Title: Bowen v. State
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 620, 2005
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: July 24, 2006

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
DALE BOWEN,  
 
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  No. 620, 2005 
 
 
Defendant Below,  
) 
 
 
Appellant,  
 
)  Court Below:  Superior Court 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  of the State of Delaware in 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
)  and for New Castle County 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
)  Cr. ID. No. 0410015936 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
 
 
Plaintiff Below, 
 
) 
 
 
Appellee. 
 
 
) 
 
Submitted:  May 31, 2006 
Decided:  July 24, 2006 
 
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND and JACOBS, Justices. 
 
O R D E R 
 
 
This 24th day of July, 2006, upon consideration of the briefs of the parties 
and the record in this case, it appears to the Court that:  
 
(1) 
Dale Bowen appeals from his convictions for Carjacking First Degree, 
two counts of Possession of a Deadly Weapon During the Commission of a 
Felony, and Possession of a Deadly Weapon by a Person Prohibited.  Bowen 
claims that the trial judge committed plain error by not sua sponte issuing an 
instruction limiting the evidence on his prohibited status.  Although the trial judge 
failed to give a proper instruction limiting the evidence of Bowen’s criminal 
record, the trial judge’s failure to do so did not “clearly prejudice” Bowen’s 
“substantial rights” nor did it jeopardize the fairness and integrity of the trial 
 
2
process. We find that this failure to so instruct the jury sua sponte was not plain 
error.  Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court. 
 
(2) 
On October 14, 2005 at approximately 5:00 p.m., Bowen robbed 
Lauriece Aguirre while she was withdrawing money from an enclosed ATM at the 
College Square Shopping Center in Newark.  As the ATM dispensed the cash, 
Bowen grabbed Aguirre from behind with one arm and held a knife to her throat 
with the other.  He demanded the cash and Aguirre’s car keys, which she had 
placed on the ATM’s counter.  Bowen fled the scene in Aguirre’s car, which was 
parked directly outside the ATM, and Aguirre went into a nearby Pathmark to call 
the police.  The police recovered the car approximately half an hour later and 
identified Bowen as a suspect shortly thereafter. Aguirre further identified Bowen 
through a photographic lineup.   
 
(3) 
In an audiotaped statement and at trial, Bowen admitted robbing 
Aguirre but denied that he used a knife and denied the carjacking.  He claimed that 
he possessed a sharpened metal object that he had found along some railroad 
tracks, but not a knife.  Aguirre, however, clearly testified that she saw a kitchen-
style knife with a serrated blade.  Bowen argued that reasonable doubt existed 
about the carjacking charge, and about whether he used a deadly weapon to rob 
Aguirre.   
 
3
 
(4) 
Because Bowen refused to stipulate to having a prior felony 
conviction, the State proffered a certified court record of his prior conviction to 
establish his prohibited status.  The trial judge admitted the certified court record. 
Bowen neither objected nor requested a relevant limiting instruction.  The jury 
convicted him of all charges.  The trial judge, thereafter, declared Bowen a 
habitual offender and sentenced him to 56 years at Level V, suspended after 54 
years for 2 years probation. 
 
(5) 
On appeal, Bowen contends that when evidence of prior bad acts is 
admitted, Weber v. State1 requires a relevant limiting instruction as a matter of due 
process.  Bowen claims that the trial judge should have sua sponte issued a limiting 
instruction that the jury could only consider his 2002 conviction for Robbery 
Second Degree to establish that he was prohibited from possessing a deadly 
weapon and that the jury could not use evidence of his prior robbery conviction to 
support a general inference of bad character or a propensity to commit another 
crime.  Bowen argues that the trial judge’s failure to issue the instruction 
constituted plain error because the evidence of his prior conviction could have 
unfairly predisposed the jury to convict him for the carjacking and weapon 
possession offenses.   
                                                 
1  
Weber v. State, 547 A.2d 948, 963 (Del. 1998) (reversing a conviction where the trial 
judge admitted evidence of prior bad acts, despite timely objection by Weber, without issuing a 
limiting instruction to the jury).  The Weber Court held that a limiting instruction is mandatory 
under those circumstances.  Id. 
 
4
 
(6) 
Because Bowen failed to object to the introduction of evidence of his 
prior conviction or to request a limiting instruction under D.R.E. 105, we review 
for plain error.2  Bowen concedes as much.  To constitute plain error, the error 
complained of must be “so clearly prejudicial to substantial rights as to jeopardize 
the fairness and integrity of the trial process.”3  We limit review to “material 
defects which are apparent on the face of the record, which are basic, serious, and 
fundamental in their character, and which clearly deprive an accused of a 
substantial right, or which clearly show manifest injustice.”4 
 
(7) 
Here, the record discloses no evidence of unfair prejudice or that the 
jury used the fact of Bowen’s prior robbery conviction “in an impermissible way.”5  
Because the State introduced only the date and nature of his prior conviction for 
the limited and specific purpose of establishing a statutory element of a charged 
offense, the potential for juror misunderstanding and misuse of the evidence was 
minimal. 
                                                 
2  
DEL. SUPR. CT. R. 8; D.R.E. 103(d); Zimmerman v. State, 565 A.2d 887, 890 (Del. 1989).   
 
3  
Wainwright v. State, 504 A.2d 1096, 1100 (Del. 1986) (citing Dutton v. State, 452 A.2d 
127, 146 (Del. 1982)). 
 
4  
Id. (citing Bromwell v. State, 427 A.2d 884, 893 n.12  (Del. 1981)). 
 
5  
See Sykes v. State, 588 A.2d 1143 (Del. 1991) (Order). 
 
 
5
 
(8) 
The record also shows that a reasonable jury could have convicted 
Bowen “without relying on an impermissible character inference.”6  At trial, 
Aguirre described the weapon as a “steak knife” with “serrated edges” and a “blue 
handle.”  Defense counsel did little to diminish the force of Aguirre’s testimony on 
crossexamination.  Despite the fact that the State did not offer the knife as evidence 
and that Bowen claimed that he only possessed a metal object that “may have 
looked sharp,” a reasonable jury could have concluded that he used a knife in the 
robbery.   Because the contested issue about the carjacking charge focused on the 
immediacy of the car to Aguirre, Bowen’s character would have no bearing on the 
issue.   
 
(9) 
A finding that the trial judge’s failure to issue a limiting instruction 
sua sponte did not constitute plain error is consistent with our holding in Williams 
v. State.7  In Williams, we distinguished Weber, where defense counsel made a 
timely objection to the admission of evidence of prior misconduct.  In Williams, 
however, defense counsel made no such objection, and we found that the “lack of a 
limiting instruction, in the context of prior crimes, is not plain error.”8 
                                                 
6  
See Andrus v. State, 844 A.2d 991 (Del. 2004) (Order). 
 
7  
Williams v. State, 796 A.2d 1281 (Del. 2002). 
 
8  
Id. at 1290. 
 
 
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(10) Because we are satisfied that the absence of a limiting instruction 
concerning Bowen’s prior conviction was not unduly prejudicial and did not 
measurably affect the outcome of the trial, and based on our decision in Williams, 
we conclude that the trial judge’s failure to issue a limiting instruction sua sponte 
did not constitute plain error.   
 
NOW, THEFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior 
Court is AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
By the Court:  
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Myron T. Steele 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Chief Justice