IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

JOSEPH FOLKS, 

Defendant Below, 

Appellant, 

v. 

STATE OF DELAWARE, 

Plaintiff Below, 

Appellee. 

§ 

§ 

§ No. 414, 2019 

§ 

§ Court Below—Superior Court 

§ of the State of Delaware 

§ 

§ Cr. ID No. 30103873DI (N) 

§ 

§ 

 Submitted: December 27, 2019 

 Decided: February 21, 2020 

Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VAUGHN, and TRAYNOR, Justices. 

 

ORDER 

 Upon consideration of the appellant’s opening brief, the appellee’s motion to 

affirm, and the record below, it appears to the Court that: 

(1) The appellant, Joseph Folks, filed this appeal from the Superior Court’s 

September 12, 2019 order sentencing him for a violation of probation (“VOP”). The 

State of Delaware has moved to affirm the Superior Court’s judgment on the ground 

that it is manifest on the face of Folks’s opening brief that the appeal is without 

merit. We agree and affirm. 

(2) The record reflects that, in 1993, a Superior Court jury found Folks 

guilty of two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a ten year old. The Superior 

Court sentenced Folks to thirty-five years of Level V incarceration suspended after 
2

thirty years for decreasing levels of supervision. The sentencing order also required 

Folks to be evaluated for emotional or psychological problems and to follow any 

recommendations for treatment made by the probation officer. This Court affirmed 

the Superior Court’s judgment on direct appeal.1

 Folks subsequently filed multiple, 

unsuccessful motions for postconviction relief.2

 

(3) In April 2019, an administrative warrant was filed for Folks’s violation 

of his conditional release and probation. The reports alleged that Folks’s 

unsatisfactory discharge from sex offender treatment violated his sentencing order 

and the sex offender conditions of supervision that he signed in February 2019. 

Folks was discharged, at his own request, from sex offender treatment because he 

refused to admit he was guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse. After Folks was given 

another chance to complete a sex offender treatment program (but was again 

discharged) and several hearings, the Superior Court found that Folks had violated 

his conditional release and probation. For the first unlawful sexual intercourse 

conviction, the Superior Court discharged Folks’s conditional release. For the 

second unlawful sexual intercourse conviction, the Superior Court sentenced Folks 

to five years of Level V incarceration suspended after his successful completion of 

 

1 Folks v. State, 1994 WL 330011 (Del. June 28, 1994). 

2 See, e.g., State v. Folks, 2013 WL 3357127, at *4 (Del. Super. Ct. June 19, 2013) (denying 

Folks’s fifth petition for postconviction relief under Superior Court Criminal Rule 61); Folks v. 

Phelps, 2013 WL 6092267, at *2 (D. Del. Nov. 18, 2013) (denying Folks’s second habeas 

petition). 
3

the Level V Transitions Program and followed by eighteen months of Level III 

probation. This appeal followed. 

(4) In his opening brief on appeal, Folks does not dispute that he was 

discharged from sex offender treatment. Instead, he argues that: (i) the Superior 

Court never had subject matter jurisdiction over him because his 1991 arrest was 

illegal; (ii) his 1993 convictions were illegal; (iii) his due process rights and 

international human rights were violated; and (iv) the sex offender conditions that 

he signed were not binding because he signed with his legal name followed by the 

notation “without prejudice.” These claims are without merit. 

(5) Folks cannot collaterally attack his 1991 arrest and 1993 convictions in 

an appeal from his 2019 VOP.3

 As to his conclusory due process/international 

human rights claims, Folks fails to explain how those rights were violated. Finally, 

Folks’s “without prejudice” notation did not release him from the treatment 

condition in his sentencing order. The Superior Court did not err in finding that 

Folks’s discharge from sex offender treatment violated his conditional release and 

probation. 

 

3 See, e.g., Weaver v. State, 779A.2d 254, 259 n.17 (Del. 2001) (“The right to appeal from a 

sentence for a VOP is limited. The defendant may challenge the VOP proceedings and sentence, 

but there is no right to challenge the underlying conviction and proceedings leading to that 

conviction.”). 
4

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the motion to affirm is 

GRANTED and the judgment of the Superior Court is AFFIRMED. 

 BY THE COURT: 

 /s/ Collins J. Seitz, Jr. 

 Chief Justice