IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

STATE OF DELAWARE, )

)

)

 v. ) I.D. No. 1409001584

) 

CHRISTOPHER RIVERS, )

)

 Defendant. )

Submitted: January 7, 2022

Decided: March 31, 2022

Upon Consideration of Post-Conviction Relief Counsel’s Motion to Withdraw,

GRANTED.

Upon Consideration of Defendant’s Motion to Deny Post-Conviction Relief 

Counsel’s Motion to Withdraw,

DENIED.

Upon Consideration of Defendant’s Motion for Post-Conviction Relief,

SUMMARILY DISMISSED.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Maria T. Knoll, Esquire, Chief of Appeals, and Kathryn J. Garrison, Esquire, Deputy 

Attorney General, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Wilmington, Delaware. 

Attorneys for the State of Delaware.

Andrew J. Witherell, Esquire, Wilmington, Delaware. Post-Conviction Relief

Counsel.

Christopher Rivers, Smyrna, Delaware. Pro se Defendant.

BUTLER, R.J.
2

Defendant Christopher Rivers was convicted on homicide and related felony 

weapons and inchoate charges stemming from an infamous “murder for hire” 

scheme. He has moved pro se under Rule 61 for post-conviction relief. Having

investigated Rivers’s allegations, court-appointed post-conviction relief counsel 

(“PCR Counsel”) now moves to withdraw on the ground that Rivers’s motion 

contains no arguably meritorious claims. The State supports PCR Counsel’s motion

and Rivers moves pro se against it. For the reasons below, PCR Counsel’s motion

to withdraw is granted and Rivers’s motions are denied.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The Court has issued many written decisions in this saga. The relevant facts 

are taken from one of those decisions.1

A. The Direct Proceedings

Rivers and Joe Connell owned an auto repair business. Connell was recently 

married to Olga Connell. For a variety of reasons, the business fell on hard times. 

Rivers decided to alleviate the situation by having his business partner killed.

Rivers enlisted a co-conspirator, Joshua Bey, to carry out the murder. Bey 

assured Rivers that he knew people who could do that. Bey contacted codefendant 

Dominique Benson, who contacted codefendant Aaron Thompson. Through the 

testimony of Bey and corroborating evidence consisting primarily of cell tower 

1 See State v. Benson, 2016 WL 6196073, at *1 (Del. Super. Ct. Oct. 14, 2016).
3

location data, the State sought to place Thompson and Benson at or near the 

apartment complex where Joe and Olga Connell were living on the fateful night 

when, upon returning home from a night out with Rivers, they were murdered

outside their apartment. Circumstantial evidence at the crime scene suggested that 

the Connells were killed by two individuals—or at least two different handguns.

After an investigation that apparently included the early “flipping” of 

Bey, Rivers and Benson (but not Thompson) were indicted for the murders. Indeed, 

the State did not identify Thompson at all until trial was underway. Because the 

Court was unwilling to delay the trial ad infinitum until the State indicted Thompson, 

it was fairly assumed that a second trial would be necessary once Thompson was 

identified and arrested.

Rivers and Benson were tried together. Rivers was convicted of two counts 

of Murder First Degree, two counts of Possession of a Firearm During Commission 

of a Felony, Conspiracy First Degree, and Criminal Solicitation First Degree. 

Benson was convicted of Conspiracy First Degree, but the jury hung on the 

remaining counts. 

Rivers appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court. He argued New Castle 

County was an improper venue for his trial and that certain co-conspirator statements 

should have been excluded as hearsay. The Supreme Court disagreed and affirmed.2

2 See generally Rivers v. State, 183 A.3d 1240 (Del. 2018).
4

B. The Instant Motions

Rivers, proceeding pro se, timely moved under Rule 61 for post-conviction 

relief. He alleges ineffective assistance of counsel claims. The Court appointed 

PCR Counsel to represent him. PCR Counsel eventually moved to withdraw on the 

ground that Rivers’s claims are meritless. Rivers was given an opportunity to 

supplement his motion with any arguments he believed PCR Counsel overlooked.

Rivers makes two arguments in his opposition motion. First, he contends the 

Murder First Degree instruction was defective in that it incorrectly allowed the jury 

to convict him based on a conspiracy with Bey, the middleman, and not the actual 

shooter(s). He adds there was no evidence that he ever conspired directly with the 

shooters or made payment directly to them. Second, he cites Pennsylvania law in

arguing that the State was required, but failed, to prove he had “foreknowledge” of 

how the Connells would be killed.

As explained below, Rivers’s arguments lack merit. Accordingly, the Court 

adopts PCR Counsel’s analysis, grants his motion, and denies Rivers’s opposition 

motion. In light of those rulings, Rivers’s Rule 61 motion is summarily dismissed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

A defendant may move for post-conviction relief under Criminal Rule 61.3 

Rule 61 provides a collateral remedy capable of overturning convictions that lack 

3 Del. Super. Ct. Crim. R. 61 (2017).
5

integrity.4 But judgments are presumptively valid.5 And Rule 61 does not “allow 

defendants unlimited opportunities to relitigate” their convictions.6 Accordingly, a 

Rule 61 motion will be denied unless the defendant shows his conviction is not 

supported by the “sufficient factual and legal basis” that otherwise is presumed.7

ANALYSIS

A Rule 61 analysis proceeds in two steps. First, the Court must determine

whether the motion clears Rule 61’s procedural bars.8 If the motion is not barred,

the Court next reviews the motion’s merits on a claim-by-claim basis.9 Ineffective

assistance of counsel claims generally are not subject to Rule 61’s procedural bars.10 

And neither PCR Counsel nor the State argues otherwise. So the Court will review—

and reject—Rivers’s claims and supplemental arguments on the merits.

4 E.g., Ploof v. State, 75 A.3d 811, 820 (Del. 2013) (explaining that Rule 61 “is 

intended to correct errors in the trial process”); Zebroski v. State, 12 A.3d 1115, 1120 

(Del. 2010) (explaining that Rule 61 balances the law’s interest in conviction finality 

“against . . . the important role of the courts in preventing injustice”).

5 See, e.g., Parke v. Raley, 506 U.S. 20, 29 (1992) (recognizing a “presumption of 

regularity” that attaches to all final judgments); accord Xenidis v. State, 2020 WL 

1274624, at *2 (Del. Mar. 17, 2020).

6 Ploof, 75 A.3d at 820. E.g., Flamer v. State, 585 A.2d 736, 745 (Del. 1990) 

(cautioning that, despite the availability of post-conviction review, there must be a 

“definitive end to the litigable aspect of the criminal process”).

7 Del. Super. Ct. Crim. R. 61(a)(1). E.g., Dorsey v. State, 2007 WL 4965637, at *1–

2 (Del. Nov. 6, 2007).

8 E.g., Younger v. State, 580 A.2d 552, 554 (Del. 1990).

9 E.g., State v. Reyes, 155 A.3d 331, 342 n.15 (Del. 2017).

10 See, e.g., Green v. State, 238 A.3d 160, 175 (Del. 2020).
6

A. Rivers’s convictions are valid.

1. Rivers committed both conspiracy and murder.

Rivers’s first argument hopelessly confuses the legal distinction between 

“inchoate offenses” and liability for the conduct of another (i.e., “accomplice 

liability”).11 “Inchoate offenses such as conspiracy are punishable as separate 

offenses” from the substantive offenses they are designed to achieve.12 Put 

differently, “[a] conspiracy requires an agreement between co-conspirators, but the 

object of the conspiracy need not be accomplished.”13 Instead, a conspiracy is 

complete when one person agrees with another to commit a felony (e.g., a murder) 

and one of the persons commits an “overt act” in furtherance of the conspiracy.14 

Accomplice liability is different. As a “general principle of criminal law . . . 

one cannot be convicted as an accomplice unless the State’s proof establishes that 

the substantive offense was committed by someone.”15 In contrast to conspiratorial 

liability, “the underlying crime must have occurred” for accomplice liability to 

attach.16 Accordingly, a person is liable as an accomplice when the person “intend[s] 

11 Compare 11 Del. C. §§ 501–03 (solicitation), 511–13 (conspiracy), 531 (attempt),

with id. § 271 (liability for the conduct of another).

12 Stroik v. State, 671 A.2d 1335, 1344 (Del. 1996).

13 Manlove v. State, 901 A.2d 1284, 1288 (Del. 2006).

14 11 Del. C. § 513. E.g., Lemons v. State, 32 A.3d 358, 362–65 (Del. 2011).

15 Probst v. State, 547 A.2d 114, 123–24 (Del. 1988).

16 Manlove, 901 A.2d at 1288.
7

to promote or facilitate the commission” of a substantive offense and the substantive 

offense actually is committed.17

Importantly, however, a person can be both a conspirator and an accomplice.18

“The crime of conspiracy is distinct from the crime or crimes [that] are the objects 

of the conspiracy.”19 But conspiracy also involves “cooperation.”20 So when coconspirators “intend[] to promote or facilitate the commission” of an offense,21 and 

the offense is indeed committed, their liability bifurcates into accomplice (or 

principal) liability and conspiratorial liability.22 Accordingly, a conspiracy to 

17 11 Del. C. § 271(2). E.g., Claudio v. State, 585 A.2d 1278, 1281–83 (Del. 1991).

18 See, e.g., Holland v. State, 744 A.2d 980, 982 (Del. 2000) (“A jury’s guilty verdict 

on a conspiracy charge and an acquittal on the underlying felony are not always 

legally inconsistent verdicts under Delaware law.”).

19 Steele v. State, 151 A.2d 127, 130 (Del. 1957) (citing Pinkerton v. United States, 

328 U.S. 640, 643–44 (1946)).

20 Guyer v. State, 453 A.2d 462, 466 (Del. 1982).

21 11 Del. C. § 271(2).

22 See State v. Vouras, 351 A.2d 869, 878 (Del. Super. Ct. 1976) (“In Delaware, . . . 

the crime of conspiracy [is] separate and distinct from the substantive offense . . . . 

[I]t is clear that conspiracy does not merge with the substantive offense even when 

the latter is complete[.]” (internal quotation marks omitted)); cf. Stewart v. State, 437 

A.2d 153, 156 (Del. 1981) (“The Conspiracy Statute has its own ‘accomplice 

liability’ language; for it to be invoked, there need be no reference to 11 Del. C. § 

271 . . . .” By consequence, “there is no merit in the defendant’s position that the 

jury’s rejection of § 271 accomplice liability means there must likewise be a 

rejection of accomplice liability as to the commission of the overt act in a 

conspiracy.”).
8

commit a murder is complete upon an agreement and overt act and accomplice 

liability attaches once the planned murder is actually executed by a co-conspirator.

23

 

Against this background, Rivers’s suggestion that each member of the 

conspiracy had to know each other lacks merit. No such requirement is spelled out 

in the statute and such a requirement is illogical anyway. Otherwise, murder

planners could escape liability by using intermediaries who in turn hire mercenaries 

to commit the homicide. They cannot do that.

24 A person is liable as an accomplice

for a criminal outcome so long as the result is a “foreseeable consequence” of the

person’s “underlying felonious conduct.”

25

Here, the evidence showed that Rivers conspired with Bey, who further 

conspired with Benson and Thompson, to murder the Connells. The fact that Rivers 

did not pull the trigger does not make him any less guilty of conspiracy or any less 

23 E.g., Manlove, 901 A.2d at 1288; see also Thomas v. State, 467 A.2d 954, 959 

(Del. 1983) (separating and validating accomplice liability-based conviction as 

distinct from conspiracy charge).

24 See Broomer v. State, 126 A.3d 1110, 1113 (Del. 2015) (“Under Delaware law, it 

is not necessary for a defendant to commit the overt act underlying the conspiracy 

charge. It is sufficient that a co-conspirator commit the overt act.” (internal 

quotation marks omitted)); Turner v. State, 25 A.3d 774, 776 (Del. 2011) (affirming 

accomplice liability-based conviction where codefendants “divide[d] responsibility” 

in committing substantive offense); Martin v. State, 433 A.2d 1025, 1029 (Del. 

1981) (“The inquiry under § 271 is not whether each accomplice had the specific 

intent to commit murder, but whether [the accomplice] intended to promote or 

facilitate the principal’s conduct constituting the offense.” (internal quotation marks 

omitted)). see also State v. Cole, 114 A. 201, 204 (Del. Ct. Gen. Sess. 1921) (“The 

gist of [conspiracy] is the unlawful combination between the parties.”).

25 E.g., Hassan–El v. State, 911 A.2d 385, 394 (Del. 2006).
9

liable as an accomplice.

26

 Quite the opposite: the evidence established that Rivers 

entered a homicidal conspiracy with his codefendants and that the murders were 

foreseeable consequences of his felonious decision to solicit or promote a contract 

on the Connells’ lives. Accordingly, Rivers’s first argument fails.

2. Rivers intended his crimes and was not “merely present” at the scene.

With more time on his hands than legal insight, Rivers found a few 

Pennsylvania cases that reversed convictions based upon the defendant’s “mere 

presence” at the crime scene. He says the State must show his “foreknowledge” of 

the ways in which Bey and his hired killers would commit the murders.27 These 

arguments fail for at least three reasons.

First, Rivers did not need to research Pennsylvania law. Delaware law also 

holds that “mere presence” at a crime scene is insufficient to impose liability, 

26 See Younger v. State, 2009 WL 2612520, at *2 (Del. Aug. 26, 2009) (“An overt 

act in support of a conspiracy charge need not be a completed crime or even an act 

that would amount to a substantial step in furtherance of the underlying felony; 

rather, it may be any act in pursuance of or tending toward the accomplishment of 

the conspiratorial purpose.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also White v. 

State, 243 A.3d 381, 400 (Del. 2020) (Like Rivers’s interpretation, “White’s 

interpretation, if adopted, would effectively immunize [conspirators who agree to 

commit class A felonies] from additional liability should they conspire with their 

confederates to escalate their criminal endeavors—in for a penny, in for a pound. 

Such a conclusion is at odds with the General Assembly’s intent . . . .”).

27 Def.’s Opp. Mot. to PCR Counsel’s Mot. to Withdraw at 12 (discussing 

Commonwealth v. Fields, 333 A.2d 745 (Pa. 1974); Commonwealth v. Roscioli, 309 

A.2d 396 (Pa. 1973); and Commonwealth v. Swerdlow, 636 A.2d 1173 (Pa. Super. 

Ct. 1994)).
10

conspiratorial or otherwise.28 But here, the State never alleged, and no evidence ever 

suggested, that Rivers was “merely present” when the Connells were killed. To the 

contrary, the evidence showed that Rivers was at home, pacing his rooms, and in 

plain sight of security cameras in his house, which duly recorded his activities. 

Second, Rivers is simply incorrect when he argues that the State failed to 

prove his “foreknowledge” of the homicide. Bey testified that Rivers solicited his 

help in murdering the Connells. Bey methodically walked the jury through all of his

interactions with Rivers, his solicitation of Benson and Thompson as the killers, and

the many phone calls and text messages between Bey and Rivers and Bey and 

Thompson. All this evidence corroborated Bey’s testimony that Rivers solicited the 

homicide and that it was carried out by Thompson and Benson.

Finally, the State was not required to prove that Rivers had “foreknowledge” 

of the exact way Bey planned to kill the Connells. Since murder was his goal, Rivers 

would be guilty even if Bey changed his mind at the last minute and killed the 

Connells using means different from those the parties originally discussed.

29

 Rivers 

wanted the Connells killed. It did not matter to him how they died.

28 E.g., Dalton v. State, 252 A.2d 104, 105 (Del. 1969); State v. Winsett, 205 A.2d 

510, 519 (Del. Super. Ct. 1964).

29 See State v. Stiegler, 105 A. 667, 670–71 (Del. 1918) (“Conspiracy implies concert 

of design and not participation in every detail necessary to carry the general purpose 

or design into execution. Though the common design is the essence of the charge, 

it is not necessary to prove that the accused came together and actually agreed in 

terms to have that design and to pursue it by common means. If it be proved that the 
11

In sum, the jury heard all the evidence, as well as the instructions on 

accomplice liability. They were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Rivers 

was guilty of Murder First Degree. Rivers’s supplemental arguments fail to show 

that the verdicts were in error or contrary to the law. So his opposition is denied.

B. Rivers’s Rule 61 motion contains no arguably meritorious claims.

The Court has reviewed PCR Counsel’s motion to withdraw, as well as the 

affidavits of Rivers’s trial counsel, the pleadings in this matter, and the original trial 

pleadings. The Court sees nothing in the record that necessitates further review of 

Rivers’s Rule 61 motion. Accordingly, the Court adopts PCR Counsel’s analysis

and grants his motion. Given PCR Counsel’s analysis, it now “plainly appears” that 

Rivers is not entitled to post-conviction relief.30 So the Court summarily dismisses 

his Rule 61 motion too.31

CONCLUSION

Having found that PCR Counsel correctly deemed Rivers’s Rule 61 motion 

meritless, the Court GRANTS the motion to withdraw, DENIES the opposition to 

it, and SUMMARILY DISMISSES the Rule 61 motion.

accused pursued, by their acts, the same object, often by the same means, one 

performing one part and another . . . part of the same, so as to complete it, with a 

view to the attainment of the same object, the jury will be justified in the conclusion 

that they were engaged in a conspiracy to effect that object.” (citation omitted)).

30 Del. Super. Ct. Crim. R. 61(d)(5).

31 Id.
12

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Charles E. Butler, Resident Judge