to enhanced sentencing provisions for DUI.  In Roberts v. State, 
this Court held that the change to the DUI sentencing law mandating 60-day 
imprisonment for a second offense DUI was not an ex post facto law as it applied to that 
defendant, because the enhanced punishment could be invoked only after a second 
offense, and, in that case, the second offense took place after the statute had been 
                                                 
6 Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386, 390 (1798); Helman v. State, 784 A.2d 1058, 1075-76 (Del. 2001); 
DiStefano v. Watson, 566 A.2d 1, 5 (Del. 1989).  
7 Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 28 (1981). 
8 Id. at 31. 
9 Monge v. California, 524 U.S. 721, 728 (1998) (quoting Gryger v. Burke, 334 U.S. 728, 732 
(1948). 
10 See, e.g., Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738 (1994); Park v. Raley, 506 U.S. 20 (1992); 
Gryger v. Burke, 334 U.S. 728, 732 (1948). 
4 
 
amended.11  Similarly in Felix v. State, this Court held the defendant was properly 
sentenced for a fourth offense DUI even though some of his predicate offenses occurred 
before the 1995 enactment of the fourth offender sentencing provision.12  The 1995 
amendment at issue in Felix created a fourth offender sentence enhancement, which, like 
the amendment at issue here, omitted the five year limitation on consideration of prior 
offenses for sentence enhancement. 
Roberts and Felix control here.  Like Chambers, Roberts and Felix committed the 
predicate DUI offenses before the enactment of the enhanced sentencing provisions about 
which they complained and were punished for their actions committed after the 
enactment of the enhanced sentencing provisions.  Thus, application of 21 Del. C. §§ 
4177(d)(3) and 4177B(e)(2)(b) to Chambers does not violate the ex post facto clause.13 
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Superior Court is hereby 
AFFIRMED. 
  
                                                 
11 Roberts v. State, 494 A.2d 156, 157 (Del. 1985). 
12 Felix v. State, 905 A.2d 746 (Del. 2006). 
13 This is consistent with the result reached in several other states.  See, e.g., State v. Lamb, 206 
P.3d 497 (Idaho Ct. App. 2009) (no ex post facto violation where amendment increased the five 
year limitation to ten years); State v. Stoen, 596 N.W.2d 504 (Iowa 1999) (no ex post facto 
violation where amendment increased the six year limitation to twelve years); City of Norton v. 
Hurt, 66 P.3d 870 (Kan. 2003) (no ex post facto violation where amendment increased the five 
year limitation to all offenses committed); State v. Hall, 648 So.2d 1 (La. Ct. App. 2d Cir. 1994) 
(no ex post facto violation where amendment increased the five year limitation to ten years); 
State v. Chapman, 685 A.2d 423 (Me. 1996) (no ex post facto violation where amendment 
increased the six year limitation to ten years); State v. Hansen, 605 N.W.2d 461 (Neb. 2000) (no 
ex post facto violation where amendment increased the eight year limitation to twelve years); 
Com. v. McCoy, 895 A.2d 18, 34 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2006) aff’d, 975 A.2d 586 (Pa. 2009) (no ex 
post facto violation where amendment increased the seven year limitation to ten years).