Title: Coffield v. State
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 361, 2000
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: April 10, 2002

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
ANTHONY X. COFFIELD,
)
)  No. 361, 2000
Defendant Below,
)
Appellant,
)  Court Below:  Superior Court
)  of the State of Delaware in
v.
)  and for New Castle County
)
STATE OF DELAWARE,
)  Cr. A. Nos. IN99-05-0792, 0793, 1271
)  1272, 1273 and 0700 through 0703
Plaintiff Below,
)
Appellee.
)
Submitted:  January 29, 2002
Decided:  April 10, 2002
Before VEASEY, Chief Justice, HOLLAND and STEELE, Justices.
Upon appeal from the Superior Court.  AFFIRMED.
Raymond M. Rudulski, Office of the Public Defender, Wilmington,
Delaware, for appellant.
Gregory R. Babowal, Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware, for
appellee.
STEELE, Justice:
2
A Superior Court jury convicted Appellant, defendant-below, Anthony X.
Coffield on three counts each of Robbery in the First Degree and Possession of a
Firearm During the Commission of a Felony, as well as on several lesser charges
relating to the robberies.  The trial judge then imposed consecutive sentences
amounting to thirty-four years at Level V incarceration, twenty-four of which were
to be served at that level, with the remainder suspended for various lesser levels of
supervision.
Immediately before trial, the State moved to amend the victim’s name in
Count II of the indictment from Douglas Brock to Francis Jackson.  The State also
moved to amend Counts VI through VIII in order to specify which particular
robbery was the underlying felony to which each count of Possession of a Firearm
During the Commission of a Felony applied.  Initially, the trial judge declined to
grant the Motion.  At the close of the State’s case, however, the trial judge granted
the Motion to Amend the Indictment.  Coffield argues in this appeal that the trial
judge’s action amounted to a judicial usurpation of the indictment power that the
Delaware Constitution vests solely in a grand jury.
We find that the trial judge’s action did not violate Coffield’s guaranty of a
probable cause determination culminating in an indictment by grand jury.
Moreover, the amendments neither charged separate offenses nor worked
discernable prejudice on the Appellant, and therefore fell well within the bounds of
3
the trial judge’s discretion under Superior Court Criminal Rule 7(e).  Therefore, we
AFFIRM the judgment of the Superior Court.
On the morning of May 3, 1999, three businesses located in the City of
Wilmington were robbed at gunpoint.  In each instance, witnesses described the
suspect as a stocky black man wearing a dark blue stocking cap, a dark blue
hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses, and displaying a small silver handgun.  The State’s
witnesses testified that, during one of the robberies, that of a Cumberland Farms
store, the robber threatened an off-duty employee of the store, Douglas Brock, with
the handgun and forced him to lie on the floor.  The robber did not demand
anything of value from Brock nor did he forcibly remove any property from him.
Nevertheless, the evidence presented at trial did show that the robber forced the
clerk on duty, Francis Jackson, to hand over currency from the store’s accounts.
The State moved to amend the indictment to reflect that Francis Jackson was
the “victim” of the robbery and not Douglas Brock.  As noted supra, the record
shows that both Jackson and Brock were employees of the Cumberland Farms
store that Coffield robbed and were both present on the date and time the robbery
was alleged to have occurred.  The parties agree that the robber displayed the
handgun and threatened harm to both individuals.  Contrary to the indictment
returned by the grand jury, the robber forced Jackson and not Brock to retrieve the
store’s money.  Because the State realized that the evidence relating to this single
4
fact would prove different at trial than alleged in the indictment, it moved to amend
the indictment accordingly.
A requested amendment of any indictment requires the trial judge to
consider not only whether the proposed amendment compromises an individual’s
right to a probable cause determination by a grand jury, but also whether the
amendment would create prejudice to the defendant incompatible with our
conception of due process.  For two centuries, Delaware’s several constitutions
have enshrined the common law rights that prevent the State from proceeding with
a felony prosecution without an indictment by a grand jury.1  At its common law
inception, an indictment could be amended only by the grand jury that returned the
original bill.2  Yet the law has evolved to recognize that a “mistake of form,
resulting in no substantial harm or prejudice to a defendant, should not be
permitted to retard or defeat the administration of justice.”3  To this end, it has long
been the practice of the courts, at the time the indictment is returned, to obtain the
consent of the grand jury for the trial court to amend the form of the indictments
without its express action.  This Court has clearly stated that in no instance may the
                                                
1 Johnson v. State, 711 A.2d 18, 26 (Del. 1998).
2 Id. at 25.
3 State v. Blendt, 120 A.2d 321, 323 (Del. Super. Ct. 1956).
5
trial court authorize an amendment to an indictment if that amendment would in
any way alter the substance of the grand jury’s charge.4
The purpose of limiting amendments to those addressing matters of form is
to preserve the integrity of the grand jury system.  Allowing the courts to alter an
indictment substantively creates the potential for the State to prosecute a defendant
on charges on which the grand jury never found probable cause, never intended to
indict and may not have even considered.5  Our adherence to any other doctrine
would “place the rights of the citizen, which were intended to be protected by the
constitutional provision, at the mercy or control of the court.”6  We have found that
the principal test for determining the appropriateness of an amendment under the
Delaware Constitution must focus on the extent to which the amendment
substantively changes the material elements of the crime alleged in the original
indictment.  On two separate occasions this issue has arisen in the context of an
indictment alleging an assault while in possession of a deadly weapon.  In each
instance, the state sought an amendment altering the description of the instrument
allegedly used in the attack.7  We held that the identification of the instrumentality
employed is a material element of any deadly weapon charge whether it be
                                                
4 Johnson, 711 A.2d at 26 (citing Blendt, 120 A.2d at 324).
5 Id. at 28.
6 Id. (quoting Ex parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1, 13, 7 S. Ct. 781, 787-88, 30 L. Ed. 849 (1887)).
7 In Harley v. State, 534 A.2d 255 (Del. 1987), the State sought to amend its indictment for
Assault with a Deadly Weapon by changing the instrument of the attack from a “tire iron” to a
6
Possession of a Deadly Weapon During the Commission of a Felony or Assault in
the First Degree.  Indeed, the very title of the felony may imply the need to
examine the extent to which the object could be considered to be “deadly.”
Because the amendments in those cases would have usurped the grand jury’s right
to consider the deadly nature of the weapon, we deemed them substantive.
This Court also concluded that the misidentification of the instrument would
not be fatal to a separate charge of assault stemming from the incident which
neither requires nor implies the use of a deadly weapon or instrument.  We have
concluded that where a conviction on a charge was not dependant on the nature of
any weapon or instrument allegedly used in the assault an amendment to the
indictment recharacterizing the instrument would not be improper.8  In Harley,
whether the weapon allegedly used in the assault was deadly or not would not have
been material to a grand jury indicting on an Assault Second charge because the
defendant’s conduct is the only material element of the crime alleged.  We reached
a similar conclusion in Roberts v. State.9  In Roberts, we upheld an amendment that
changed the term “currency and other valuables” in the indictment to “property.”10
As in Harley, the amendment could not have altered the exact crime charged or
                                                                                                                                                            
“jack stand.”  Similarly, in Johnson v. State, 711 A.2d 18, the State attempted to amend the
instrument from a chair to a table.
8 Harley, 534 A.2d at 257.
9 710 A.2d 218 (Table), 1998 WL 231269 (Del. 1998) (order).
10 Id.
7
placed into question whether the defendant’s alleged behavior could have
suggested a different probable cause determination to the grand jury.
Robbery in the First Degree presupposes that an individual person is a
victim.  The governing statute states that a person is guilty of Robbery in the First
Degree when he commits the crime of Robbery in the Second Degree in
combination with one or more of four additional circumstances.11  Robbery in the
Second Degree requires that an individual “use or threaten the immediate use of
force upon another person.”12  Thus, any robbery, including the one at the
Cumberland Farms store, requires the existence of a named human victim as a
material element.
As discussed infra, the facts of the indictment cannot be amended in a
manner that fails to provide adequate notice of the crimes charged or otherwise
prejudices the defendant.  This Court has yet to decide whether, absent that
prejudice or lack of notice, an amendment to the identity of a victim changes the
substance or merely the form of the charge.  Nevertheless, the United States Court
of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has addressed the identical issue in examining an
individual’s guarantees under the Fifth Amendment of the United States
                                                
11 See Del. Code Ann. tit. 11 § 832 (2001).  In this instance, the additional factor consisted of the
display of a deadly weapon, namely a .25 caliber handgun.
12 See Del. Code Ann. tit. 11 § 831 (2001) (emphasis added).
8
Constitution.13  In a recent decision, that court concluded that, as a general rule,
“an erroneous reference to the victim is not fatal to the indictment.”14  It reasoned
that, although the law is clear that the charges may not be broadened through
amendment unless done by the grand jury itself, substituting a different person as
the victim in the indictment neither literally nor effectively changes the terms of
the indictment and therefore did not violate the defendant’s right to a probable
cause determination by a grand jury and the return of an indictment.15  We agree
that where no other prejudice to the defendant exists, the name of the alleged
human victim is not an essential element of the crime of Robbery First Degree and
the amendment of that portion of the indictment does not violate an individual’s
right under the Delaware Constitution to be charged for that felony by a grand jury
indictment.
Superior Court Criminal Rule 7(e) authorizes the trial court to permit an
amendment at any time before the verdict “if no additional or different offense is
charged and if substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced.”  Although
                                                
13 That amendment reads, in pertinent part: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or
otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases
in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public
danger….”  U.S. Const. amend V.  The United States Supreme Court has specifically held that
the grand jury concept is not among the protected rights applicable to the states by virtue of the
Fourteenth Amendment incorporation doctrine.  Hutado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 538, 4 S.
Ct. 111, 122, 28 L. Ed. 232 (1884).  We have recognized the common origins and purpose of the
Fifth Amendment and the grand jury clause found in our Constitution and will thus examine
federal cases.  See Johnson, 711 A.2d 18.
14 United States v. Moore, 198 F.3d 793, 795-96 (10th Cir. 1999).
9
these prohibitions reflect the common law limits on the ability to change only
matters of substance, they serve the dual purpose of protecting the due process
rights of the accused.  Having determined that the amendment to Coffield’s
indictment did not alter the substance of the indictment returned by the jury, we
must now examine whether the amendment otherwise prejudiced Coffield.
A defendant cannot be prejudiced if the original indictment, when viewed
with the amendment, is sufficiently certain and understandable to enable the
defendant to prepare his defense and to interpose a judgment in his case as a bar to
another prosecution for the same offense.16  Coffield cannot reasonably argue that
the indictment did not provide adequate notice of the crime charged.  Both the
“victim” named in the original indictment and the one named in the amendment
were present at the time of the robbery.  The evidence indisputably shows that the
robber threatened both individuals.  In fact, the only difference between the terms
of the original indictment and the amended version concerns which of the two the
robber forced to retrieve money.  The terms of both indictments clearly placed
Coffield on notice that he would be called upon to defend against the accusation
that he robbed an individual person at the Cumberland Farms store in Wilmington,
Delaware on the morning of May 3, 1999.  The amendment in no way alters these
                                                                                                                                                            
15 Id. at 496.
16 See Keller v. State, 425 A.2d 152, 155 (Del. 1981) (Delaware’s common law rule concerning
permissible indictment and Rule 7(e) are both designed to afford the accused notice of the
10
essential facts of the incident and thus Coffield can neither claim that he was
unaware of the offense charged nor that the amendment obscures the
underpinnings of the crime charged in a manner that submits him to the risk of a
second prosecution.
Moreover, because both the victim named in the original indictment and the
one named in the amendment were witnesses to the robbery, the defense knew that
both individuals were present at the time and place alleged well before trial, knew
the general nature of their testimony, and not only had equal access to both, but
also equal reason to interview them.  This Court has noted that the degree to which
an amendment might unduly prejudice a defendant by precluding him from
pursuing his original defense strategy is an appropriate consideration in a Rule 7(e)
analysis.17  In this instance, Coffield based his defense on an alibi for all three
robberies.  Nothing in the record suggests that Coffield would have pursued a
different strategy if he had known that the trial judge would grant the Motion to
Amend, nor did he raise this argument in this appeal.  In short, we find nothing to
support Coffield’s claim that when the trial judge decided to allow the State to
substitute the name of Francis Jackson for Douglas Brock in Count II that Coffield
suffered any discernable prejudice.
                                                                                                                                                            
charges against him so that he has the opportunity to prepare an adequate and prevention from
twice being placed in jeopardy for the same offense); see also Blendt, 120 A.2d at 531.
17 O’Neil v. State, 691 A.2d 50, 55 (Del. 1997).
11
Applying the same standard to the amendments of the three counts of
Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony, we find them to be
similarly matters of form and consistent with the constraints on amendments
imposed by Rule 7(e).  Each count charged Coffield with possession of “a .25
caliber handgun, a firearm[,] during the commission of robbery first.”  The state
charged one possession count for every robbery count.  The amendment sought to
correct the flaw that the indictment failed to specify which possession count
accompanied which robbery.  The amendment sought only to clarify the charge by
assigning each count to a robbery.  It alleged no new or different behavior and
clearly reflected the intent of the grand jury.  Furthermore, Coffield was surely
aware that he was being charged with Possession of a Firearm during each alleged
robbery.  All of the necessary and material elements of the charges were present in
the original indictment.
We find Appellant’s final two arguments to be wholly without merit.
Coffield contends that the trial judge abused his discretion when he failed to sever
the charges in the indictment.  Superior Court Criminal Rule 8(a) specifically
permits the joinder of two or more offenses if those offenses are of “the same or
similar character or are based on the same act or transaction or on two or more acts
or transactions connected together or constituting parts of a common scheme or
plan.”  We have held that where, as is the case here, the offenses are of the same
12
general character, involve a similar course of conduct, and have occurred within a
relatively brief span of time, it is proper to try the offenses together.18  Although
Rule 14 authorizes the severance of offenses where the joinder will prejudice either
party, any decision to sever is within the sound discretion of the trial court and will
not be disturbed on appeal absent a showing of actual prejudice by the defendant.19
Here, Coffield has offered only unsubstantiated speculation about prejudice.  His
assertion is clearly insufficient under the standard we articulated in Bates v. State.20
Coffield also argues that the trial judge erred when he interpreted the
sentencing statutes to prohibit the suspension of a minimum sentence after
conviction of Robbery in the First Degree.  The trial judge sentenced Coffield
under Del. Code Ann. tit. 11 § 832(b) which provides for a minimum sentence of
four years incarceration for those convicted of a second or later offense of Robbery
in the First Degree, notwithstanding the provisions of Del. Code Ann. tit. 11 §
4205(b) which would otherwise impose a suspended or sentence of “not less than 2
years up to 20 . . . .”  Coffield argues that §4205(d) is inapplicable to his sentence
because it states that where “a minimum, mandatory, mandatory minimum or
minimum mandatory sentence is required by subsection (b) of this section [§
4205], such sentence shall not be subject to suspension by the court.”  Coffield
                                                
18 Younger v. State, 496 A.2d 546, 550 (Del. 1985).
19 Super. Ct. Crim. R. 14; Lampkins v. State, 465 A.2d 785, 794 (Del. 1983).
13
concludes that since no minimum sentence was required by § 4205(b) he may have
his sentences suspended.  Coffield’s argument ignores Del. Code Ann. tit. 11 §
4204(d) which applies to all judgments of conviction and states:
Not withstanding anything in this Criminal Code to the contrary, probation
or a suspended sentence shall not be substituted for imprisonment where the
statute specifically indicates that a prison sentence is a mandatory sentence,
a minimum sentence, a minimum mandatory sentence or a mandatory
minimum sentence, or may not otherwise be suspended.
Here, because Coffield’s sentence is for a second or “subsequent” offense, a
minimum sentence of four years at Level V must be imposed notwithstanding §§
4205(b)(2)’s and 4215’s suggestion to the contrary.  Title 11 § 4204(d) clearly
states that this minimum not be suspended.  Because the sentencing judge correctly
interpreted the Criminal Code to bar the suspension of any statutorily mandated
minimum sentence, Appellant’s arguments in support of his challenge to his
sentence are unpersuasive.
The judgments of the Superior Court are affirmed.
                                                                                                                                                            
20 386 A.2d 1139, 1142 (Del. 1978) (“mere hypothetical prejudice is not sufficient” for defendant
to carry burden of demonstrating prejudice from refusal to grant a severance).