Title: St. Louis v. State

State: delaware

Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
JAMES ST. LOUIS,   
 
Defendant Below- 
Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF DELAWARE,  
 
Plaintiff Below- 
Appellee. 
§ 
§  No. 459, 2010 
§ 
§ 
§  Court Below─Superior Court 
§  of the State of Delaware 
§  in and for Sussex County 
§  Cr. ID No. 0009015005 
§ 
§ 
§ 
 
 
 
 
 
Submitted: August 18, 2010 
 
 
 
 
Decided:    October 4, 2010 
 
Before BERGER, JACOBS and RIDGELY, Justices. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
O R D E R  
 
 
This 4th day of October 2010, upon consideration of the appellant’s 
opening brief and the appellee’s motion to affirm pursuant to Supreme Court 
Rule 25(a), it appears to the Court that: 
 
(1) 
The defendant-appellant, James St. Louis, filed an appeal from 
the Superior Court’s July 8, 2010 order denying his fourth postconviction 
motion pursuant to Superior Court Criminal Rule 61.  The plaintiff-appellee, 
the State of Delaware, has moved to affirm the Superior Court’s judgment 
 
2 
on the ground that it is manifest on the face of the opening brief that the 
appeal is without merit.1  We agree and affirm. 
 
(2) 
The record reflects that, in May 2001, St. Louis was found 
guilty by a Superior Court jury of Rape in the First Degree and Continuous 
Sexual Abuse of a Child in connection with the rape of his then 8-year old 
stepdaughter.  He was sentenced to a total of 40 years of Level V 
incarceration, to be suspended after 22 years for decreasing levels of 
supervision.  This Court affirmed St. Louis’s convictions on direct appeal.2  
Since then, St. Louis filed three motions for postconviction relief, all of 
which were denied by the Superior Court.  This Court affirmed the Superior 
Court’s judgment in all three instances.3  In all three of his previous 
postconviction motions, St. Louis claimed, among other things, that a 
videotape of his stepdaughter being interviewed at the Child Advocacy 
Center should not have been shown to the jury.   
 
(3) 
In this appeal from the Superior Court’s denial of his fourth 
postconviction motion, St. Louis again claims that the videotape should not 
have been shown to the jury.  This time he contends that, because the 
forensic interviewer’s questions were impermissibly suggestive in violation 
                                                 
1 Supr. Ct. R. 25(a). 
2 St. Louis v. State, Del. Supr., No. 323, 2001, Steele, J. (May 24, 2002). 
3 St. Louis v. State, Del. Supr., No. 446, 2004, Steele, C.J. (Mar. 1, 2005); St. Louis v. 
State, Del. Supr., No. 165, 2008, Holland, J. (Dec. 18, 2008); St. Louis v. State, Del. 
Supr., No. 49, 2010, Jacobs, J. (May 18, 2010). 
 
3 
of Del. Code Ann. tit. 11, §3507, the statement should not have been 
admitted into evidence.  Furthermore, he argues, the Superior Court should 
not have applied the procedural bars to his postconviction claim, but, rather, 
should have reached the merits of the claim under Rule 61(i)(5) due to the 
existence of a colorable claim of a miscarriage of justice. 
 
(4) 
Section 3507 provides that “[i]n a criminal prosecution, the 
voluntary out-of-court prior statement of a witness who is present and 
subject to cross-examination may be used as affirmative evidence with 
substantive independent testimonial value.”  As this Court recently 
reaffirmed,4 there are four foundational requirements for the admission of a 
witness’s statement pursuant to §3507 as well as the Sixth Amendment’s 
Confrontation Clause.  First, the party offering the statement must examine 
the declarant regarding both the events perceived and the truthfulness of the 
statement itself.5  Second, the offering party must establish that the statement 
was voluntary, either on direct examination or on voir dire, and the judge 
must render an explicit determination of the issue before submitting the 
statement to the jury.6  Third, the declarant must be subject to cross-
                                                 
4 Woodlin v. State, Del. Supr., No. 44, 2009, Holland, J. (July 22, 2010) (en Banc). 
5 Keys v. State, 337 A.2d 18 (Del. 1975). 
6 Hatcher v. State, 337 A.2d 30 (Del. 1975). 
 
4 
examination on the content of the statement as well as its truthfulness.7  
Fourth, the statement must be offered into evidence no later than the 
conclusion of the direct examination of the declarant.8      
 
(5) 
The record before us provides no support for St. Louis’s claim 
that his stepdaughter’s out-of-court statement was improperly admitted into 
evidence at his trial.  To the contrary, those portions of the trial transcript 
attached to St. Louis’s opening brief reflect that the prosecution fulfilled all 
of the proper foundational requirements for his stepdaughter’s out-of-court 
statement.  After carefully considering the issue, the trial judge made an 
explicit finding that the forensic interviewer’s questions were not unduly 
suggestive and we find nothing in St. Louis’s arguments or the record before 
us that would lead us to question that finding at this late stage.  Because St. 
Louis has failed to demonstrate a miscarriage of justice, we conclude that the 
Superior Court properly denied St. Louis’s postconviction claim as 
procedurally barred.   
 
(6) 
It is manifest on the face of the opening brief that this appeal is 
without merit because the issues presented on appeal are controlled by 
                                                 
7 Ray v. State, 587 A.2d 439, 443 (Del. 1991) (citing Johnson v. State, 338 A.2d 124, 127 
(Del. 1975)). 
8 Smith v. State, 669 A.2d 1, 8 (Del. 1995). 
 
5 
settled Delaware law and, to the extent that judicial discretion is implicated, 
there was no abuse of discretion. 
 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the State’s motion to 
affirm is GRANTED.  The judgment of the Superior Court is AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Jack B. Jacobs  
 
 
 
 
 
        Justice