Title: Franks v. State

State: delaware

Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
JEROME FRANKS, 
 
Defendant Below, 
Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
Appellee. 
§ 
§  No. 133, 2023 
§ 
§  Court Below–Superior Court 
§  of the State of Delaware 
§   
§  Cr. ID No. 89K01032DI (K) 
§                   
§   
§                       
 
Submitted: July 20, 2023 
 
 
 
 
Decided: 
October 17, 2023 
 
 
 
 
 
Before TRAYNOR, LEGROW, and GRIFFITHS, Justices. 
 
ORDER 
 
After consideration of the appellant’s opening brief, the State’s motion to 
affirm, and the record on appeal, it appears to the Court that: 
(1) 
The appellant, Jerome Franks, appeals the Superior Court’s summary 
dismissal of his ninth motion for postconviction relief.  The State has filed a motion 
to affirm the judgment below on the ground that it is manifest on the face of Franks’ 
opening brief that his appeal is without merit.  We agree and affirm. 
(2) 
Following a jury trial in 1976, Franks was found guilty of first-degree 
rape, first-degree burglary, and second-degree kidnapping.  The Superior Court 
imposed a life sentence for Franks’ rape conviction and imposed an aggregate 
2 
 
sentence of fifty years of incarceration for the burglary and kidnapping convictions.  
We affirmed Franks’ convictions and sentence on direct appeal.1 
(3) 
Franks, aka Oyaide Haamid Salaah, then filed a timely motion for 
postconviction relief in which he argued, among other things, that the State failed to 
disclose to the defense a FBI report that compared a sample of his hair with hair 
collected at the crime scene and found no correlation between the two.  The Superior 
Court denied the motion, and this Court affirmed on appeal.2  In relevant part, we 
noted that the FBI report was “inconclusive” and that “[t]he Superior Court judge 
expressly found that the State made available the … FBI report[] to [defense] 
counsel.”3  Because Franks had admitted that he was present at the crime scene and 
that he had engaged in various sexual acts with the victim, we further observed that 
even if the State had failed to disclose the FBI report, Franks was unable to show 
that the failure had affected the outcome of his trial.  Between 1988 and 2016, Franks 
filed seven motions for postconviction relief, all of which were denied.4 
(4) 
In March 2023, Franks filed his ninth motion for postconviction relief.  
Although captioned as a motion for postconviction relief, the first paragraph of the 
motion cites both Superior Court Criminal Rule 61 (under which a movant may seek 
 
1 Franks v. State, 398 A.2d 783 (Del. 1979). 
2 Salaah v. State, 1987 WL 36704 (Del. Feb. 12, 1987). 
3 Id. at *1. 
4 See Franks v. State, 2016 WL 153642 (Del. Jan. 11, 2016) (affirming the denial of Franks’ 
seventh motion for postconviction relief); Salaah v. State, 1991 WL 165559 (Del. July 11, 1991) 
(affirming the denial of Franks’ third motion for postconviction relief). 
3 
 
postconviction relief) and Superior Court Criminal Rule 35(a), (under which a 
movant may seek the correction of an illegal sentence).  On March 29, 2023, the 
Superior Court summarily dismissed the motion as procedurally barred under Rule 
61.  This appeal followed. 
(5) 
Franks raises two arguments on appeal: (i) the aforementioned 1976 
FBI report is new evidence of his actual innocence, entitling him to relief under Rule 
61; and (ii) his sentence is illegal, and the Superior Court erred by applying Rule 
61’s procedural bars to his Rule 35(a) motion.  Franks’ arguments are unavailing. 
(6) 
First, contrary to Franks’ argument, the existence of the inconclusive 
FBI forensic report is neither “new” evidence—it was, in fact, made available to the 
defense more than forty years ago—nor evidence of the appellant’s actual innocence, 
given that the appellant testified at trial that he and the victim had sexual intercourse 
but that it was consensual.  The Superior Court therefore properly denied Franks’ 
motion for postconviction relief, which was procedurally barred under Rule 
61(d)(2).5 
(7) 
Second, it is clear that Franks is not serving an illegal sentence.  A 
sentence is illegal if it exceeds statutory limits, violates the Double Jeopardy Clause, 
 
5 Del. Super. Crim. R. 61(d)(2) (providing that a second or subsequent motion for postconviction 
relief must be summarily dismissed unless the movant was convicted after a trial and pleads with 
particularity (i) new evidence of actual innocence or (ii) that a new rule of constitutional law, made 
retroactive to cases on collateral review, applies to the movant’s case and renders the conviction 
invalid). 
4 
 
is ambiguous with respect to the time and manner in which it is to be served, is 
internally contradictory, omits a term required to be imposed by statute, is uncertain 
as to its substance, or is a sentence that the judgment of conviction did not authorize.6  
Franks’ sentence suffers from none of these infirmities.7 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the State’s motion to affirm is 
GRANTED and the judgment of the Superior Court is AFFIRMED.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Abigail M. LeGrow 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Justice 
 
6 Brittingham v. State, 705 A.2d 577, 578 (Del. 1998). 
7 To the extent that Franks argues that he is entitled to conditional release, he is mistaken. Evans 
v. State, 872 A.2d 539, 558 (Del. 2005) (holding that a defendant sentenced to life in prison before 
the enactment of the 1989 Truth-In-Sentencing Act is not eligible for conditional release and must 
remain incarcerated until his death, unless he is granted parole).