Title: Buckham v. Delaware
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 538, 2016
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: April 17, 2018

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
DAVID BUCKHAM, 
§ 
 
 
 
§ 
No. 538, 2016 
 
Appellant, 
§ 
 
 
 
§ 
Court Below: Superior Court 
 
v. 
 
§ 
of the State of Delaware 
 
 
§ 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
§ 
Cr. ID No. 1509012122A & B 
 
 
§ 
 
Appellee. 
§ 
 
Submitted: January 24, 2018 
Decided: April 17, 2018 
 
Before STRINE, Chief Justice; VALIHURA, VAUGHN, SEITZ, and TRAYNOR, 
Justices.  
 
Upon appeal from the Superior Court. REVERSED and REMANDED. 
 
Christina L. Ruggiero, Esquire (argued), Eugene J. Maurer, Jr., Esquire, Eugene J. 
Maurer, Jr., P.A., Wilmington, Delaware, Counsel for Appellant. 
 
Abby Adams, Esquire (argued), Department of Justice, Georgetown, Delaware, 
Counsel for Appellee. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2 
 
TRAYNOR, Justice: 
 
David Buckham was convicted at trial of assault in the first degree and related 
charges in connection with a shooting. His appeal presents two questions of criminal 
procedure. First, we consider the propriety of the trial court’s decision to call a recess 
at the State’s request so that one of the State’s witnesses, who was in the middle of 
testifying—and in the middle of recanting a statement he had given to investigators 
before trial—could consult with his lawyer. Buckham—who was forbidden by the 
trial court from cross-examining the witness about what transpired during the 
consultation—contends it was reversible error to allow it and a violation of his 
confrontation rights to bar him from cross-examining the witness about it. 
 
Second, we consider whether it was plain error for the trial court to uphold a 
warrant that authorized a search of “[a]ny and all store[d] data” on Buckham’s cell 
phone for any evidence of any kind that might link him to the shooting. The trial 
court sustained the warrant despite recognizing that the only nexus the warrant 
application established between his phone and the shooting was that the phone might 
have contained GPS data that might have been useful to investigators. The search 
instead turned up some arguably incriminating Facebook messages, and Buckham 
contends that they should have been suppressed. He did not raise this precise 
contention below, but he contends that the mismatch between the scope of the 
warrant and the probable cause the trial court found to support it was so apparent, 
3 
 
and that the warrant was so lacking in particularity, that upholding the warrant was 
plain error. 
 
We agree that the trial court’s decision to allow the State’s witness a mid-
testimony consultation with counsel was reversible error and that the decision to 
uphold the warrant—and admit the Facebook messages—was plain error. We 
therefore reverse Buckham’s convictions and remand for a new trial. 
I 
A 
 
During the early morning hours of August 3, 2015, two Wilmington police 
officers responded to a shooting. They found Gerald Walker—apparently shot in his 
upper abdomen—lying in a fetal position in the entranceway of a residence. Walker 
was in pain, but lucid, and he told the officers that he had been shot by the occupants 
of a dark-colored SUV. He said that three or four shots had come from the front 
passenger side of the vehicle, but he was unable to see the occupants because the 
vehicle’s windows were heavily tinted. The police did not locate any witnesses or 
recover any shell casings or other physical evidence from the scene. 
 
With no identification of the perpetrators and no physical evidence, the 
investigation languished into September. Then, halfway through the month, a 911 
caller reported that a person who had previously shot him had just driven past his 
house. One of the officers who responded was one of the two who had responded to 
4 
 
the August 3 shooting, and when he arrived on the scene, he discovered that the 911 
caller was none other than Gerald Walker. Walker reported that he and his fiancé 
were sitting on the steps of her home when the same vehicle from the August 3 
shooting drove by. He identified the driver as David Buckham and the passenger as 
Imean Waters and said that as the two drove by, one or both of the them said, “We’re 
on your top”—meaning that they were still after him.1 Walker also claimed that 
Waters waved a gun at him to drive the point home. 
The officer also had a brief conversation with Walker about the August 3 
shooting. Despite telling the officers on the night of the shooting that he had not been 
able to get a look at the occupants of the vehicle, Walker now told the officer 
definitively that Buckham was the assailant. According to the officer’s recollection 
of the conversation, Walker also told him that Buckham had exited the vehicle and 
fired the shots from there, not while concealed behind the vehicle’s tinted windows.  
 
Later that day, a detective interviewed Walker, and Walker again blamed the 
shooting on Buckham. He told the detective that Waters was driving and that when 
Waters said “hit him,” Buckham started shooting.2 But while he was steadfast that 
Buckham was the shooter, he admitted that he did not see the shots being fired or 
“even see the gun”—he “just heard the shot.”3  
                                          
 
1  
App. to Opening Br. A107. 
2  
App. to Opening Br. A129. 
3  
Id. 
5 
 
Based on what Walker had told them, law enforcement secured arrest warrants 
for Waters and Buckham. Waters was arrested that same day, and he too was 
interviewed by the police. When asked about the shooting on August 3, he admitted 
that he and Buckham had driven past the site of the shooting, but he initially claimed 
that he had dropped Buckham off on the side of the road and heard gunshots only 
after driving away. But after being pressed on his story, Waters told the police that 
Buckham shot Walker from the passenger seat of his vehicle. 
 
Based on the information provided by Walker and Waters, police secured a 
warrant for Buckham’s arrest. They were unable to locate him, and it was not until 
approximately six weeks later that he was arrested in a library in New Jersey by 
federal law enforcement officers. His cell phone was seized incident to his arrest, 
and it was turned over to the Wilmington police. 
 
The gun used in the shooting has never been recovered. The inability of the 
police to find the gun or to ascertain where Buckham had been residing during the 
six weeks they had been searching for him prompted them to seek a search warrant 
for his cell phone. They apparently thought that they may be able to find GPS 
location data on the phone, which could reveal where Buckham had been residing 
and, in turn, might lead to the discovery of the gun. 
 
The warrant they obtained for Buckham’s phone authorized them to search 
not just for GPS location data, but for “[a]ny and all store[d] data contained within 
6 
 
the internal memory of the cellular phones [sic].” It is unclear from the record 
whether the police found any GPS data and, if they did, whether they actually used 
it to search for the gun. What is clear is that they found and read private messages 
Buckham had exchanged with various people through the Facebook application on 
his phone, some of which were later introduced at trial. 
B 
 
Buckham was charged with a host of offenses, the most serious of which was 
attempted murder in the first degree. Not surprisingly, at center stage at his trial were 
Walker and Waters, the only percipient witnesses (other than, allegedly, Buckham) 
to the shooting. Neither wished to be there. 
 
Walker appeared at trial only after being arrested and held on a material-
witness warrant. When he was called to the stand, his testimony diverged yet again 
from the previous accounts he had given to the police. Contrary to his claim that 
Buckham had shot at him from outside the vehicle, Walker testified that Buckham 
“started shooting out of the window.”4 The prosecutor sought clarification—asking 
him, “what window?”—but Walkers reiterated that Buckham shot from through the 
“passenger side window.”5 And despite telling the detective that he had not seen the 
weapon that had been used to shoot him or who fired it, Walker testified that he had 
                                          
 
4  
App. A105. 
5  
Id. 
7 
 
seen “a little black gun” in Buckham’s hand just before the shooting started, and he 
testified, unequivocally, that Buckham was the shooter.6 He also disclosed, for the 
first time, that a “senior citizen” named “Mr. Mel” was sitting outside with him when 
Waters and Buckham pulled up in the SUV and presumably witnessed the entire 
encounter. As if these inconsistencies did not provide sufficient fodder to question 
Walker’s credibility, he announced—in open court—that defense counsel’s 
questions were “aggravating” him, that he was “just going to keep answering 
questions with, ‘I don’t know’” because he was tired of answering them, and, at one 
point, that he intended to “plead the Fifth to every question from now on” (which, 
after the jury was excused, prompted a warning of contempt from the trial judge).7 
 
The prosecution then called Waters, whose testimony was more problematic. 
Before Buckham’s trial, Waters had agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy in the 
second degree (in connection with the allegedly menacing drive-by that occurred in 
mid-September) in exchange for testifying at Buckham’s trial. But despite having 
admitted on the day of his arrest that Buckham shot Walker from the passenger seat 
of his vehicle, Waters disavowed even having seen Walker that day: 
Q: 
So, with respect to the August 3rd, 2015, shooting, what do you 
remember about that day? 
A: 
The only thing I remember was me and Buckham riding around. 
I didn’t see no gun, or nothing. 
                                          
 
6  
App. A108; App. A105 (“Q: So, when you indicated Mr. Waters said “Shoot him,” what 
happened next? A: David Buckham started shooting out the window. I started running.”). 
7  
App. A125, A127. 
8 
 
 
 
. . . .  
Q: 
Do you remember seeing [Walker]— 
A: 
No.8 
 
After a brief sidebar conference, the prosecutor attempted to clarify Waters’ 
testimony: 
Q: 
. . . . So, bringing you back to when you stated that you and Mr. 
Buckham were driving around on August 3rd, 2015. 
A: 
Yes. 
Q: 
And I asked you did you see [Walker] that day. 
A: 
Yes. I hadn’t seen him. 
Q: 
So, is it your testimony today that you did not see [Walker] on 
August 3rd, 2015? 
A: 
No, I did not. 
Q: 
And, Mr. Waters, on August 3rd, 2015, did you hear gunshots 
that day? 
A: 
No.9 
 
 
That prompted the prosecutor to request another sidebar conference at which 
she told the court, “Mr. Waters is facing significant issues, not only by violating the 
cooperation agreement, but also by potentially perjuring himself . . . [and] he may 
want to speak to his counsel at this point.”10 Over Buckham’s counsel’s objection, 
the trial judge agreed. Buckham’s counsel asked whether he would be permitted to 
                                          
 
8  
App. A152. 
9 
App. A153. 
10  
Id. 
9 
 
cross-examine Waters about the substance of the conversation, but the trial judge 
answered in the negative: 
Well, if you are asking whether or not during the break that he [spoke] 
with counsel, I think I would let you ask that question. 
 
Obviously, exploring with him what counsel maybe told him would be 
a violation of the attorney/client privilege and I wouldn’t allow you to 
pursue that. But, I would allow you to say, When you took the break 
did you have an opportunity to speak with [your lawyer?]11 
 
 
After the consultation took place, the trial judge reiterated that he would not 
allow Buckham’s counsel “to explore the contents of the discussion because of the 
privileged situation of that conversation.”12  
 
Not surprisingly, Waters’ testimony took on a different tenor when he returned 
from speaking with his lawyer. When asked again whether he remembered anything 
about August 3, the day of the shooting, this time he responded, “Not really.”13 And 
when asked if he remembered the day Walker was shot, he acknowledged only that 
he “heard about it.”14 The prosecutor then asked him to confirm that he had told the 
police on the day of his arrest that he had been present at the shooting, but he denied 
having any recollection of that either, telling the prosecutor, “I was under the 
influence. I don’t remember.”15 The State then terminated its direct examination so 
                                          
 
11  
App. A154. 
12  
App. A155. 
13  
Id. 
14  
Id. 
15  
Id. 
10 
 
that it could lay the foundation for admitting the statement Waters gave to police on 
the day of his arrest in lieu of any further live testimony. 
 
Buckham did not testify. He was ultimately acquitted of attempted murder, 
but found guilty of the lesser-included offense of first-degree assault and a number 
of other lesser charges. At a bench trial that followed, he was convicted of 
possession-of-a-firearm-by-a-person-prohibited and possession-of-ammunition-by-
a-person-prohibited charges as a result of the jury’s verdict. He was sentenced to 
twenty-six years of incarceration, suspended after sixteen years.  
II 
 
Buckham contends that the trial judge should not have allowed Waters to 
confer with his lawyer during his direct examination and made matters worse by 
restricting Buckham’s cross-examination after the consultation took place. He 
contends that the former was an abuse of discretion and that the latter infringed his 
right of confrontation, both of which, he says, require reversal.  
A  
 
It is well settled that the trial judge is vested with wide discretion in regulating 
the conduct of the trial,16 including “the mode and order of interrogating witnesses 
                                          
 
16  
Czech v. State, 945 A.2d 1088, 1095 (Del. 2008) (“It is well-settled that the trial judge is 
responsible for the management of the trial and is vested with broad discretion to perform that 
function.”); Miller v. State, 224 A.2d 592, 595 (Del. 1966) (“[T]he trial judge has wide discretion 
in the conduct of the trial.”). 
11 
 
and presenting evidence.”17 That includes the “broad power to sequester witnesses 
before, during, and after their testimony.”18 The “heartland” of witness sequestration 
concerns whether witnesses should be barred from hearing the testimony of other 
witnesses before their own19—a method of ferreting out false testimony that has 
“ancient” roots20—but the concept also extends to whether a witness should be 
barred from discussing his testimony with others once questioning has 
commenced.21 The concern, of course, is that permitting mid-testimony 
consultations may lead to “improper attempts to influence the testimony in light of 
the testimony already given.”22 
Whether and how a witness should be sequestered is a matter committed to 
the trial judge’s discretion. Even “[a] criminal defendant,” like Buckham, “has no 
constitutional right” to any particular type of witness sequestration,23 and “the failure 
                                          
 
17  
D.R.E. 611(a). 
18  
Geders v. United States, 425 U.S. 80, 87 (1976). 
19  
United States v. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d 1161, 1176 (1st Cir. 1993) (Selya, J.). 
20  
John H. Wigmore, Sequestration of Witnesses, 14 Harv. L. Rev. 475, 475–79 (1901).  
21  
See Perry v. Leeke, 488 U.S. 272, 281 (1989) (recognizing that “nondiscussion orders are 
a corollary of the broader rule that witnesses may be sequestered to lessen the danger that their 
testimony will be influenced by hearing what other witnesses have to say”); United States v. Loyd, 
743 F.2d 1555, 1564 (11th Cir. 1984) (characterizing a trial court’s decision to “call[] a recess to 
allow [a] prosecutor to interview [the witness]” as a “suspension of the sequestration rule”). 
22  
Geders, 425 U.S. at 87. 
23  
United States v. Edwards, 526 F.3d 747, 758 (11th Cir. 2008); see Bell v. Duckworth, 861 
F.2d 169, 170 (7th Cir. 1988) (Posner, J.) (“A refusal to exclude (‘separate’) witnesses until they 
testify is not a denial of due process. Separation or sequestration of witnesses . . . is a long-
established and well-recognized measure designed to increase the likelihood that testimony will 
be candid. But the due process clause does not incorporate every refinement of legal procedure 
designed to make trials fairer or more accurate—not even one hallowed by time.”). 
12 
 
to sequester prosecution witnesses does not necessarily violate any constitutional 
right of the defendant to cross-examine those witnesses, or to a fair trial generally.”24 
In Delaware, even a request for a “heartland” sequestration order—an order barring 
witnesses from hearing the testimony of other witnesses—is not granted as of 
statutory right, as it is in some jurisdictions.25 The decision instead rests comfortably 
in the trial judge’s authority to control the mode of witness interrogation. The same 
is true for a “decision to grant a recess and allow a conference between a lawyer and 
a testifying witness.”26 The scenarios where a mid-testimony consultation might be 
requested are too varied for there to be a “hard and fast rule governing every 
contingency.”27 
But a trial judge must exercise this discretion in service of the trial’s truth-
seeking function. Trial judges are bound to use their power to control how witnesses 
                                          
 
24  
6 Wayne R. LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure § 24.4(d), at 528 (4th ed. 2015); see United 
States v. Allen, 542 F.2d 630, 633 (4th Cir. 1976) (“While the sequestering of witnesses is of ancient 
origin the practice has never been universal . . . . In North Carolina, for example, the invocation of 
‘the rule on witnesses’ was unheard of until very recent years.”). 
25  
See D.R.E. 615 (“At the request of a party the court may order witnesses excluded so that 
they cannot hear the testimony of other witnesses . . . .”); cf., e.g., Fed. R. Evid. 615 (“At a party’s 
request, the court must order witnesses excluded so that they cannot hear other witnesses’ 
testimony.”); Vt. R. Evid. 615 (“At the request of a party the court shall order witnesses excluded 
so that they cannot hear the testimony of other witnesses . . . .”).  
26  
People v. Branch, 634 N.E.2d 966, 968 (N.Y. 1994); see also Perry, 488 U.S. at 284 
(recognizing, in the context of a defendant-witness, that whether to permit a mid-testimony 
consultation is “a matter of discretion in individual cases”); Loyd, 743 F.2d at 1564 (recognizing, 
in the context of a prosecution witness, that “[t]he decision whether to [call a recess to] allow a 
prosecutor to ‘work with’ a witness is within the discretion of the trial court and will not be 
reviewed absent an abuse of that discretion”). 
27  
Webb v. State, 663 A.2d 452, 460 n.9 (Del. 1995) (speaking to the propriety of a mid-cross-
examination consultation between a defendant and his lawyer). 
13 
 
are interrogated to “make the interrogation and presentation effective for the 
ascertainment of truth,”28 and allowing a witness to consult with counsel in the midst 
of questioning is fraught with the risk of interfering with the truth-seeking process. 
As we recognized in the context of a mid-cross-examination consultation—which is 
not far afield of these circumstances, given how Waters’ testimony was going south 
for the prosecution—allowing a witness who is in the middle of his testimony to 
consult with his counsel tends to undermine the integrity of the trial process: 
It is antithetical to the process of truth-seeking that any witness be 
permitted to consult with counsel during cross-examination to be 
“coached” on what to say, or not say, or how-to-say-it, or how to control 
or “put a better face on” testimonial damage already done.29 
 
 
Put simply, “the truth-seeking function of a trial will most often be best served 
by requiring that the witness undergo direct questioning and cross-examination 
without interruption for counseling.”30 Because of the “tantalizing potential for 
misconduct” they pose,31 mid-testimony conferences are “an extremely dangerous 
practice.”32 No trial judge should allow one without carefully considering whether 
there is a genuine need for it—one that rises above a bare desire to coach a struggling 
                                          
 
28  
D.R.E. 611(a)(1). 
29  
Webb, 663 A.2d at 459. 
30  
Branch, 634 N.E. 2d at 967. 
31  
People v. Pendleton, 394 N.E.2d 496, 507 (Ill. App. Ct. 1979). 
32  
Duke v. United States, 255 F.2d 721, 728 (9th Cir. 1958). 
14 
 
witness—and, even if there is, whether the risk of coaching is simply too great to 
allow it.33 
B 
 
The decision to allow this conference suffered from a number of problems. 
The justification for it was that Waters’ testimony, which flatly contradicted the 
statement he had given to the police, may have put him at risk of perjury or a breach 
of his plea agreement and that he should have a chance to discuss those risks with 
his counsel before going any further. But the request for the conference did not come 
from Waters or even from his own lawyer, who was present in the courtroom. The 
request came from the prosecutor, just as Waters’ testimony started going 
sideways.34 There is naturally a greater risk that a mid-testimony conference will be 
used for coaching when the request comes in the midst of damaging testimony—and 
comes from the advocate whose case it is damaging. 
                                          
 
33  
See Geders, 425 U.S. at 90 (“[T]he trial judge, if he doubts that defense counsel will 
observe the ethical limits on guiding witnesses, may direct that the examination of the witness 
continue without interruption until completed. If the judge considers the risk high he may arrange 
the sequence of testimony so that direct- and cross-examination of a witness will be completed 
without interruption.”). 
34  
That neither Waters nor his counsel saw fit to request a recess distinguishes these 
circumstances from those where a witness (or the witness’s lawyer) seeks a recess for the purpose 
of discussing whether to assert a privilege. Cf. Del. Super. Ct. Civ. R. P. 30(d)(1) (providing, in 
the context of civil depositions, that “[f]rom the commencement until the conclusion of a 
deposition, . . . the attorney(s) for the deponent shall not . . . consult or confer with the deponent 
regarding the substance of the testimony already given or anticipated to be given except for the 
purpose of conferring on whether to assert a privilege against testifying or on how to comply with 
a court order” (emphasis added)). 
15 
 
 
These features set this case apart from those where courts have permitted time-
outs in the middle of testimony for more benign reasons, like United States v. Loyd,35 
where a prosecutor—who had met a witness for the first time only thirty minutes 
before trial because the witness was under federal protection—quickly realized that 
he had not had enough time to speak with the witness to properly tailor his 
examination and was granted a recess to have a chance for a more thorough 
interview, or Frierson v. State,36 where the court granted a prosecutor’s request for a 
recess during the direct examination of a rape victim so that the prosecutor could 
help her regain her composure. In this case, the very purpose of the recess was to 
allow Waters to discuss with his lawyer the testimony already given and to consider 
whether he should stick by it. As the trial judge put it, he was granting the recess to 
“have counsel speak with him, just to make sure that they are all on the same page.”37 
 
Compounding these problems was the trial court’s decision to seal the 
conversation off from cross-examination. Through many of the cases where mid-
testimony consultations were sustained runs a common thread: the opposing side 
was permitted a full opportunity to inquire into what transpired during the 
                                          
 
35  
743 F.2d 1555 (11th Cir. 1984). 
36  
543 N.E.2d 669, 673 (Ind. Ct. App. 1989). 
37  
App. A154. 
16 
 
consultation.38 “Skillful cross-examination” can expose a coached witness,39 and if 
a court is convinced that there is a legitimate need for a mid-testimony consultation, 
making the consultation fair-game for inquiry lowers the danger that it will corrupt 
the proceedings. Worse still, the trial court informed the parties that the consultation 
would be off-limits for cross-examination before it took place. In many of those 
cases where consultations have been upheld, the trial judges warned the parties in 
advance that whatever transpired would be fair-game for inquiry, which can be an 
effective prophylaxis against coaching. But here, if the temptation to coach Waters 
was brewing, the trial court’s advance ruling telegraphed that there would be no 
chance for Buckham’s counsel to uncover it. 
 
But not all of the circumstances cut against the trial court’s decision. The fact 
that the lawyer the court was granting Waters a chance to confer with was his own—
and not the prosecutor—reduced the risk that the recess would provide the State with 
an opportunity coach him on his testimony.40 And the justification the prosecutor 
                                          
 
38  
See, e.g., United States v. Malik, 800 F.2d 143, 148 (7th Cir. 1986) (“The Assistant United 
States Attorney invited cross-examination . . . of [the witness] about the conversation.”); Loyd, 743 
F.2d at 1564 (“[D]efense counsel had ample opportunity to cross-examine [the witness] about the 
interview by the prosecutor, yet no counsel was able to establish that [he] was coached.”); Branch, 
634 N.E.2d at 968 (“[T]he court allowed the defense the opportunity to cross-examine the witness 
about the conference and about the change in testimony.”); Frierson, 543 N.E.2d at 673 
(“[D]efense counsel had the opportunity on cross-examination to explore any unfair coaching he 
suspected took place during the brief recess.”). 
39  
Geders, 425 U.S. at 89–90.  
40  
Cf. 6 John Henry Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law § 1841, at 472 (James H. 
Chadbourn rev., 1976) (proposing that trial courts should not allow private discussions between a 
witness and “an attorney in the cause” (emphasis added)). 
17 
 
offered for the recess—that Waters’ testimony could be exposing him to criminal 
prosecution—was not so unfounded as to be nothing more than a pretext to get him 
off the stand and into a coaching session. Waters had represented as part of his plea 
deal that the statement he had given to investigators prior to trial was true, so if he 
had remained steadfast in his repudiation of that statement as he had started to do 
before the prosecutor asked for a recess, he risked breaching his cooperation 
agreement and exposing himself to further criminal prosecution for the shooting.41 
Reversing course and standing by his earlier statement would not have been a risk-
free proposition either. If the statement he had given to investigators had been false, 
reaffirming that statement on the stand would be perjury. The risks Waters faced 
were varied enough—and real enough—to give credence to the prosecutor’s 
suggestion to let him discuss these scenarios with his lawyer before going any 
further. 
 
Aside from concerns about Waters, we have recognized that a lawyer who 
realizes her client is about to commit perjury has an ethical obligation to try to 
dissuade her client, and we have suggested that if it happens while the client is on 
the stand, she may be justified in making a “forthright application to the court for a 
                                          
 
41  
By the time of Buckham’s trial, Waters had already been sentenced on the charge he agreed 
to accept under his plea agreement, but that charge—second-degree conspiracy—related only to 
the mid-September drive-by, not to the August 3 shooting, and his written plea agreement made 
no promises that the State would spare him from liability for the shooting. So disavowing his 
earlier statement to investigators risked leading the State to respond to his breach of the 
cooperation agreement by deciding to charge him in connection with the shooting. 
18 
 
special ruling permitting limited consultation,” and the court may be justified in 
granting it.42 Waters, of course, was not the prosecutor’s client, but the ethical 
obligation to prevent a fraud on the court applies with no less force to any other 
witness that a lawyer calls.43 
 
Whatever the merits of allowing the conference, there is no question that it 
cast a “cloud over the fairness of the government’s trial behavior,”44 which illustrates 
why granting a private, mid-testimony conference treads on treacherous ground. But 
we need not resolve whether that decision was an abuse of the trial court’s discretion, 
because after initially defending the decision, the State conceded at oral argument 
that it was error.45 
 
Assuming, then, that the conference should not have occurred, we turn to 
whether the fact that it did occur caused Buckham harm sufficient to require reversal. 
                                          
 
42  
Webb, 663 A.2d at 460 n.9. 
43  
See Del. R. Prof. Conduct 3.3 cmt. 10 (“[A] lawyer may be surprised when the lawyer’s 
client, or another witness called by the lawyer, offers testimony the lawyer knows to be false, either 
during the lawyer’s direct examination or in response to cross examination by the opposing lawyer. 
In such situations . . . , the lawyer must take reasonable remedial measures. In such situations, the 
advocate’s proper course is to remonstrate with the client confidentially, advise the client of the 
lawyer’s duty of candor to the tribunal and seek the client’s cooperation with respect to the 
withdrawal or correction of the false statements or evidence.”). 
44  
Malik, 800 F.2d at 149. 
45  
Oral Argument at 39:13 (Jan. 24, 2018), http://livestream.com/accounts/5969852/events/
8024893/videos/169188865 (Justice Traynor: “Does the State concede that it was abuse of 
discretion to allow the recess for the communication?” A: “. . . . The State would concede that it 
was an error for the judge to allow this to happen. . . . It’s difficult to concede an error like that by 
the trial judge when it was the prosecutor who brought the issue up and created the situation, but 
the State would concede that it was an error.”). 
19 
 
The State maintains that the error was harmless and does not require a new trial. We 
disagree. 
 
The State contends that the conference could not have prejudiced Buckham 
because Waters’ testimony did not materially change after he conferred with his 
lawyer. But the record shows otherwise. Before the recess, Waters’ testimony about 
the day of the shooting was unequivocal. He testified that he spent the day driving 
around with Buckham, did not see Walker at any time that day, and had not heard 
any gunshots—testimony that all favored Buckham and directly contradicted the 
statement Waters had given to investigators on the day of his arrest. After the recess, 
the first question the prosecutor asked Waters was whether he remembered the day 
of the shooting, and this time, he responded, “Not really.”46 A few questions later, 
when he was asked whether he remembered telling the police on the day of his arrest 
that he saw Buckham shoot Walker, Waters said—apparently for the first time—that 
he “was under the influence” when he gave that statement and could not remember 
what he said.47 
 
In the State’s view, even if that did amount to a change—and we think there 
is no question that it did—it was harmless because when Waters was cross-
examined, he reverted back to the testimony he had been giving before the recess. 
                                          
 
46  
App. A155. 
47  
Id. 
20 
 
He told Buckham’s counsel that he did, in fact, remember the day of the shooting 
and was not present when Walker was shot. He also testified that the statement he 
gave to police on the day of his arrest—which, apparently, he did remember 
making—was a lie, told to secure himself a favorable plea deal. As the State sees it, 
any change in his testimony after the recess had no impact on the case because by 
the end of cross-examination, his testimony was back to where it started.  
 
But this line of reasoning does not give due regard to the effect that changes 
in a witness’s story have on the witness’s credibility. Had the recess not happened, 
the jury would have had to weigh two competing versions of events: the statement 
Waters gave to police on the day of his arrest (pinning the shooting on Buckham) 
and Waters’ claim on the stand—while under oath—that the statement had been a 
lie, made to shift the blame to Buckham. But the recess seems to have been 
responsible for injecting a third version of events into Waters’ testimony: his claim 
that he had no memory of the day of the shooting and had been under the influence 
on the day that he spoke with the police. Waters would later abandon that new story, 
but the bell had been rung; the more stories a witness tells, the less believable any of 
them become. Rather than being presented with a witness who had a conceivable 
motive and explanation for fabricating a statement that pointed the finger at 
Buckham, the jury now had on their hands a witness who could not seem to keep his 
story straight, which may have led the jury to give greater weight to the statement 
21 
 
he gave to police than to what he was saying on the stand or to simply disregard his 
trial testimony altogether. 
Not all errors call for reversal.48 But to deem an error harmless—and safely 
disregard it—we must have a “fair assurance . . . that the judgment was not 
substantially swayed by the error.”49 That is necessarily a case-specific inquiry; one 
that requires us to “scrutinize[] the record” to evaluate “both the importance of the 
error and the strength of the other evidence presented at trial.”50 
The importance of Waters’ testimony is self-evident, especially in light of the 
wobbly testimony from Walker that immediately preceded it. Walker was the only 
other eyewitness, and his account of the events had varied ever since the night of the 
shooting. And then there’s the matter of “Mr. Mel,” whose presence at the scene of 
the crime Walker did not disclose until trial, to the surprise of both sides. In a word, 
Walker’s testimony was problematic. 
                                          
 
48  
See Del. Super. Ct. Crim. R. P. 52(a) (providing that harmless errors—that is, “[a]ny error, 
defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights”—“shall be disregarded”). 
49  
Ashley v. State, 798 A.2d 1019, 1023 n.17 (Del. 2002) (per curiam) (quoting Kotteakos v. 
United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765 (1946)). As we have explained, no party—not even a criminal 
defendant—has a constitutional right to any particular type of witness sequestration, so even if a 
trial court abuses its discretion by allowing a witness to consult with a lawyer in the middle of 
testimony, that error is not of constitutional magnitude and is not subject to the more rigorous form 
of harmless error review that applies to trial errors that infringe upon constitutional rights. 
See Capano v. State, 781 A.2d 556, 597 n.54 (Del. 2001) (recognizing the distinction between 
constitutional and non-constitutional errors and explaining that when a trial court makes an error 
“of a constitutional magnitude, the conviction[] may be sustained [only] if the error is ‘harmless 
beyond a reasonable doubt’”). 
50  
Van Arsdall v. State, 524 A.2d 3, 10–11 (Del. 1987).  
22 
 
In addition, there was no physical evidence linking Buckham to the shooting. 
No gun or shell casings were recovered. And leaving aside the arguably 
incriminating Facebook messages, which we will discuss in more detail in 
connection with the propriety of the State’s search of Buckham’s phone, Buckham 
did not make any incriminating admissions. On this record, it would be a stretch to 
say that evidence of Buckham’s guilt was overwhelming.  
So Waters’ testimony—and the statement he had given to police pinning the 
shooting on Buckham—were of substantial importance. If the jury were to credit 
that statement, that would be powerful evidence that would corroborate Walker’s 
(latest) story. But if the jury were to credit Waters’ claim—under oath—that he 
falsified the statement to keep himself out of jail, that would do significant damage 
to a case that was not particularly robust. How Waters came across on the stand was 
a significant moment in the trial, but just as Waters’ testimony was tilting toward 
Buckham, the trial court granted a recess. When Waters retook the stand, he brought 
with him a third version of events—one of memory lapse and intoxication—which 
he would later disavow on cross-examination. 
Whether the jury would have looked at Waters’ testimony differently had he 
not, after speaking with his lawyer, injected that third story into the mix, and whether 
that would have changed the outcome, we cannot say for sure. But nor can we say 
“with fair assurance,” on the record of this case, “that the effect . . . was slight, if any 
23 
 
at all, and had no substantial influence upon the jury.”51 For that reason, the decision 
to allow the mid-testimony conference was reversible error. 
C 
Buckham also contends that allowing Waters to confer with his lawyer during 
his testimony and then sealing that conversation off from inquiry violated his 
confrontation rights under the United States and Delaware constitutions. The trial 
court held that the attorney-client privilege barred Buckham’s counsel from cross-
examining Waters about the conversation, and that, Buckham contends, allowed the 
privilege to trump his constitutional right of confrontation in violation of both the 
Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment and the corresponding protection in 
Article I, Section 7 of the Delaware Constitution. 
 
Whether the attorney-client privilege must give way to the defendant’s right 
of confrontation has generated debate52 and remains an open question at the United 
                                          
 
51  
Hutchins v. State, 153 A.2d 204, 208 (Del. 1959). 
52  
See, e.g., Murdoch v. Castro, 609 F.3d 983, 993–95 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (plurality 
opinion) (“[N]o Supreme Court case has directly addressed the potential conflict between state-
law attorney-client privilege and the Confrontation Clause . . . . The Supreme Court might well 
decide that it is worthy of greater protection than the marital privilege or the confidentiality of 
juvenile delinquency proceedings.” (citations omitted)); id. at 1004 (Kozinki, J., dissenting) 
(“Even if the attorney-client privilege were of the same dignity as the Fifth Amendment, the need 
for ‘cross-examination and impeachment’ would overcome it.”); see generally 24 Charles Alan 
Wright and Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure § 5506, at 566 (1st ed. 1986) 
(suggesting that “the attorney-client privilege. . . may have to yield when it comes in conflict with 
the constitutional right of a criminal defendant,” but that while [t]his possibility is acknowledged 
in the cases, . . . it is not a frequent occurrence,” and collecting cases). 
24 
 
States Supreme Court.53 For a trial judge who agrees to allow a prosecution witness 
to speak with his lawyer in the middle of testimony, the conflict between the 
witness’s right to invoke the privilege and the defendant’s right to confront him gives 
rise to a difficult trilemma: allow the cross-examination to proceed (letting the 
defendant’s right of confrontation trump the attorney-client privilege); uphold the 
privilege and strike the testimony the witness has already given (thereby protecting 
both the privilege and the right of confrontation, at the expense of the evidentiary 
value of the witness’s testimony); or, as the trial court did here, sustain the privilege-
based objection, but allow the witness’s prior testimony to stand (risking a violation 
of the defendant’s right of confrontation).54  
Because we conclude that the decision to allow the consultation to take place 
was reversible error, we need not take up the questions that Buckham’s argument 
presents or determine whether the path the trial court chose in this case violated 
Buckham’s right of confrontation. 
III 
 
 
To bolster the case against Buckham, the State introduced a series of Facebook 
messages he sent after the warrant had issued for his arrest. In one exchange, 
                                          
 
53  
See Swidler & Berlin v. United States, 524 U.S. 399, 408 n.3 (1998) (“Petitioners, while 
opposing wholesale abrogation of the privilege in criminal cases, concede that exceptional 
circumstances implicating a criminal defendant's constitutional rights might warrant breaching the 
privilege. We do not, however, need to reach this issue, since such exceptional circumstances 
clearly are not presented here.”). 
54  
See Murdoch, 609 F.3d at 1005 (Kozinski, J., dissenting) (discussing these alternatives). 
25 
 
Buckham said, “people told on me”; in another, he said, “I’m hot,” and when asked 
whether he needed to “cool down,” Buckham said, “It’s too late. I’m just gonna wait 
on them to come.”55 There were a few more to similar effect. 
 
The police found them after executing the search warrant they obtained for 
Buckham’s phone. The warrant authorized them to search the phone for “[a]ny and 
all store[d] data contained within the internal memory of the cellular phones [sic], 
including but not limited to, incoming/outgoing calls, missed calls, contact history, 
images, photographs and SMS (text) messages” for evidence of “Attempted Murder 
1st Degree.” 
Buckham claims that the search warrant was flawed in two respects. First, he 
contends that the application and affidavit upon which the warrant was based did not 
establish probable cause to search his phone because it did not allege a sufficient 
nexus between the crime he was suspected of committing and his cell phone. Second, 
he asserts that the warrant was so overbroad and so lacking in specificity that it 
constitutes an unlawful “general” warrant. Buckham raised his first argument in an 
unsuccessful pretrial suppression motion; he raises the second argument for the first 
time on appeal. 
 
The State responds that the warrant application provided numerous facts 
connecting Buckham’s phone to the crime, the strongest of which being that the GPS 
                                          
 
55  
App. A192, A194. 
26 
 
data on the phone may have been able to shed light on where Buckham had been 
during the six weeks he was at-large, which in turn might lead police to the gun used 
in the shooting. The application also mentioned that the phone was found on him 
when he was arrested, that police were aware that he had been posting on social 
media about the possibility of being arrested while he was at-large, and that criminals 
often use cell phones to talk about their criminal activity. 
A 
 
We apply the “substantial basis” test to Buckham’s contention that the 
affidavit did not supply probable cause to believe that evidence of the crime he was 
suspected of committing would be found on his phone.56 Because we pay “great 
deference” to the issuing magistrate’s determination that the warrant was supported 
by probable cause,57 “our duty is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a 
substantial basis for concluding that probable caused existed”58 and that the 
magistrate’s determination did not “reflect[] an improper analysis of the totality of 
the circumstances.”59 
                                          
 
56  
See Sisson v. State, 903 A.2d 288, 296 (Del. 2006). 
57  
Jensen v. State, 482 A.2d 105, 111 (Del. 1984). 
58  
Sisson, 903 A.2d at 296. 
59  
LeGrande v. State, 947 A.2d 1103, 1108 (Del. 2008) (quoting United States v. Leon, 468 
U.S. 897, 915 (1984)). 
27 
 
As for Buckham’s challenge to the warrant’s particularity and breadth, we 
review those questions de novo.60 But because he did not raise this challenge in the 
Superior Court, we will take notice of an error only if it is plain.61 Under that 
standard, “the error complained of must be so clearly prejudicial to substantial rights 
as to jeopardize the fairness and integrity of the trial process.”62 
B 
 
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, 
Section 6 of the Delaware Constitution provide that warrants must be supported by 
a showing of probable cause. For a search warrant to issue, there must be more than 
just probable cause that a crime has been committed; there must also be, “within the 
four corners of the affidavit, . . . facts adequate for a judicial officer to form a 
reasonable belief that . . . the property to be seized will be found in a particular 
place.”63 The constitutional requirement that there be a nexus between the crime and 
the place to be searched is also enshrined in Delaware law, which requires the 
                                          
 
60  
See Wheeler v. State, 135 A.3d 282, 295, 302 (Del. 2016) (confronting a claim that search 
warrants for electronic devices were “in the nature of a general warrant, unconstitutionally 
overbroad, and lack[ed] sufficient particularity”). 
61  
After conceding in his opening brief and at oral argument before a three-Justice panel of 
this Court that he had not raised this claim below, Buckham argued to the Court en Banc that he 
had. Although his counsel made a passing reference during the suppression hearing to the concept 
of general warrants and to our recent decision in Wheeler v. State, 135 A.3d 282 (Del. 2016), which 
addressed the problem of overbroad and insufficiently particular electronic-device warrants, his 
motion did not mention this issue, and the trial court did not rule on it. We are unpersuaded by 
Buckham’s belated effort to secure a more favorable standard of review. 
62  
Wainwright v. State, 504 A.2d 1096, 1100 (Del. 1986). 
63  
Sisson, 903 A.2d at 296. 
28 
 
warrant application to not only “describe the things . . . sought as particularly as may 
be,” but also to “state that . . . such things are concealed in the house, place, 
conveyance or person designated and . . . recite the facts upon which such suspicion 
is founded.”64 
 
Buckham contends that the affidavit in this case did not provide a substantial 
basis for the issuing magistrate to find probable cause to believe that the phone 
would contain any fruits, instrumentalities, or evidence of the shooting. He stresses 
that there was no evidence that a cell phone was used as an instrumentality of the 
crime or that Walker and Buckham were known to communicate by phone. 
 
Buckham is right that many of the allegations in the warrant application are 
too vague and too general to connect his cell phone to the shooting. Particularly 
unpersuasive was the statement that “criminals often communicate through cellular 
phones”65 (who doesn’t in this day and age?) and the statement that Waters’ 
girlfriend—who owns the vehicle that Waters was allegedly driving on the day of 
the shooting—“contacted Buckham’s girlfriend via cell phone” before she spoke 
with the police about the incident,66 which provides no basis at all to suspect that 
Buckham’s cell phone was likely to contain evidence. Nor do we see much 
significance in the statement that “Buckham was making posts on social media about 
                                          
 
64  
11 Del. C. § 2306. 
65  
App. A34. 
66  
App. A33. 
29 
 
getting arrested” while he was at-large.67 By that time, an arrest warrant had been 
issued for him; the fact that Buckham may have been using his phone to talk about 
his impending arrest connects his phone to the arrest warrant, not the underlying 
crime. Even with the deference we owe to a magistrate’s probable cause finding, 
these sorts of generalized suspicions do not provide a substantial basis to support a 
probable cause finding.  
 
The affidavit seems to have left a similar impression on the trial court. The 
court expressed skepticism both about its generalized allegations of a nexus between 
cell phones and criminal activity68 and about the inferences that could be drawn from 
Buckham’s social media activity.69 But the court was moved by one inferential chain 
in the affidavit: that GPS data from his phone might help the police determine where 
he had been while he was at-large and, perhaps, lead them to the gun or other 
evidence of the crime. That, in the court’s view, created at least some nexus between 
the phone and the crime: 
[T]he defendant had his—potentially had his phone at the location at 
which he was residing and had fled to in New Jersey, and [that] 
potentially would have . . . been sufficient probable cause to allow them 
to see whether or not the phone would then provide them the location 
                                          
 
67  
App. A34. 
68  
See App. A76–77 (“[I]f all I had was I know about cell phones, and cell phones can do this, 
I [would] have real concerns about that being an adequate warrant.”).  
69  
See App. A76 (commenting that while the affidavit alleged that Buckham had done “some 
posting,” “I think the defense has done a good job of persuading me that perhaps that’s not as 
significant as I initially thought it was”). 
30 
 
of where he was staying, which potentially would lead them to evidence 
concerning the crime.70 
 
 
So despite the court’s view that the affidavit did only “a minimal amount of 
work to try to justify the warrant” and “[s]urely” could have been better,71 the 
affidavit’s suggestion that a search of the phone could uncover GPS data that could 
lead the police to further evidence was enough to uphold the magistrate’s 
determination that there was probable cause to search. And on that basis, the court 
upheld the warrant. But the court failed to address the fact that the warrant it upheld 
was plainly mismatched to the probable cause it cited to justify it. To be fair, neither 
did Buckham, but the scope of the warrant so far outruns that probable cause 
finding—and is so lacking in particularity relative to that probable cause finding—
that it qualifies as plain error. 
C 
 
We recently had the opportunity to discuss the problem of overbroad and 
insufficiently particular warrants issued to search electronic devices. In Wheeler v. 
State, we recognized that a warrant—no matter its target—must both “describe the 
things to be searched with sufficient particularity and be no broader than the probable 
cause on which it is based.”72 Those requirements serve to achieve the twin 
                                          
 
70  
Id. 
71  
App. A77–78.  
72  
Wheeler v. State, 135 A.3d 282, 299 (Del. 2016). 
31 
 
objectives of the warrant requirement: ensuring that “those searches deemed 
necessary [are] as limited as possible” and eliminating “exploratory rummaging in a 
person’s belongings.”73 But we also recognized that warrants issued to search 
electronic devices call for particular sensitivity given the “enormous potential for 
privacy violations” that “unconstrained searches of cell phones” pose.74 Modern 
smartphones store an “unprecedented volume of private information,”75 and a top-
to-bottom search of one can “permit the government access to ‘far more than the 
most exhaustive search of a house.’”76 
 
In this case, a top-to-bottom search was precisely what the warrant authorized. 
The police were granted the authority to search “[a]ny and all store[d] data contained 
within the internal memory” of the phone for evidence of the shooting. Buckham 
believes that makes this warrant a “general warrant”—that scourge of executive 
overreach “abhorred by the colonists” that permitted “a general, exploratory 
                                          
 
73  
Id. at 298 (alteration in original) (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 467 
(1971)). 
74  
Id. at 299 (citing Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014)); United States v. Otero, 563 
F.3d 1127, 1132 (10th Cir. 2009) (“The modern development of the personal computer and its 
ability to store and intermingle a huge array of one’s personal papers in a single place increases 
law enforcement’s ability to conduct a wide-ranging search into a person’s private affairs, and 
accordingly makes the particularity requirement that much more important.”); 2 Wayne R. LaFave, 
Search and Seizure § 4.6(a), at 774 (5th ed. 2012 & Supp. 2017) (“The greatest care in [drafting a 
warrant’s] description is required when the consequences of seizure of innocent articles by mistake 
is most substantial, as . . . where the place to be searched is a cell phone . . . .”). 
75  
Id. 
76  
Id. (quoting Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2491). 
32 
 
rummaging in a person’s belongings”77 for vaguely-defined categories of contraband 
like “smuggled goods” or “obscene materials.”78  
 
But whether or not the warrant resembles a founding-era general warrant, 
Buckham is correct that it does not pass muster. As we said in Wheeler, a warrant 
must “describe the items to be searched for and seized with as much particularity as 
the circumstances reasonably allow” and be “no broader than the probable cause on 
which it is based.”79 This warrant fails both requirements. 
The trial court concluded that the affidavit created probable cause to search 
the phone for GPS data to ascertain where Buckham had been during the six weeks 
prior to his arrest,80 but the warrant did not limit the search of Buckham’s cell phone 
to any relevant time frame and authorized the search of any data on the phone. Worse 
still, it authorized law enforcement to search categories of data that had nothing to 
do with GPS location information, like “incoming/outgoing calls, missed calls, 
contact history, images, photographs and SMS (text) messages.”81 So this warrant 
                                          
 
77  
Id. at 296 (quoting Coolidge, 403 U.S. at 467). 
78  
United States v. Ninety-Two Thousand Four Hundred Twenty-Two Dollars and Fifty-Seven 
Cents, 307 F.3d 137, 149 (3d Cir. 2002) (Alito, J.). 
79  
135 A.3d at 299, 305. 
80  
We express no opinion on the correctness of that conclusion or, more generally, the notion 
that a warrant to search a cell phone for GPS data can issue upon a showing that law enforcement 
cannot account for a suspect’s whereabouts prior to an arrest and believe that the GPS data may 
lead them to another place to search for evidence. We conclude simply that the warrant was plainly 
too broad and too lacking in particulars to be supported by the trial court’s probable-cause 
determination. 
81  
App. A31. We are aware that modern smartphones can tag photographs with GPS-based 
location information, but that would at most justify an examination of the metadata of any 
photographs retrieved from the phone to see whether it contained location information. 
33 
 
was both vague about the information sought—despite the fact that a far more 
particularized description could have been provided—and expressly authorized the 
search of materials there was no probable cause to search, like the contents of all of 
the Facebook messages Buckham sent. For both of those reasons, the warrant is 
invalid, and the search for and review of the messages violated Buckham’s rights 
under the United States and Delaware constitutions. 
D 
 
Because Buckham did not fairly raise this issue below, our inquiry is not over. 
We must next determine whether allowing this warrant to stand was plain error. 
 
Plain errors must be “apparent on the face of the record[,] . . . basic, serious 
and fundamental in their character, and . . . clearly deprive an accused of a substantial 
right, or . . . clearly show manifest injustice.”82 There is no question that the flaws in 
the warrant are readily apparent. Once the trial court determined that the nexus 
between the phone and the shooting hinged on the potential for uncovering GPS data 
about Buckham’s location, that rendered the scope of the warrant far too broad and 
far too vague to be propped up by that probable cause finding. 
 
We recognize that we decided Wheeler only a month before the trial court 
ruled on Buckham’s suppression motion, but we judge whether an error is apparent 
                                          
 
82  
Wainwright, 504 A.2d at 1100. 
34 
 
“from the vantage point of the appellate court in reviewing the trial record, not 
whether it was apparent to the trial court in light of then-existing law.”83 
 
But to be plain error, the error must be more than just apparent from the record; 
it must also be “so clearly prejudicial to substantial rights as to jeopardize the 
fairness and integrity of the trial process.”84 This means that “it must have affected 
the outcome of the trial.”85 That requires us to consider the significance of the 
error—in this case, of admitting the Facebook messages that law enforcement read 
while searching Buckham’s phone—in light of the record as a whole.86 
 
As we have observed, the prosecution’s case against Buckham was not iron-
clad. Walker’s version of events varied from not being able to identify his mystery 
assailants to describing in detail a gun he claimed to have seen in Buckham’s hand 
before the shooting started. And Waters’ testimony, for its part, varied from claiming 
that he lied when he pointed the finger at Buckham to secure himself a plea deal, to 
claiming to have forgotten both the day of the shooting and his statement to police, 
to going back to calling it a lie. Not surprisingly, then, the prosecutor told the jury 
that “what [the police] found out from the cell phone that was seized from David 
Buckham’s person” would be “so important” to their decision.87 
                                          
 
83  
Capano, 781 A.2d at 663. 
84  
Williams v. State, 796 A.2d 1281, 1284 (Del. 2002). 
85  
Morgan v. State, 962 A.2d 248, 254 (Del. 2008). 
86  
See Wainwright, 504 A.2d at 1100–01.  
87  
App. A77–78. 
35 
 
 
The mismatch between the scope of the warrant and the probable cause 
finding that the trial court cited to support it is readily apparent from the record, and 
this error led to the admission of evidence that even the State conceded was 
important to the trial. We conclude under these circumstances that upholding the 
warrant and admitting the Facebook messages that the State uncovered was plain 
error.88 
IV 
 
We reverse Buckham’s convictions and remand for a new trial.89 
                                          
 
88  
See Henry v. State, 373 A.2d 575, 576 n.1 (Del. 1977) (“We regard the failure to comply 
with the [night-time warrant] statute as plain error . . . .”). 
89  
Before this Court, Buckham also argued that the trial court abused its discretion in denying 
his request for a mistrial after the lead detective mentioned his nickname, which the parties and 
the trial court agreed before trial was not to be used because of its possible prejudicial effect. We 
need not reach the substance of Buckham’s argument on this issue because of our decision to 
reverse and remand, but we assume that on retrial the improper mention of Buckham’s nickname 
will not recur.