Title: Hull v. State
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 430, 2004
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: December 14, 2005

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
DONAL HULL, 
 
 
 
§  
 
 
 
 
 
 
§   No. 430, 2004 
 
Defendant Below,   
 
§  
 
Appellant,  
 
 
§   Court Below – Superior Court 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§   of the State of Delaware, 
 
v. 
 
 
 
 
§   in and for Sussex County 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§   Cr.A. Nos. IS03-10-0215W; IS03- 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
§     10-0216W; PS03-10-0214W;  
 
 
 
 
 
 
§     IS03-10-0217W 
 
Plaintiff Below, 
 
 
§  
 
Appellee. 
 
 
 
§  
 
 
 
 
 
   Submitted:  November 10, 2005 
 
 
 
 
      Decided:  December 14, 2005 
 
Before HOLLAND, JACOBS and RIDGELY, Justices. 
 
 
Upon appeal from the Superior Court.  AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
Thomas A. Pedersen, Esquire, Georgetown, Delaware, for appellant. 
 
Kim Ayvazian, Esquire, Department of Justice, Georgetown, 
Delaware, for appellee. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HOLLAND, Justice: 
 
2
 
The defendant-appellant, Donal Hull, was charged with Attempted 
Murder in the First Degree, two counts of Possession of a Handgun During 
the Commission of a Felony and related offenses.  Following a jury trial, 
Hull was found guilty of the lesser-included offense of Reckless 
Endangering in the First Degree, Aggravated Menacing and two counts of 
Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony.  Hull was 
immediately sentenced to the minimum mandatory six-year period of 
incarceration that is required by statute.   
 
Hull has raised two issues in this direct appeal.  First, he contends that 
the trial judge improperly limited his cross-examination of a witness, Montie 
Hayman.  Second, Hull submits that the trial judge improperly denied his 
motion for a judgment of acquittal.  We have concluded that neither of 
Hull’s arguments on appeal is meritorious.  Therefore, the judgments of the 
Superior Court must be affirmed.   
Facts 
 
On Sunday, September 21, 2003, Hull attended the automobile races 
at the Delmar Racetrack.  Also present at the races that day were Dwayne 
Batson and Montie Hayman.  The men all knew each other from attending 
the races for many years.   
 
3
 
Batson and Hull got into a dispute over a bet.  Batson punched Hull in 
the face and a struggle ensued.  Hayman and another man eventually 
separated Hull and Batson.  According to Hayman, as Hull ran to his car, a 
gray Mitsubishi Galant, Hull shouted back at Batson, “you’re a dead man.”   
 
Batson remained at the racetrack for another ten to fifteen minutes.  
When he left, he switched cars with Hayman and drove Hayman’s 1990 tan 
Chevrolet pick-up truck home toward Cambridge, Maryland.  As Batson was 
driving on the Delmar Road at approximately 6:30 p.m., he passed a white 
Jeep Cherokee.  Batson recognized Hull as the driver of the Cherokee.   
 
Batson pulled over to the shoulder of the road.  Batson observed Hull 
getting out of the Cherokee and approaching the rear of the truck.  When 
Hull lifted up his shirt, Batson could see Hull’s hand on the handle of a gun.  
Batson drove off at high speed.  Hull returned to his vehicle and gave chase.   
According to Batson, Hull pulled his vehicle along side of Batson, 
driving on the wrong side of the two-lane road, and fired several shots at 
Batson with what appeared to be a nine millimeter black gun.  One shot 
shattered the driver’s side window and another shot penetrated the driver’s 
door.  An oncoming car forced Hull to pull behind Batson, but he fired 
another shot through Batson’s back window that exited through the front 
 
4
windshield.  Hull then pulled over and drove his vehicle in the opposite 
direction.   
 
Batson drove on to a friend’s house in Hurlock, Maryland.  He told 
his friend what had happened.  Later, Batson drove to find Hayman in 
Cambridge, Maryland and from there he drove to the police station.   
 
At trial, Hull denied that he ever shouted at Batson, “you’re a dead 
man,” or drove home and got into a white Jeep Cherokee to go looking for 
Batson.  Hull’s wife supported his version of the facts testifying that she had 
driven the white Jeep Cherokee to church that day and did not return home 
until about 8 p.m.   
Cross-Examination Properly Limited 
 
Hull’s first argument on appeal is that the trial judge improperly 
limited his cross-examination of Montie Hayman, a witness to the initial 
fight between Hull and Batson.  According to Hull, inquiry into Hayman’s 
prior drug convictions was crucial to demonstrate that Hayman and Batson 
had a motive to fabricate their testimony.  The trial judge denied Hull’s 
request to admit into evidence Hayman’s prior misdemeanor drug 
convictions because they were not admissible under the Delaware Rules of 
Evidence. 
 
5
 
A trial judge has broad discretion in determining the relevance of 
“peripheral or background evidence concerning a witness.”1  Hull requested 
more information about Hayman’s prior criminal background than the State 
had been able to provide.  The trial judge allowed defense counsel the 
opportunity to question Hayman outside the presence of the jury to 
determine the disposition of his drug dealing and assault charges.  Hayman 
admitted having only two misdemeanor convictions involving drug 
possession.  The trial judge refused to allow Hull to introduce this evidence 
under Delaware Rules of Evidence 609(a), which provides: 
(a) 
General rule.  For the purpose of attacking the credibility 
of a witness, evidence that the witness has been convicted of a 
crime shall be admitted but only if the crime (1) constituted a 
felony under the law under which the witness was convicted, 
and the court determines that the probative value of admitting 
this evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect or (2) involved 
dishonesty or false statement, regardless of the punishment.2 
 
 
On appeal, Hull argues that the evidence of Hayman’s drug conviction 
was relevant because “drug dealing is a dangerous business which carries the 
potential of armed conflict as a by-product of commercial enterprise.”3  Hull 
wanted to challenge Batson’s testimony that it was Hull who had chased 
Batson in a white Jeep Cherokee and fired shots at him.  Hull wanted to 
                                          
 
1 Chapman v. State, 821 A.2d 867, 869 (Del. 2003).   
2 See Gregory v. State, 616 A.2d 1198, 1204-05 (Del. 1992) (holding that drug-related 
offenses fall outside the scope of Delaware Rules of Evidence 609(a)(2)). 
3 See, e.g., Delaware Rules of Evidence 404(b).   
 
6
argue that, since Batson was driving Hayman’s truck, Batson was mistaken 
for Hayman by an unknown, drug-related, third-party “shooter” who 
intended to injure Hayman.   
 
Under Delaware Rules of Evidence 611, cross-examination “should 
be limited to the subject matter of the direct examination and matters 
affecting the credibility of the witness.  The trial judge may, in the exercise 
of discretion, permit inquiry into additional matters as if on direct 
examination.”  Hayman did not testify about his prior drug possession or 
about drugs at all during his direct examination.  Nor was his drug 
conviction admissible for impeachment purposes.   
Hayman’s prior drug convictions were not admissible under Delaware 
Rules of Evidence 609(a) to impeach Hayman’s credibility because they 
were neither felonies nor crimes of dishonesty.4  Nor were they admissible 
as evidence of bias.5  The fact that Hayman had prior misdemeanor drug 
convictions itself carries no implication that there was any “connivance or 
collusion” between Batson and Hayman to fabricate their testimony.6 
                                          
 
4 See Archie v. State, 721 A.2d 924, 928 (Del. 1998).   
5 Cf. Weber v. State, 457 A.2d 674, 678-83 (Del. 1983) (holding that evidence that State’s 
witnesses had received payment from the victim’s family should have been allowed to 
demonstrate bias). 
6 See Lovett v. State, 516 A.2d 455, 470-71 (Del. 1986). 
 
7
 
The record reflects that Hull wanted to discredit Batson’s eyewitness 
identification indirectly through Hayman.  The use of Hayman’s prior drug 
convictions to impeach the credibility of another witness (Batson) did not 
fall within the ambit of any evidentiary rule.7  Batson had known the 
defendant for six or seven years because the two frequented the same 
racetrack.  As a result, the likelihood of Batson misidentifying Hull as the 
driver of the white Jeep Cherokee was remote.  Hayman’s prior 
misdemeanor convictions had no evidentiary significance under the 
circumstances of this case.  Therefore, the trial judge’s refusal to admit those 
convictions into evidence did not violate Hull’s confrontation clause rights.8   
Evidence Established Crime Scene 
 
At the conclusion of the State’s case-in-chief, Hull moved to dismiss 
the charges, arguing that the State had failed to establish the location of the 
alleged offenses.  The trial judge denied the motion, finding that, based on 
Detective Mitchell’s testimony, the shooting incidents occurred within 
Sussex County, Delaware.  On appeal, Hull reiterates his claim that there 
was insufficient evidence of the location of the incident within Delaware. 
 
The record reflects that after Batson reported the offense to the police, 
Detective J.B. Mitchell drove Batson back to the route he had traveled from 
                                          
 
7 See Dollard v. State, 838 A.2d 264, 267-68 (Del. 2003). 
8 See Lovett v. State, 516 A.2d at 471.   
 
8
the Delmar Racetrack that evening.  On State Route 54, also known as the 
Delmar Road, Batson told the officer that he first observed the vehicle 
driven by Hull at the Jersey Road intersection, just west of Delmar.  The 
shooting took place between Jersey Road and Susan Beach Road, which was 
approximately one and a half miles west of Jersey Road.  Batson also told 
the officer that the shooting occurred before he reached a wooded area along 
the road, which was located before Packing House Road. 
 
A young witness named Kelsey Craven testified that she had observed 
two cars stop along Delmar Road in front of her house, one that looked like 
a brown pickup and the other like a white Blazer.  She testified that the man 
driving the white car got out and started to walk up to the brown truck, but 
the brown truck “just speeded off” before he could reach it. Craven lived at 
6370 Delmar Road, just west of the intersection of Jersey Road and 
approximately two or three miles East of Packing House Road.  Hull lived 
on Naylor Mill Road, just east of the intersection of Jersey and Naylor Mill 
Roads, and about four and a half miles away from Craven’s residence.  Hull 
owned a white Jeep.  The pickup truck Batson was driving was described as 
tan in color. 
 
Mitchell testified that the stretch of Delmar Road from Jersey Road to 
beyond Packing House Road was located in Sussex County, Delaware.  
 
9
Detective Mitchell’s testimony, in conjunction with that of Kelsey Craven, 
was sufficient to establish jurisdiction and venue in this case.  Looking at 
this evidence in a light most favorable to the State, there is sufficient proof 
that the offenses (Aggravated Menacing and the Reckless Endangering, and 
their related Firearm offenses) took place in Sussex County, Delaware.  The 
fact that the State’s evidence did not precisely establish where the events 
took place is not critical because suits may be established by inference.9  
Accordingly, the trial judge properly denied the motion for judgment of 
acquittal on the basis of insufficient proof of jurisdiction. 
Conclusion 
 
The judgments of the Superior Court are affirmed. 
 
                                          
 
9 Thornton v. State, 405 A.2d 126, 127 (Del. 1979).