Case Title: State v. Pruitt

Citation: 

Docket Number: 204, 2001

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2002-03-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  No. 204, 2001 
 
 
Defendant Below,  
 
) 
 
 
Appellant,  
 
 
)  Court Below:  Superior Court 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  of the State of Delaware in 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  and for New Castle County 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
CHRISTOPHER PRUITT, 
 
 
)  I.D. #0011006390 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
 
 
Plaintiff Below, 
 
 
) 
 
 
Appellee. 
 
 
 
) 
 
Submitted:  October 16, 2001 
Decided:  March 28, 2002 
 
Before VEASEY, Chief Justice, WALSH and STEELE, Justices. 
 
 
Upon appeal from the Superior Court.  AFFIRMED. 
 
 
Allison L. Peters, Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware, for 
appellant. 
 
 
Louis B. Ferrara, Ferrara, Haley, Bevis & Solomon, Wilmington, Delaware, 
for Appellee. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
STEELE, Justice: 
 
2
 
 
The State of Delaware appeals the April 2, 2001 order of the Superior Court 
granting Appellee, Defendant-below, Christopher Pruitt’s Motion to Dismiss 
charges brought in Superior Court by indictment for Driving Under the Influence, 
Driving While License Suspended or Revoked, and Disregarding a Red Light.  A 
Justice of the Peace, unable to locate the substantiating summons and complaints 
when Pruitt appeared before him, had previously dismissed identical charges on 
November 8, 2000.  The following day, after the arresting officer informed the 
court that the summons and complaints in fact had been filed, the court clerk 
located them in another file and a sitting Justice of the Peace reinstated the charges 
without notice to Pruitt that he had been asked to do so by the arresting officer.  
The State later entered a nolle prosequi and brought identical charges by 
indictment in the Superior Court.  On Pruitt’s motion, a Superior Court judge 
dismissed the charges, ruling from the bench that the arresting officer’s ex parte 
motion to reinstate the charges and the Justice of the Peace’s action reinstating the 
charges  violated Pruitt’s due process rights.  
 
This Court must determine whether the Superior Court judge abused his 
discretion when he granted Pruitt’s Motion to Dismiss.  Although Pruitt raised his 
Motion to Dismiss under Superior Court Criminal Rule 12(b), we agree with the 
State that the Superior Court judge’s comments supporting his decision to grant 
 
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Pruitt’s Motion to Dismiss imply an equal reliance on Rule 48(b).  Therefore, we 
shall examine this appeal in the context of Rule 48. 
We find that the State’s entry of a nolle prosequi on the reinstated charges 
and later prosecution of those identical charges in the Superior Court unfairly 
manipulated the judicial process, delayed the swift resolution of the charges 
against Pruitt, and created undue prejudice that could only be remedied by the 
prompt dismissal of the charges by that court.  Moreover, the State’s practice of 
dismissing charges brought before an inferior court and reinstating them in the 
Superior Court in this case was prejudicial and inconsistent with the fair and 
orderly administration of justice.  Therefore, we AFFIRM the Superior Court’s 
dismissal of the motor vehicle charges pending against Appellee Pruitt. 
On November 3, 2000, Patrolman Leccia of the Wilmington Police arrested 
Christopher Pruitt on several traffic charges, including Driving Under the 
Influence, Driving While License Suspended or Revoked, and Disregarding a Red 
Light.  Leccia also arrested Pruitt for possession of marijuana.  The officer issued 
two separate summonses, one directing Pruitt to appear before a Justice of the 
Peace on November 7, 2000 for the traffic charges and the second to appear in 
Justice of the Peace Court on November 20, 2000 for arraignment on the marijuana 
charge.  
 
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Pruitt appeared in Justice of the Peace Court on November 7 as directed.  On 
that date, the Justice of the Peace could not find any paperwork documenting the 
traffic charges relating to Pruitt’s arrest and ordered him to return the following 
day.  On November 8, court personnel still could not locate the paperwork, and the 
Justice of the Peace dismissed the traffic complaints.  When Leccia learned that the 
traffic charges had been dismissed because the court was unable to find the 
supporting paperwork, the officer informed the clerk of the court that he had 
properly provided the court with the summons and complaints.  The clerk then 
discovered that the paperwork had been mistakenly filed with that submitted for 
the marijuana charge.   
After learning that the clerk’s office had misfiled the paperwork, the Justice 
of the Peace reinstated the traffic charges and reset their hearing for November 20, 
the same date previously scheduled for arraignment only on the marijuana charge.  
The Bail Sheet for Pruitt’s case stated that the case had been “reopened per officer 
Leccia’s Motion.”  The Court did not provide Pruitt with notice that any motion 
had been made by the officer or that the Court would even entertain much less rule 
on the officer’s application.  The Court further failed to notify Pruitt that the 
charges had, in fact, been reinstated and rescheduled for a hearing on November 
20.  Pruitt did not appear on November 20.   
 
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At an undefined point during these proceedings, Leccia apparently asked the 
Office of the Attorney General to enter the case.  On January 19, 2001, that office 
entered a nolle prosequi on the traffic complaints and the marijuana charge.  The 
Office of the Attorney General then brought identical charges by indictment in 
Superior Court.  On April 2, 2001, a Superior Court judge granted Pruitt’s Motion 
to Dismiss the traffic offenses. 
The State’s entry of a nolle prosequi in the Justice of the Peace Court moots 
the need for a complete review of that court’s decision to reinstate the charges 
against Pruitt on the ex parte application of the State.  A full understanding of that 
decision and its legal infirmities is important to any examination of the State’s 
manipulation of the Pruitt prosecution, however.  Thus the Superior Court judge 
appropriately considered the action of the Justice of the Peace when rendering his 
decision.  It is likewise appropriate for this Court to undertake a similar inquiry 
when determining whether or not the Superior Court judge exercised his Rule 48 
power with appropriate discretion.   
Under well-settled Delaware law, a Justice of the Peace enjoys the same 
prerogative as any other court to reinstate charges it has previously dismissed.1  
This power is at the root of that court’s Rule 36 authority to correct, sua sponte, 
clerical mistakes in judgments, orders, or other parts of the record.   Even though 
                                                 
1 State v. Guthman, 619 A.2d 1175, 1178-79 (Del. 1993). 
 
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this rule allows a Justice of the Peace to correct certain of these errors without 
notice,2 this does not translate into unqualified authority to dispense with notice 
where due process would otherwise require it.3   
A decision by any trial court to reinstate charges that it had previously 
dismissed may come only after all parties have been given adequate notice and an 
opportunity to be heard.  Indeed, our courts have held that appropriate notice of a 
judicial action and an adequate opportunity to be heard are the essential elements 
of the procedural due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.4  This 
protection includes the right to receive notice and to be heard at “a meaningful 
time and in a meaningful manner” before the deprivation of a protected interest.5  
Although the courts maintain some flexibility in the manner by which they protect 
the rights of parties to present an argument, this Court has held that, at a minimum, 
due process requires some form of notice and a hearing.6   
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit examined these 
precise factors when it addressed the particular question of whether a decision in a 
criminal case that results from an ex parte communication by a state agent is 
                                                 
2 J.P. Crim. R. 36. 
3 Rule 36 is intended as a tool for the courts to correct clerical errors appearing on the face of the 
record to reflect the court’s previously announced intent.  It is not appropriately invoked in any 
case in which substantive rights have yet to be determined.  See Guyer v. State, 453 A.2d 462 
(Del. 1982) (Rule 36 properly applied to change sentencing to reflect trial judge’s originally 
manifested intent). 
4 Aprile v. State, 143 A.2d 739, 744 (Del. Super. Ct. 1958), aff’d, 146 A.2d 180 (Del. 1958). 
5 Slawik v. State, 480 A.2d 636, 645 (Del. 1984). 
6 Id. 
 
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prohibited under the Fourteenth Amendment.  In Yohn v. Love,7 that court held that 
an ex parte conversation between the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, the trial judge 
and the prosecutor was improper under a due process analysis.8  The conversation 
amounted to a de facto appeal of a trial court’s ruling on the admissibility of 
evidence and therefore violated the defendant’s constitutional guarantee to 
procedural due process.9  In Yohn, even though the court noted that defense 
counsel was in the room, defense counsel could not participate in a telephone 
conversation in which the Chief Justice gave his opinion of the trial court’s ruling.  
This procedure failed to provide the defendant with a sufficient hearing.10  
Moreover, the court found that the lack of notice that the hearing was even taking 
place11 deprived defense counsel of any meaningful time to prepare a response to 
the Commonwealth’s argument and thus compounded the violation of his client’s 
due process rights.12 
Because lack of notice prejudices an individual by depriving him of the right 
to be heard, it provides an independent basis for relief from a judgment.13  
Accordingly, an ex parte conversation, which by definition deprives a defendant of 
                                                 
7 76 F.3d 508 (3d Cir. 1995). 
8 Id. at 517. 
9 Id. 
10 Id. 
11 Although the attorney was in the room, he was only informed of the nature of the conversation 
once it had ended. 
12 Yohn, 76 F.3d at 517. 
13 See Tsipouras v. Tsipouras, 677 A.2d 493, 496 (Del. 1996) (defective notice constitutes an 
independent basis for relief). 
 
8
the right to be heard, is also an independent legal basis for relief from a judgment.  
Here, as in Yohn, the police officer’s ex parte communication of his application to 
reinstate the traffic charges led to a de facto reconsideration of the court’s earlier 
dismissal.  The fact that the Justice of the Peace Court both failed to provide notice 
to Pruitt and based its decision on this ex parte application are prejudicial to Pruitt 
and standing alone constitute a due process violation.   
In addition, the mere fact that the Justice of the Peace placed the reopened 
traffic charges on the docket to coincide with Pruitt’s previously scheduled 
arraignment on the marijuana charge does not satisfy a court’s due process 
obligation.  In Tsipouras, we held that an appropriate notice must be reasonably 
calculated not only to apprise a party of the pendency of an action, but of its nature 
as well.14  In that case, the notice sent to a husband of a hearing on his former 
wife’s “Motion & Affidavit to Modify Custody Order” was not meaningful 
because it made no mention of a pending contempt charge that the court also 
intended to address.15  This reasoning comports with the United States Supreme 
Court’s holding that a State must give notice sufficiently in advance of scheduled 
court proceedings so that reasonable opportunity to prepare will be afforded, and 
that notice must also set forth with particularity the alleged misconduct in order to 
                                                 
14 Id.  Although Tsipouras was originally filed as a civil action in the Family Court, the liberty 
interests at stake in a criminal matter dictate an equal, if not greater, adherence to the provision 
of notice necessary to comply with our due process requirements. 
15 Id. 
 
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comply with due process requirements.16  In this instance, the failure of the Justice 
of the Peace to inform Pruitt that he had reinstated the traffic charges is not 
rendered harmless by the fact that he ordered them combined with earlier notice to 
appear for a mere arraignment on the marijuana charge.  For these reasons, we find 
that the Superior Court judge correctly determined that the Justice of the Peace’s 
action rested on a constitutionally questionable foundation.  The tenuous basis for 
the Justice of the Peace’s holding understandably heightened the Superior Court’s 
suspicion of the State’s entry of a nolle prosequi and decision to proceed by 
indictment on identical charges in Superior Court. 
We have long recognized that the potential for prejudice to a defendant 
exists any time a previously dismissed charge is reinstated, filed anew, reinstituted 
or renewed by any other name, either by the State or the courts.  Indeed, in State v. 
Fischer, we noted that the prejudice this delay in prosecution presupposes is not 
limited to the traditional considerations connected to the constitutional guarantee 
of a speedy trial: the death and disappearance of witnesses, the loss of evidence, or 
any other denial of a reasonable opportunity to prepare for trial.17  Similarly 
prejudicial is the anxiety suffered by a defendant as the result of the delay and 
uncertainty of a duplicative prosecution; the notoriety suffered by both a defendant 
and his family as the result of the recommencement of a prosecution for the same 
                                                 
16 In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 33, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967). 
17 285 A.2d 417, 419 (Del. 1971). 
 
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offense; and the expenses, “legal and otherwise,” that accompany any renewal of a 
dismissed action.18   
Although in Fischer we addressed these potential prejudices in the context 
of delays caused by prosecutorial action, the defendant suffers equally when the 
reinstatement is the result of judicial action.19  Nevertheless, as the State correctly 
argues, we have held that, absent a delay of constitutional dimensions, a dismissal 
under Rule 48 must be attributable to the prosecution, despite the prejudicial 
effects.20  Thus, the State asserts, any prejudice to Pruitt cannot result in a Rule 48 
dismissal because it was the product of the Justice of the Peace’s reinstatement of 
the charges and, therefore, the State was not responsible for any prejudicial delay.  
However, this argument rests on the faulty, and frankly mystifying, assumption 
that the State’s entrance of a nolle prosequi and later decision to proceed by 
indictment on identical charges in the Superior Court did nothing to compound the 
prejudicial effects to Pruitt. 
Even though the Superior Court judge engaged in an extensive examination 
of what he perceived to be a due process violation by the Justice of the Peace, the 
crux of his decision to dismiss is found in his analysis of the State’s actions.  He 
                                                 
18 Id. 
19 Here, of course, not satisfied with an ex parte reopening of previously dismissed traffic 
charges, the State sought to prosecute in a second forum after entering a nolle prosequi on all 
charges in Justice of the Peace Court.  By this action the State leaves the distinct impression that 
it intended to use self-help to cure any suggested due process violation that the State suspected 
may have occurred in the Justice of the Peace Court.  
20 McElroy, 561 A.2d 154, 156 (Del.1989). 
 
11
observed on the record: “And let me tell you why I sense something irregular.  
Because somebody looked at the file, my guess, and said, ‘There’s a serious defect 
here so we need to nolle pros and then indict and that will cure it.’”  Clearly, the 
Superior Court judge based his decision to dismiss in large part on the State’s 
handling of the prosecution after the Justice of the Peace had reinstated the 
charges.  
Having established that the responsibility for the delay that prompted the 
Rule 48 dismissal lies squarely with the State, our focus must turn to the nature of 
the prejudice suffered by Pruitt.  Any dismissal under Rule 48(b) requires a finding 
that the defendant must have suffered “some definable or measurable prejudice.”21  
The State contends that Pruitt is unable to demonstrate that he suffered the 
requisite prejudice to justify a Rule 48 dismissal.  As noted supra, however, we 
outlined in Fischer the nature of the prejudices that result from the renewal of 
charges that were previously the subject of a nolle prosequi in a different forum.  
Although Pruitt may not suffer the traditional prejudice associated with a violation 
of the constitutional guaranty to a speedy trial, he was subject to the less obvious, 
but equally repugnant prejudices as Fischer.  It is unnecessary for the Superior 
Court judge to have made a specific finding or that the prejudices have even been 
raised by Pruitt in his motion.  The unexplained commencement of a duplicative 
                                                 
21 Id. at 157. 
 
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prosecution, the anxiety suffered by the defendant as a result of delay and 
uncertainty, the notoriety resulting from repeated prosecutions for the same 
offense, and the additional expenses attendant to the renewal of charges in a 
separate forum are not dependant on the individualized facts of a discrete case.  
Rather, they are inherent where the State subjects any defendant to this type of 
deliberate manipulation of the judicial process. 
We have often noted our distaste for the State’s practice of voluntarily 
dismissing charges in a lower court and commencing a new prosecution on those 
same charges in a higher court with concurrent jurisdiction.22  Although we 
recognize, and today reaffirm, the power of the Attorney General to choose the 
forum for a prosecution, that power is to be exercised only once.  Any vacillation 
leaves the impression of the “unfair manipulation of the criminal process and 
undue disruption of court business.”23  We hold that, absent compelling 
circumstances not present here, once the State engages in a prosecution in a court 
of competent jurisdiction, it should be prohibited from pursuing that prosecution to 
its ultimate conclusion in any forum other than one it initially chose.  This will 
serve not only to further the goal of preserving the judicial authority of the Justice 
                                                 
22 Fischer, 285 A.2d at 419-20.  
23 Id. at 420. 
 
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of the Peace Court and the Court of Common Pleas implicit in Guthman,24 but also 
to deter the State from engaging in a practice that is so readily subject to abuse that 
it undermines the public’s confidence in the fundamental fairness of the judicial 
process.  
Conclusion 
 
In conclusion, we find that the Superior Court judge acted properly and 
within the bounds of his discretion when he dismissed the charges against Pruitt 
under Rule 48(b).  Although we may initially attribute the delay experienced by 
Pruitt to a clerical error in the Justice of the Peace Court, the facts clearly support 
the Superior Court judge’s conclusion.  We agree that when the State entered the 
nolle prosequis on the traffic charges, the State manipulated the judicial process 
with the intent to remedy the error in the office of the Justice of the Peace to the 
substantial prejudice of the defendant.  The fair and efficient administration of 
criminal justice cannot be adequately provided for when the Attorney General may 
unilaterally and arbitrarily remove a case to a court with concurrent jurisdiction in 
                                                 
24 The Justice of the Peace Court and Court of Common Pleas’ inherent power to “undertake 
whatever action is reasonably necessary to ensure the proper administration of justice,” 
Guthman, 619 A.2d at 1178, would be undermined by a rule allowing the State to negate a 
decision of those courts by voluntarily dismissing a case and renewing it in a different court 
without the weight of the lower court’s unfavorable decision.  The Superior Court, sitting on 
appeal, reached a similar conclusion in Evans v. State.  Del. Super., No. K96-05-0425-0427, 
Terry, J., order (Nov. 25, 1996).  In that instance the court ruled that the State could not file 
charges that a Justice of the Peace had dismissed for lack of evidence in the Court of Common 
Pleas because the dismissal was a fixed determination that cannot be set aside except by the 
issuing court or on appeal.  
 
14
a manner that subverts the authority of the lower court to the defendant’s prejudice.  
We conclude that the substantial interest the public maintains in the speedy, fair 
and orderly administration of justice is inconsistent with this practice.  The 
judgment of the Superior Court is affirmed.