Title: Crawley v. State
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 634, 2006
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: May 23, 2007

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
VARDON CRAWLEY,  
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  No. 634, 2006 
 
 
Defendant Below,  
) 
 
 
Appellant,  
 
)  Court Below:  Superior Court of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  the State of Delaware in and 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
)  and for New Castle County 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
)  Cr. ID No. 0512021018 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
 
 
Plaintiff Below, 
 
) 
 
 
Appellee. 
 
 
) 
 
Submitted:  May 2, 2007 
Decided:  May 23, 2007 
 
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND and JACOBS, Justices. 
 
O R D E R 
 
 
This 23rd day of May 2007, it appears to the Court that: 
 
(1) 
Defendant-appellant, Vardon Crawley, appeals from Superior Court 
convictions of Attempted Murder, Possession of a Firearm During the Commission 
of a Felony, and Possession of a Deadly Weapon by a Person Prohibited.  On 
appeal, Crawley claims that the trial judge prejudicially deprived him of a fair trial 
on two alternative grounds.  First, he claims that the trial judge erred by permitting 
the State to introduce evidence of “prior bad acts” – drug transactions between 
Crawley and Evon Lynch.  Crawley contends that the evidence related to drugs had 
no bearing on the charged offenses.  He contends that the trial judge impermissibly 
permitted the jury to infer that Crawley must have shot Lynch because Crawley 
 
2
and Lynch “dealt drugs.”  The record shows that defense counsel made a tactical 
decision to use the drug related evidence in a way he believed to be to his client’s 
advantage; that tactical decision constitutes a waiver and bars plain error review.  
Second, and alternatively, Crawley contends that the trial judge erred by not giving 
a cautionary instruction that limited the jury’s consideration of the drug related 
evidence.  Crawley contends that without a proper cautionary instruction “[t]he 
jury was free to infer that it was more likely that the Defendant shot Evan Lynch 
because Lynch and the Defendant were drug dealers and this is what drug dealers 
do.”  This Court has held that the trial judge’s failure to give a cautionary 
instruction relating to prior bad acts under 404 (b) does not constitute plain error.  
Accordingly, we AFFIRM.   
(2) 
On December 30, 2005, Crawley and Lynch arranged to meet in an 
alley off 31st Street near Washington Street, a location where they had met before.  
Crawley intended to buy four ounces of marijuana from Lynch for $200.  Lynch 
arrived first, placed the marijuana on the ground near his vehicle, and waited.  
Lynch testified that after a few minutes, he saw Crawley and began walking 
toward Crawley to greet him.  As he approached Crawley, Lynch saw something in 
Crawley’s hand.  Lynch called out “what’s up?” but Crawley made no reply.  
Lynch asked “what’s that for?” indicating the object in Crawley’s hand.  Crawley 
tucked his hand behind him, again making no reply.  Lynch, realizing that the 
 
3
object in Crawley’s hand was a gun, turned to get away.  He next remembers 
bleeding in his truck and telling a friend on the phone that he had been hit in the 
back of the head.  Lynch was not aware that he had been shot.  Lynch’s friend 
found him and called an ambulance.  On the way to the hospital, Lynch told police 
that Crawley had shot him.  The hospital staff treated Lynch for a gunshot wound 
that had grazed his shoulder, entered the rear of his neck, and lodged at the base of 
his skull.  In the hospital, a detective showed Lynch a photographic lineup.  Lynch 
identified Crawley as the person who shot him. 
 
(3) 
Other testimony placed Crawley near the site of the shooting that 
evening.  Charman Norwood testified that he and Crawley had driven a car to pick 
up Arthur Demby, at 6th and Union Streets in Wilmington.  Before going there, 
Crawley first went to 31st and Washington Streets where Crawley parked the car, 
called someone on Norwood’s cell phone, left the car for about 15 minutes, and 
then returned.  Norwood did not see a gun, and Crawley did not indicate that 
anything unusual had happened.  They then picked up Demby. 
(4) 
The police did not recover a gun.  In the basement apartment where 
Crawley lived at the time, however, police found a pair of jeans with blood stains 
in a black backpack.  Demby, who lived in the basement with Crawley, testified 
that Crawley owned the black backpack.  The Medical Examiner’s DNA analysis 
revealed that the blood on the jeans was Lynch’s. 
 
4
(5) 
A New Castle County grand jury indicted Crawley on Attempted 
Murder, Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony, and 
Possession of a Deadly Weapon by a Person Prohibited.  At trial, Lynch testified 
that at the time of the shooting, he was a drug dealer and that Crawley had been 
buying marijuana from him for about ten years.  Crawley bought marijuana by the 
quarter pound “maybe two, three times for the month.”  Their relationship had 
always been cordial.  The jury convicted Crawley of all charges, and the trial judge 
sentenced him to a cumulative 39 years Level V imprisonment, suspended after 30 
years for decreasing levels of supervision.  Crawley appealed. 
(6) 
On appeal, Crawley claims that the trial judge denied him a fair trial:  
(a) by admitting the testimony about the drug transactions between Crawley and 
Lynch, in violation of Rule 404(b) of the Delaware Rules of Evidence;1 and 
alternatively, (b) by failing to give, sua sponte, a cautionary instruction that limited 
the jury’s consideration of that evidence.   
(7) 
In Delaware, “[f]ailure to raise a contemporaneous objection at trial to 
this allegedly prejudicial testimony constitutes a waiver of a defendant’s right to 
                                                 
1 Delaware Rules of Evidence 404 Character evidence not admissible to prove conduct; 
exceptions; other crimes (b) Other crimes, wrongs or acts provides: 
 
Evidence of other crimes, wrongs or acts is not admissible to prove the character 
of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be 
admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, 
preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident. 
 
D.R.E. 404 (b).  
 
5
raise that issue on appeal, unless the error is plain.”2  Counsel’s failure to object to 
admitting improper evidence because of oversight does not bar plain error review.3  
If, however, “the party consciously refrains from objecting as a tactical matter, 
then that action constitutes a true ‘waiver,’ which will negate even plain error 
review.”4 
(8) 
Here, the record shows that defense counsel’s failure to object to the 
drug related evidence was not an oversight, but “a tactical choice reached early in 
the case.”5  In his opening statement, the prosecutor stated that the relationship 
between Lynch and Crawley was that of drug seller and drug buyer.  Defense 
counsel raised no objection to the prosecutor’s statement at that time, nor did 
defense counsel move to strike Lynch’s testimony regarding the drug transactions.  
Instead, defense counsel cross examined Lynch about his drug dealing activities, 
including the number of his regular clients.6         
                                                 
 
2  
Hooks v. State, 1992 Del. LEXIS 305, at *7 (Del. 1992), citing Wainwright v. State, 504 
A.2d 1096, 1100 (Del. 1986). 
 
3  
Tucker v. State, 564 A.2d 1110, 1118 (Del. 1989). 
 
4  
State v. Phelps, 167 S.W.3d 804, 806 (Mo. Ct. App. 2005), quoting U.S. v. Yu-Leung, 51 
F.3d 1116, 1122 (2d Cir. 1995).  See also Tucker, 564 A.2d at 1125.  
 
5  
Tucker, 564 A.2d at 1119. 
 
6  
During defense counsel’s cross examination of Lynch, the following exchange took 
place: 
 
Q. So you are a drug dealer? 
 
6
                                                                                                                                                             
A. If you want to say that, yes. 
Q. And have you been involved in that for a while? 
A. On and off, yes.  I do work, also. 
Q. Is selling drugs your main source of income? 
A. You can say—you can say that, if you want. 
Q. Back in December of 2005, did you have a pretty large clientele when it came to 
selling drugs? 
A. I’m—not all that. 
Q. Did you have people that would call you, want drugs from you? 
A. Yes. Yes. 
Q. It was more than one person? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Was it more than ten people? 
A. Maybe around that, un-huh. 
Q. Maybe around— 
A. Yeah. 
Q. –Ten regular people? 
A. Yeah; back and forth, sometimes.  You know, regular, sometimes not. 
Q. So you would sometimes be contacted by people that you didn’t know very well about 
purchasing drugs from you? 
A. Say that again? 
Q. You would sometimes be contacted by people that you didn’t know very well about 
purchasing drugs from you? 
A. The people I knew, I knew them for a while. 
Q. All right.  But you also just testified that some people were regular, and some people 
weren’t.  So did you sometimes sell drugs to people that you didn’t know very well? 
A. Well, yeah.  Yeah. 
Q. All right.  Will you agree with me that selling drugs to people is not a very safe 
profession? 
A. That’s true. 
Q. Have you—up until what happened to you on the 30th of December, had you been 
assaulted before— 
A. No. 
Q. –selling drugs? 
A. No. 
Q. When you normally would sell drugs to people, would you normally do it in a location 
that you know that was safe? 
 
A. Well, um, I just pick, you know, a location.  If I’m in town, it can be anywhere, you 
know, just call on the phone and say, meet me there, you know, or we meet up there. 
* * * 
Q. And 31st and Washington was one of those areas where it was—you thought it was 
relatively safe? 
A. No.  31st is an area where we had already met up before.  He was familiar with the 
area and I was familiar with the area and I was familiar with the area. 
 
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(9) 
Moreover, in his summation, defense counsel used the drug 
transaction evidence as a basis for the jury to believe that Lynch had misidentified 
Crawley: 
And don’t believe for a second that Mr. Lynch is in an alleyway to 
meet one specific client.  He is a drug dealer who goes to where he’s 
comfortable to sell drugs.  And this alley is by his dad’s house.  And it 
is a comfortable place for him to sell drugs.  So Mr. Crawley isn’t the 
only person that meets him there.  I believe it’s reasonable for you to 
think that his other customers meet him there, or these other people 
that he sells drugs to, that he doesn’t even know very well, meet him 
there to buy drugs.  And he’s a drug dealer and he got shot by 
somebody.  Mr. Lynch said that Tweet did it.  Mr. Lynch may be 
remembering the last person that talked to him on the phone, and that 
could be Vardon Crawley.  Maybe that’s what he remembers.  He 
remembers that he was supposed to meet Tweet to buy drugs. 
 
(10) It is clear from the record that defense counsel made a tactical 
decision to use the drug related evidence thinking that it would be to his client’s 
advantage.  Because Crawley’s defense counsel failed to object to the drug related 
evidence as a conscious tactical choice, that decision waived plain error review.7 
                                                                                                                                                             
* * * 
Q. Now, the day that this occurred, you testified that you were originally in New York 
City? 
A. Yes, I went shopping. 
Q. You went shopping.  Is that where you purchased your drugs, bring them back to 
Delaware? 
A. Yeah.  You can say that, yeah. 
Q. So that’s what you mean by— 
A. No, I went shopping.  I went grocery shopping, get some items like Jamaican stuff that 
I couldn’t get here.  I went, bought some fish. 
Q. But to answer my question, did you also purchase drugs? 
A. No, I didn’t purchase over there.  
       
7  
Baker v. State, 1993 Del. LEXIS 486, *12 (Del. 1993). 
 
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(11) Alternatively, Crawley argues that the trial judge committed 
reversible error by failing to give, sua sponte, a cautionary instruction to the jury 
limiting their consideration of the drug transactions in which he participated but for 
which he was not charged.  Since Crawley did not request a cautionary instruction 
at trial, we review for plain error.8   
(12) In Williams v. State,9 this Court held that “a trial court generally does 
not commit plain error if it fails to give a limiting instruction, sua sponte, when 
evidence of prior bad acts is admitted.”10  Specifically, “the absence of a limiting 
instruction concerning the uncharged drug-related evidence, which was presented 
without objection, does not constitute grounds for reversal of the Superior Court 
judgments.”11  That general rule applies even more clearly here where the defense 
believed the evidence of numerous drug transactions worked to its advantage.  
Accordingly, the trial judge did not err when he decided not to caution the jury 
about its consideration of Crawley’s earlier drug purchases. 
                                                                                                                                                             
 
8  
Zimmerman v. State, 565 A.2d 887, 890 (Del. 1989). 
 
9  
Williams v. State, 796 A.2d 1281 (Del. 2002). 
 
10  
Id. at 1290. 
 
11  
Baker v. State, 1993 Del. LEXIS 486 at *15. 
 
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NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior 
Court is AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Myron T. Steele 
 
 
 
 
 
Chief Justice