Title: Shambor v. State
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 223, 2002
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: October 4, 2002

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
CRAIG SHAMBOR, 
 
 
 
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No. 223, 2002 
Defendant Below,    
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Appellant,  
 
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v. 
 
 
 
 
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Court Below: Superior Court 
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of the State of Delaware 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
 
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in and for New Castle County 
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Plaintiff Below, 
 
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I.D. No. 0107004481 
Appellee. 
 
 
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Submitted: July 23, 2002 
Decided: October 4, 2002 
 
Before VEASEY, Chief Justice, WALSH and BERGER, Justices. 
 
O R D E R 
 
This 4th day of October, on consideration of the briefs of the parties, it appears to 
the Court that: 
1) Craig Shambor appeals his conviction, following a bench trial in the Court of 
Common Pleas, of resisting arrest.  He argues on appeal to this Court, as he did to the 
Superior Court, that he was charged with the wrong crime because his arrest had been 
completed and he was in police custody when he committed the acts that led to the 
charge. 
2) On July 8, 2001, the New Castle County Police responded to an altercation 
between Shambor and his neighbor.  When the responding officers heard Shambor tell 
 
 
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his neighbor, “You better watch yourself,” they arrested him for terroristic threatening.  
Shambor cooperated with the officers while being handcuffed and placed in the police 
car.  On the way to the station, however, Shambor attempted to kick out the rear 
windows of the police car.  As a result, he was charged with resisting arrest. 
3) Shambor argues that his arrest was completed when he was placed in the 
police car and that his conduct while in the police car, if actionable at all, was an 
attempted escape.  By statute, “[a] person is guilty of resisting arrest when the person 
intentionally prevents or attempts to prevent a peace officer from effecting an arrest or 
detention of the person ... or intentionally flees from a peace officer who is effecting an 
arrest.”1  The word “arrest” is defined, by statute, as “the taking of a person into custody 
in order that the person may be forthcoming to answer for the commission of a crime.”2 
 The dictionary definition is very similar: arrest is “[t]he taking or keeping of a person in 
custody by legal authority.”3 
                                                 
111 Del. C. § 1257. 
211 Del. C. § 1901(1). 
3 Black’s Law Dictionary (Bryan A. Garner 7th Ed. 1999). 
 
 
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4)   Both definitions recognize that an arrest is not a single act, but rather a 
process by which a person is brought into custody.  In this case, although Shambor was 
in a police car and on his way to the police station, a rational trier of fact could have  
concluded that he was still in the process of being taken into custody when Shambor 
attempted to kick out the car window.4 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior 
Court be, and the same hereby is, AFFIRMED. 
BY THE COURT: 
 
/s/ Carolyn Berger 
Justice 
 
 
 
                                                 
4 See: State v. Bolden, 801 P.2d 863, 864 (Or. App. 1991)(Defendant was convicted of resisting 
arrest, after being transported to the police station in a police car, based on his struggle with the 
arresting officer in the parking lot of the police station and at the booking.  The court held that “the 
prohibition against resisting arrest is applicable to the entire course of events during which an officer 
effectuates and maintains custody over an arrestee for purposes of charging the individual with an 
offense.” (Internal quotations omitted.)