Case Title: Muhammad v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 7, 2020

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2022-01-20T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
JAMEEL MUHAMMAD, 
 
§ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
No. 7, 2020 
 
 
Defendant Below,  
§ 
 
 
Appellant,  
 
§ 
Court Below—Superior Court 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
of the State of Delaware 
 
 
v. 
 
 
 
§ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
Cr. ID. Nos: 1904007225(N)   
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
§ 
 
 
1905000605(N) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
 
 
1905000911(N) 
 
 
Appellee. 
 
 
§ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Submitted: November 17, 2021 
 
 
 
 
Decided: 
January 20, 2022 
 
Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA, VAUGHN, TRAYNOR, and 
MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Justices, constituting the Court en banc. 
 
O R D E R  
This 20th day of January, 2022, the Court has considered the parties’ briefs, 
the record on appeal, and the argument of counsel, and it appears that: 
(1) 
In this criminal appeal, Jameel Muhammad, who entered guilty pleas 
and was sentenced with the assistance of an Office of Defense Services (“ODS”) 
lawyer, contends that the Superior Court violated his right to self-representation by 
forcing him to utilize the ODS lawyer despite his earlier knowing, intelligent, and 
voluntary waiver of his right to counsel. 
(2) 
In the summer of 2019, a New Castle County grand jury returned two 
indictments charging Muhammad with eight felonies and two misdemeanors. 
2 
 
(3) 
In the first indictment, Muhammad was charged with two counts of 
human trafficking and two counts of forced sexual servitude.  This order refers to 
the first indictment as the “Trafficking Case.”  Muhammad’s arrest in this case 
followed statements to police by two individuals who admitted that they worked as 
prostitutes under Muhammad’s supervision and control.  One of the reporting 
individuals alleged that Muhammad would beat her if she did not make a specified 
amount of money for him on a daily basis.  If convicted on all counts under this 
indictment, Muhammad faced 100 years of Level V incarceration, eight of which 
would have been mandatory—that is, they could not be suspended. 
(4) 
In the second indictment, Muhammad was charged with numerous drug 
offenses, including three counts of drug dealing.  This order  refers to the second 
indictment as the “Drug Cases.”  Under those counts, the indictment alleged that 
Muhammad possessed with intent to deliver 20 grams or more of cocaine on April 
10, 2019, and that, on May 2, 2019, he possessed with intent to deliver 
methamphetamine and cocaine.   
(5) 
Muhammad was arrested for the April offenses after police officers 
encountered him in a motel room in Newark, Delaware.  A search of that room 
uncovered, among other things, $3,164.00 in United State currency, crack cocaine, 
marijuana, and paraphernalia typically used to smoke crack cocaine and package 
heroin.   
3 
 
(6) 
The May charges were the product of a controlled purchase the police 
had arranged with the assistance of a confidential informant.  When Muhammad 
arrived where the transaction was to occur, the police arrested him, finding 
methamphetamine in his lap and a large amount of cash on his person.  A search of 
Muhammad’s sport utility vehicle uncovered two bags containing crack cocaine.   
(7) 
If convicted on all counts in the Drug Cases, Muhammad faced 42 years 
of Level V incarceration, two of which would have been mandatory.  Thus, if 
convicted on all counts under both indictments, Muhammad faced 142 years of 
Level V incarceration, and ten of those years would have been mandatory.  
(8) 
Muhammad was on probation when he was arrested in April and May 
of 2019. 
(9) 
Before the indictments were filed, and in particular when Muhammad’s 
cases were pending in the Court of Common Pleas for preliminary-hearing purposes, 
Muhammad made it known that he was not pleased with the ODS lawyer assigned 
to his case.  In this Order, we refer to the ODS lawyer as Trial Counsel.  In fact, 
when Muhammad appeared in the Court of Common Pleas for his preliminary 
hearing on the drug charges arising from his April arrest, the Court of Common Pleas 
“released” Trial Counsel from representing Muhammad at that stage of the 
4 
 
proceedings1 and told Muhammad that he would either have to hire private counsel 
or represent himself.2 
(10) Two days after the indictment in the Drug Cases was filed, Trial 
Counsel filed a motion to withdraw as counsel in the Superior Court, but only as to 
the Trafficking Cases.  In the motion, Trial Counsel advised the court that 
Muhammad had “expressed to the Court of Common Pleas, to Counsel, and to 
Counsel’s supervisors that [Muhammad] wishes [Trial Counsel] to be removed from 
this case.”3 
(11) At the outset of the hearing on Trial Counsel’s motion to withdraw, 
Muhammad told the court that “he did not necessarily want to represent himself, but 
rather he did not wish Trial Counsel to represent him.”4  This theme—that 
Muhammad would prefer to be represented by counsel, just not Trial Counsel—
recurs throughout the relevant interactions between Muhammad and the trial court. 
(12) The Superior Court then conducted a colloquy with Muhammad to 
determine whether Muhammad was knowingly and intelligently waiving his right to 
counsel.  It is undisputed that this colloquy satisfactorily adhered to the guidelines 
 
1 App. to Opening Br. at A116. 
2 Id. at A115. 
3 Id. at A237. 
4 Opening Br. at 15.  App. to Opening Br. at A242–243 (“This is my first time being heard, and I 
never stated that I want to go pro se in my preliminary hearing phase under another jurisdiction.  I 
stated that I would go pro se if I couldn’t get proper representation or whatever.”) 
5 
 
this Court adopted in Briscoe v. State5 for determining whether a defendant is 
knowingly and intelligently waiving his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.  
Satisfied with Muhammad’s responses during the colloquy, the court concluded that 
Muhammad had knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waived his right to counsel 
and granted Trial Counsel’s motion to withdraw. 
(13) At this juncture, therefore, Muhammad was proceeding pro se as to the 
Trafficking Case, but was still represented by Trial Counsel in the Drug Cases.  That 
Trial Counsel still represented Muhammad in the Drug Cases was confirmed by Trial 
Counsel’s September 16, 2019 letter to the court stating that, despite a recently filed 
federal lawsuit in which Muhammad had named Trial Counsel as a defendant—a 
stratagem apparently designed to create a conflict of interest so that other counsel 
would be assigned to Muhammad’s case—“it [was] not [ODS’s] intention to re-
assign or declare a conflict[]”6 in the Drug Cases. 
 
5 Briscoe v. State, 606 A.2d 103, 106 (Del. 1992) (adopting guidelines enunciated by the United 
States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in United States v. Welty, 674 F.2d 185 (3d Cir. 
1982).  Under the Briscoe/Welty guidelines, the trial court should advise the defendant: (1) that the 
defendant will have to conduct his defense in accordance with the rules of evidence and criminal 
procedure, rules with which he may not be familiar; (2) that the defendant may be hampered in 
presenting his best defense by his lack of knowledge of the law; (3) that the effectiveness of his 
defense may well be diminished by his dual role as attorney and accused; (4) the nature of the 
charges; (5) the statutory offenses included within them; (6) the range of allowable punishments 
thereunder; (7) possible defenses to the charges and circumstances in mitigation thereof; and (8) 
all other facts essential to a broad understanding of the whole matter. 
6 App to Opening Br. at A260. 
6 
 
(14) On October 8, 2019, Muhammad was arraigned in both the Trafficking 
Case and the Drug Cases.  The record is not clear as to whether Trial Counsel 
attended the arraignment, but we must assume that, if he did, his appearance was 
limited to the Drug Cases, his motion to withdraw from the Trafficking Case having 
been previously granted. It is clear, however, that as of the October 8 arraignment 
the Superior Court was confused regarding the status of Muhammad’s 
representation—a confusion that was caused in no small part by Muhammad’s 
equivocation. 
(15) On the day before the arraignment, a Superior Court judicial case 
manager reported to the Commissioner assigned to Muhammad’s arraignment: 
I believe it was at the 9/12 9am calendar that he stated that he never 
wanted to go pro se so he was scheduled for tomorrow’s calendar. 
 
This is all so confusing and back and forth. 
 
Sounds to me like he originally may have stated a few times that he 
wanted to go pro se however, he’s now saying that was “only because 
the PD’s office wouldn’t give him a different attorney”  If he had been 
given another attorney, he wouldn’t want to proceed pro se.7 
 
 
(16) Muhammad contributed further to the uncertainty surrounding his 
purported waiver of his right to counsel when he filed a pro se motion in the Drug 
Cases, dated October 11 and docketed on October 17, 2019, alleging, among other 
 
7 Email from Lori D. Lavallee, Judicial Case Manager, to Commissioner Lynn M. Parker, Oct. 7, 
2019, 4:22 PM. This email is part of the Superior Court record but is not reflected in the Court’s 
docket entries. 
7 
 
things, that the courts were “forcing [him] to go pro se, for which [he] never 
expressed any wishes to represent [himself].”8  Muhammad also claims in this 
motion that he had stated on the record during the hearing on Trial Counsel’s motion 
to withdraw that he did not want to represent himself “since that was the only choice 
given”9 and had “reasserted [his] right to assistance of conflict free counsel.”10 
 
(17) At a November 14, 2019 hearing the Superior Court addressed 
Muhammad’s pending motions, including the one in which he was asserting that he 
was entitled to the appointment of counsel.  After considering an unrelated issue, the 
court turned to Muhammad’s Sixth Amendment claim, explaining that it 
understood—consistently with what he had said in his pro se motion—that 
Muhammad was complaining that he was being forced to represent himself.11  
Muhammad did not contest this characterization of his claim.  The court did not, 
however, resolve Muhammad’s complaint; instead, the court deferred considering it 
so that Muhammad could confer with Trial Counsel during what the court described  
as a “cooling-off period.”12 
 
(18) On November 19, 2019, in the midst of this confusion—and, perhaps, 
because of it—the Superior Court Criminal Administrative Judge who had presided 
 
8 App. to Opening Br. at A263. 
9 Id. at A262. 
10 Id. 
11 See id. at A331 (“The last point you had in your papers was . . . a Sixth Amendment violation, 
that you were being forced to represent yourself.  Right?”) 
12 Id. at A337. 
8 
 
over a case review in Muhammad’s Trafficking Case that day entered scheduling 
orders and assigned both of Muhammad’s cases to the same judge who was 
considering Muhammad’s Sixth Amendment claim in the Drug Cases “for all 
purposes including trial.”13  The assignment letters provided that “[the] [f]irst case 
review to ensure the defendant has received discovery is set for December 2, 2019.  
Final case review for all three cases is set to be held on January 6, 2020, and trial for 
them is scheduled for January 22, 2020.”14 
 
(19) In light of Muhammad’s October filing in which he raised Sixth 
Amendment concerns, during the December 2 case review covering the Trafficking 
Case and the Drug Cases the newly assigned judge sought to clarify whether 
Muhammad still wished to represent himself.  As part of its review of the history of 
Muhammad’s cases and the status of his representation by counsel, the court 
reminded Muhammad that, at an earlier hearing, it had engaged in a colloquy during 
which Muhammad said that he was “willing to represent [himself].”15  Muhammad 
disagreed, stating:  “I said on the record that I didn’t want to represent myself.”16  
When the court questioned the accuracy of Muhammad’s memory, Muhammad 
stood firm, stating:  “I said [it] clear, I said I don’t want to represent myself, but if 
 
13 State v. Muhammad, No. 1904007225(N), D.I. #22; State v. Muhammad, No. 1905000605(N), 
D.I. #19. 
14 Id. 
15 App. to Opening Br. at 385. 
16 Id. 
9 
 
I’m being forced, I’d rather hang myself than have somebody else hang me, that’s 
what I said.”17 
 
(20) In light of Muhammad’s responses and the pendency of his motion, the 
court advised Muhammad: 
THE COURT:  . . . So what we’re going to do now is determine whether 
you’re going to represent yourself or not, all right? 
 
MUHAMMAD:  Okay.  So we’re going to want to address that?18 
 
The court then began a colloquy with Muhammad: 
THE COURT:  You understand in the three cases, case numbers ending 
7255, 0605, and 0911, that you’ll have to conduct your defense in 
accordance with the rules of evidence and criminal procedure, correct? 
 
MUHAMMAD:  I don’t understand. 
 
THE COURT:  Okay.  If you were to represent yourself, you’d have to 
adhere to the rules of evidence, you understand that? Yes or no? 
 
MUHAMMAD:  I don’t understand. 
 
THE COURT:  Okay.  If you were to represent yourself, you’d have to 
adhere to the rules of evidence, you understand that?  Yes or no? 
 
MUHAMMAD:  No, I don’t understand. 
 
THE COURT:  Okay.  The nature of the charges against you, do you 
understand those? 
 
MUHAMMAD:  No.  I don’t even know what charges I have. . . .19 
 
 
17 Id. at A385-86. 
18 Id. at A387. 
19 Id. at A388–89. 
10 
 
Muhammad then provided a bewildering explanation of his confusion based on 
“fake case numbers”20 and counts in the two indictments that were not identical to 
the original charges upon which he was arrested. 
 
(21) Based on this history and Muhammad’s responses during this colloquy, 
the trial judge concluded that he could not “in good conscience find that [Muhammad 
was] competent to represent [him]self”21 and ordered Trial Counsel to represent him 
in all pending matters. 
 
(22) In the interim between the December 2 case review and Muhammad’s 
final case review, which was scheduled for January 6, 2020, Trial Counsel filed a 
motion for leave to file out of time a motion to suppress evidence.  Leave was 
granted, and the motion, which challenged the April 2019 search of the Newark 
motel room and a related vehicle search as well as the questioning of Muhammad in 
violation of Miranda v. Arizona,22 was filed.  The motion to suppress was pending 
at the time of Muhammad’s January 6, 2020 final case review. 
 
(23) At the final case review, Muhammad, with the assistance of Trial 
Counsel, entered into a plea agreement with the State to resolve the Trafficking Case 
and the Drug Cases.  In accordance with the agreement, Muhammad entered pleas 
of guilty to one count of Tier 2 drug dealing (cocaine) (as a lesser-included offense 
 
20 Id. at A389. 
21 Id. at A390. 
22 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). 
11 
 
to Tier 4 drug dealing); one count of drug dealing (methamphetamine with no tier 
level); and second-degree promoting prostitution (as a lesser-included offense of 
trafficking an individual).  In exchange for his guilty pleas, the State agreed to enter 
a nolle prosequi on the remaining charges in Muhammad’s cases. 
 
(24) Before accepting Muhammad’s plea, the court heard from Trial 
Counsel who reported that he had reviewed the facts of the case and the terms of the 
plea agreement with Muhammad, who, in Trial Counsel’s opinion, understood the 
constitutional rights that he was giving up by entering the guilty pleas.  Trial counsel 
also stated his belief that Muhammad was entering the pleas knowingly, 
intelligently, and voluntarily. 
 
(25) The court then addressed Muhammad, who confirmed that he had freely 
and voluntarily decided to plead guilty to the charges identified in his written plea 
agreement.  Muhammad further confirmed that he understood the penalties he was 
facing if the court accepted his pleas and that no one had threatened him or made 
any promises to him to induce him to offer the guilty pleas.  He also acknowledged 
that he understood that, by entering the guilty pleas, he would be giving up the 
constitutional rights that were specifically enumerated on the written guilty-plea 
form he had signed along with his plea agreement.23   
 
23 The constitutional rights listed on the Truth-in-Sentencing Guilty Plea Form are (1) the right to 
have a lawyer represent you at trial; (2) the right to be presumed innocent until the State can prove 
each and every part of the charge(s) against you beyond a reasonable doubt; (3) the right to a 
12 
 
 
(26) The court then accepted Muhammad’s pleas and acceded to the State’s 
and Muhammad’s joint recommendation of immediate sentencing and an aggregate 
sentence of 10 years of Level V incarceration, with all but 16 months of that time 
suspended and with credit for time served.  Muhammad then appealed. 
 
(27) On appeal, Muhammad contends that the Superior Court erred when it 
revisited his prior waiver of counsel in the Trafficking Case—a waiver the court 
accepted after due inquiry—despite his later statements in his pro se filings and in 
open court claiming that he was entitled to the appointment of counsel in the Drug 
Cases and, more generally, that he never said he wanted to represent himself.  
According to Muhammad, by revisiting the waiver in the Trafficking Case and 
finding no waiver in the Drug Cases, the Superior Court violated Muhammad’s 
constitutional right to self-representation and forced him to use Trial Counsel despite 
the prior waiver. We review claims involving the violation of constitutional rights 
de novo. 
 
(28) This Court has recognized that “[a] defendant has the right to self-
representation under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 
Article I, Section 7 of the Delaware Constitution.”24  This right, however, “may only 
 
speedy and public trial by jury; (4) the right to hear and question the witnesses against you; (5) the 
right to present evidence in your defense; (6) the right to testify or not testify yourself; and, (7) the 
right to appeal, if convicted, to the Delaware Supreme Court with assistance of a lawyer. 
24 Merritt v. State, 12 A. 3d 1154, 2011 WL 285097, at *3 (Del. Jan. 27, 2011) (TABLE) (citing 
Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 807 (1975)). 
13 
 
be invoked when the defendant has made a knowing and intelligent waiver of the 
right to counsel and the record must show that the defendant has clearly and 
unequivocally made his choice.”25  As previously noted, when a trial court is 
confronted with a defendant’s request to proceed pro se, it must engage in a 
Briscoe/Welty colloquy with the defendant to ensure that the defendant’s waiver of 
his right to counsel is knowing and intelligent.26 
 
(29) Here, the record is devoid of any support for Muhammad’s claim that 
he knowingly and intelligently waived his right to counsel in the Drug Cases, nor 
does it show that he made a clear and unequivocal choice to do so.  Muhammad’s 
appellate counsel acknowledged as much at oral argument in this Court.  And what 
is more, Muhammad’s appellate counsel recognized that, had Muhammad proceeded 
to trial without counsel in the Drug Cases and been convicted, he would have had a 
valid claim that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel because 
there had been no Briscoe/Welty colloquy.27  It follows, then, that the trial court’s 
 
25 Hooks v. State, 416 A.2d 189, 197 (Del. 1980). 
26 See ¶ 12, supra, and n. 5. 
27 
THE COURT:  Let’s say [Muhammad] did go to trial by himself to preserve this appeal.  
 
Given what you said about the state of the record on the drug charges, would he have a 
 
valid claim that he was deprived of the right to counsel because there had not been a Briscoe 
 
colloquy as to the drug charges? 
 
COUNSEL:  If we assume that there was no full Briscoe colloquy at the arraignment 
 
calendars with the Commissioner, then yes. 
 
THE COURT:  Well, there’s no record of it. 
 
COUNSEL:  There’s no record of it.   
Oral 
Argument 
at 
17:15–17:41, 
Muhammad 
v. 
State 
(No. 
7, 
2020), 
https://livestream.com/accounts/5969852/events/9878250/videos/227484941.  
 
14 
 
decision that Muhammad should be represented by counsel in the Drug Cases did 
not violate his Sixth Amendment rights; to the contrary, it preserved them. 
 
(30) The Trafficking Case presents a different scenario because the Superior 
Court had conducted a full Briscoe/Welty colloquy with Muhammad, as a result of 
which it concluded that Muhammad had knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently 
waived his right to counsel.  Consequently, Muhammad contends that, because he 
did not engage in serious and obstructionist conduct after the court accepted his 
waiver, the court should not have “terminated”28 his self-representation in the 
Trafficking Case. 
 
(31) Muhammad’s argument misses the point.  The Superior Court did not 
revisit Muhammad’s waiver of his right to counsel because of his behavior; it did so 
because Muhammad himself re-invoked his right to counsel after the waiver and two 
and a half months before his scheduled trial.  In the pro se motion Muhammad 
drafted within three days of his arraignment in the Drug Cases and the Trafficking 
Case, Muhammad described the arraignment as “the courts seventeenth attempt at 
forcing me to go pro se for which I never expressed any wishes to represent 
myself.”29  In that same motion, Muhammad expressed his concern that the 
Commissioner who presided at the arraignment “said she will ignore my right to 
 
28 Opening Br. at 49. 
29 App. to Opening Br. at A263. 
15 
 
assistance of counsel.”30  Elsewhere in the motion, Muhammad explained:  “I 
reasserted I would like to exercise my right to counsel.”31 
 
(32) In light of these statements, it is understandable that at the December 2 
case review, the specially assigned trial court judge would revisit the propriety of 
Muhammad continuing to represent himself, including in the Trafficking Case.  
Indeed, as we view the record, Muhammad invited the court to reconsider his prior 
waiver.  And when that happened on December 2, Muhammad’s statements to the 
court that he did not understand the nature of the charges he faced or the rules of 
evidence and criminal procedure by which he would be required to abide if he 
proceeded pro se justified the court’s re-appointment of counsel.   
 
(33) Subsequent events vindicated the Superior Court’s reappointment of 
counsel.  As mentioned above, the re-engaged Trial Counsel filed a motion to 
suppress on Muhammad’s behalf—a move ostensibly designed to gain bargaining 
leverage at the final case review scheduled for January 6, 2020.  And at that case 
review, Trial Counsel negotiated a plea agreement, which, according to the court’s 
factual findings, Muhammad accepted knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily.  
More to the point of Muhammad’s present claim, he told the court that he was—at 
last—satisfied with Trial Counsel’s representation of him. 
 
30 Id. at A265. 
31 Id. at A264.  It is unclear when Muhammad claims to have reasserted his right to counsel, but a 
fair reading of his pro se motion suggests that it occurred at his arraignment.   
16 
 
 
(34) The State contends—and there is considerable persuasive force to its 
argument—that Muhammad’s guilty pleas operate as a waiver of his right to self-
representation.  Pointing to a split of authority in the federal circuit courts of appeal 
on this issue, Muhammad counters that the deprivation of the right to self-
representation is a structural error and, therefore, not subject to waiver.  Muhammad 
also points to an arguably analogous United States Supreme Court decision—Class 
v. United States32—which considered the types of constitutional claims that are 
waived when a defendant pleads guilty, in his effort to defeat the State’s waiver 
argument.  Because Muhammad never waived his right to counsel in the Drug Cases 
and himself called into question the validity of his waiver in the Trafficking Case, 
thus justifying the court’s re-evaluation of it and consequent reappointment of 
counsel, we need not address whether Muhammad’s pleas effected a waiver.  
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior 
Court is AFFIRMED.  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
BY THE COURT:  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Gary F. Traynor 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Justice 
 
32 Class v. United States, __ U.S. __, 138 S. Ct. 798 (2018)