IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE JAMES W. RILEY, Defendant Below, Appellant,

v. STATE OF DELAWARE, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. § § No. 207, 2019 § § Court Below—Superior Court § of the State of Delaware § § Cr. ID No. 00004014504 (K) § § § § Submitted: July 5, 2019 Decided: August 21, 2019 Before VALIHURA , SEITZ , 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, James W. Riley, f iled this appeal from the Superior Court’s denial of his motion to correct an illegal sentence. Th e State of Delaware has filed a motion to affirm the judgment below on the ground that it is manifest on the face of Riley’s opening brief that his appeal is without me rit. We agree and affirm. (2) In 1982, Riley was convicted of multip le crimes, including first degree murder, and was sentenced to death. Th is Court affirmed the convictions and2 sentence. 1 In 2001, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed Riley’s convictions a nd ordered a new trial. 2 On retrial, a Superior Court jury found Riley guilty of first degree murder, first degree robbery, and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony. The Superior Court sentenced Riley to life imprisonment plus another twenty-five ye ars of incarceration. On appeal, this Court affirmed. 3 This Court also affirmed the S uperior Court’s denial of Riley’s first and second motions for postconviction relief. 4 (3) In March 2019, Riley filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence. He argued that the Hurst v. Florida 5 and Rauf v. State 6 decisions extended to the pretrial and trial stages, many judges misused thei r impermissible final sentencing authority to impose the death penalty throughout pret rial and trial proceedings, a life-withoutparole sentence cannot be severed from the capital sentencing provisions in 11 Del.
C. § 4209, and he should be resentenced fo r second degree murder. The Superior Court denied the motion, find ing the sentence was appropri ate for all of the reasons stated at sentencing. This appeal followed.

1 Riley v. State , 496 A.2d 997 (Del. 1985). 2 Riley v. Taylor , 277 F.3d 261 (3d Cir. 2001). 3 Riley v. State , 2004 WL 2850093 (Del. Oct. 20, 2004). 4 Riley v. State , 2014 WL 98643 (Del. Jan. 9, 2014); Riley v. State , 2012 WL 252405 (Del. Jan. 26, 2012). 5 136 S.Ct. 616, 622-24 (2016) (holdi ng Florida’s capital sentencing scheme, which entailed a jury making a sentencing recommendation and a judge finding the facts necessary to impose a death sentence, violated the Sixth Amendment). 6 145 A.3d 430, 434 (Del. 2016) (holding the ca pital sentencing procedures in 11 Del. C. § 4209 were unconstitutional under federal law).3 (4) We review the denial of a motion fo r correction of sentence for abuse of discretion. 7 To the extent a claim involves a question of law, we review the claim de novo

. 8 A sentence is illegal if it exceeds statutory limits, violates double jeopardy, 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. 9 (5) The Superior Court did not err in denying Riley’s motion to correct an illegal sentence. After his retrial in 2003, Riley was sentenced to life imprisonment, not the death penalty. The Hurst and Rauf holdings on the constitutionality of death penalty statutes have no bearing on Riley’s life sentence. Riley contends that trial judges misused their authority to impose th e death penalty in pretrial and trial proceedings, but fails to show that any such misuse occurred here. This Court previously rejected Riley’s claim that the trial judge di d not fulfill his obligation to inquire fully into the reasons for R iley’s disagreement with his counsel. 10 As to Riley’s severability argumen t, this Court held in Powell v. State 11 and Zebroski v.
State 12 that the life-without-parole alternative in § 4209 is severable from the rest of

7 Fountain v. State , 2014 WL 4102069, at *1 (Del. Aug. 19, 2014). 8 Id. 9 Brittingham v. State , 705 A.2d 577, 578 (Del. 1998). 10 Riley , 2004 WL 2850093, at *4 (concluding that the tria l judge made the appropriate inquiries and properly determined that there was no disqualifying conflict of interest). 11 153 A.3d 69 (Del. 2016). 12 179 A.3d 855 (Del. 2018).4 the death penalty statute. Riley has not s hown a basis to overturn either of those decisions. NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the Motion to Affirm is GRANTED and the judgment of th e Superior Court is AFFIRMED.
BY THE COURT:

/s/ Collins J. Seitz, Jr. Justice