Opinion ID: 2009468
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Ex Post Facto and Due Process Death Penalty Statute Amendments

Text: Ferguson's next argument on appeal is that the Superior Court violated both the ex post facto clause of the federal Constitution and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when the amended Delaware death penalty statute was applied to Ferguson's pre-enactment offenses. This contention is without merit. This Court has previously held that the changes effected by Delaware's new death penalty statute are procedural, because the 1991 amendments merely alter[ed] the method of determining imposition of the death penalty. The quantum of punishment for the crime of first-degree murder in Delaware remains unchanged. State v. Cohen, Del.Supr., 604 A.2d 846, 853 (1992). See Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 293-94, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 2298-99, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977). The restrictive nature of the advisory jury's findings and the mandatory imposition of the death penalty by the sentencing judge under the amended statute are likewise procedural, and therefore do not implicate ex post facto concerns. See State v. Cohen, 604 A.2d at 849, 853-54. Ferguson has cited no legal precedent or intervening changes in the law that would undermine the ratio decidendi of this Court's holding in Cohen on the ex post facto issue. Dawson v. State, Del.Supr., 637 A.2d 57, 61 (1994). Accordingly, we decline to overrule Cohen. We adhere to our ex post facto holding in that decision and its progeny. Accord Gattis v. State, Del.Supr., 637 A.2d 808, 821 (1994); Wright v. State, Del.Supr., 633 A.2d 329, 343 (1993); Red Dog v. State, Del. Supr., 616 A.2d 298, 305-06 (1992).