Court Opinion

ID: 9649621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:03:53.778225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:13.282266
License: Public Domain

STEELE, Justice,
with whom BERGER, Justice, joins, dissenting.
Today a majority of this Court concludes that Rule 35(b) authorizes a Superior Court judge to reduce the sentence of a person convicted in 1991 long after that person served that sentence and more than eight years after Rule 35(b)’s 90 day limit for filing a Motion for Reduction of Sentence had expired. The majority so concludes simply because “collateral consequences” that were inchoate until nine years after sentencing “attachfed] to the sentence.” I am unable to agree with the majority’s conclusion and, therefore, must respectfully dissent.
The majority concludes that the sentencing judge properly considered hardships that might befall Lewis’ family should he be deported by the federal immigration authorities because those hardships would constitute “extraordinary circumstances” under Rule 35(b).
Both the sentencing judge’s and the majority’s conclusion is a fundamental misinterpretation of Rule 35(b)’s use of the term “extraordinary circumstances.” This Court has held on several occasions that a Motion for Reduction of Sentence pursuant to Rule 35(b) is time-barred after 90 days unless the petitioner is able to demonstrate extraordinary circumstances that specifically justify the delay.4 While the majority correctly points out that our rule is more liberal that its former federal counterpart,5 I have found nothing, and neither the sentencing judge nor the majority cite any authority that suggests that our rule was intended to be interpreted as broadly as the majority believes. When the Superior Court chose to include the “extraordinary circumstances” language in its Rule 35(b), it merely reflected what the United States Supreme Court has acknowledged as a matter of common law— that even the strict time limitations contained in certain Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were not so absolute that they would bar consideration on the merits when a delay in filing was due to circumstances entirely beyond a petitioner’s control.6 A careful examination of the wording of Rule 35 reveals four bases for “correction or reduction of sentence.”
First, a court may correct an “Illegal sentence at any time...” (i.e. without any time limitation on filing for the remedy).
Second, a sentence “imposed in an illegal manner” may be corrected “unthin the time provided herein for the reduction of sentence.” (A direct, clear reference to the time window of 90 days provided in Rule 35(b)).
Third, where the request is for a reduction of sentence under Rule 35(b), the court may “reduce a sentence of imprisonment on a motion made within 90 days *1204after the sentence is imposed.” This time window may be opened for consideration of an application for reduction of a sentence of imprisonment made after 90 days “only in extraordinary circumstances.”
Finally, a sentence may be corrected for technical error within 7 days after imposition of the sentence.
Importantly, Rule 45(b) specifically excludes Rule 35 applications from ordinary considerations for enlargement of the time to file motions.
It seems obvious that the drafters intended to subject Rule 35 petitions to rational, workable time frames that could not be enlarged on an ad hoc basis. Indeed, I have difficulty believing that they anticipated an application of this Rule that would leave open any sentence for reconsideration indefinitely, restrained only by the discretion of whatever judge happened to be assigned a Rule 35 motion for relief, whether that judge had presided over the initial sentencing or not.
Even if the need for a closed window on Rule 35 motions except to correct an illegal sentence were not so evident as a matter of sound public policy, I find that the majority’s and the sentencing judge’s reliance on the collateral consequences exception for mootness to be sorely misplaced. Like the federal judiciary, our courts are not to consider any action absent genuine controversy.7 While it is well recognized that the orderly administration of justice requires that certain exceptions exist, they are not properly applicable here. The policy behind our decision in Gural v. State and its federal progenitors simply is not based on the collateral consequences that may attach to the sentence of a duly convicted defendant. Instead, the drafters designed the “federal rule” on the principle that the individual who believes that he or she has been wrongly convicted should not be barred from pursuing an appeal or other postconviction challenge to that conviction despite the completion of any sentence in order to avoid the collateral consequences that may attach as a result.8
The language in Gural does mention, but only in passing, that collateral consequences might attach to sentencing. I have been unable to locate a single written opinion in our courts concluding that this mootness exception applies to a challenge to a sentence as opposed to a conviction. Moreover, at least one recent decision of the United States Supreme Court suggests that the sole instance in which the Court acknowledged that an otherwise moot sentencing challenge might survive because of collateral consequences was dicta (impliedly not thoughtful dicta at that) with little, if any, value as precedent.9 Indeed, the Supreme Court has stated that this “almost offhanded[ ]” comment in Pollard and its “parsimonious view of the function of Article III standing has since yielded to the acknowledgment that the constitutional requirement [of an actual case or controversy] is a ‘means of defin[ing] the role assigned to the judiciary in the tripartite allocation of power.’ ”10 I further note *1205that even in its most liberal application at the federal level, the courts apply the collateral consequences doctrine only to challenges that were originated before the completion of a sentence. In no instance have the courts allowed a petitioner to resurrect a claim which could have been, but was not, raised in a timely fashion.
The United States Supreme Court’s concern in Spencer and Valley Forge Christian College that a permissive application of the standing requirement infringes on the separation of powers should be of equal concern to the Delaware courts. While the majority may correctly describe a Rule 35(b) motion as a plea for leniency, after 90 days, that plea for leniency falls squarely within the discretion of the executive branch, and the judiciary may not consider it except where “extraordinary circumstances” may have prevented the applicant from seeking the remedy on a timely basis. The appropriate remedy for a sentence, long since served, even one which allegedly subjects a person and his family to newly discovered unduly harsh consequences, but which was otherwise legally imposed is executive clemency, not judicial action.11 Article VII of the Constitution of 1897 vests the Governor, upon the recommendation of the Board of Pardons, with the sole power to grant reprieves, commutations of sentence and pardons. Our courts have concluded that the Governor may neither delegate nor share this power.12 The majority’s position implies that the courts may assume that power, nonetheless, where the merits of a stale petition for a reduction of sentence may be characterized as to be “extraordinary circumstances.”
Finally, sound public policy reasons dictate strict adherence to the 90-day time limit imposed by Rule 35(b). In examining the Superior Court’s application of procedural bars to postconviction relief under Rule 61, this Court has long recognized the necessity of dismissing most petitions for procedural noneompliance to keep that trial court from being overwhelmed by the burdensome task of deciding each claim on its supposed merits. Now, despite the majority’s protestations that Rule 35 relief is distinctly different than that offered under Rule 61, the majority opinion essentially opens a second door to postconviction relief, yet without the procedural protections necessary to filter out frivolous claims. When this Court removes the thoughtful, rational time bar Superior Court has written into its rule, we force the Superior Court to consider each Rule 35(b) petition on the merits of every extraordinary circumstance that might be alleged, demand that an inordinate amount of our scarce judicial resources be devoted to this purpose, unnecessarily usurp well founded Constitutional principles codifying executive clemency, and foster widely disparate exercises of discretion that may well result in inconsistent, irreconcilable outcomes. Therefore, I dissent.

. Black v. State, 741 A.2d 1025 (Table), 1999 WL 1098171, -1 (Del.1999) (Holland, J., order); Winn v. State, 716 A.2d 975 (Table), 1998 WL 515166, -2 (Del.1998) (Veasey, C.J., order); Abdul-Akbar v. State, 703 A.2d 643 (Table), 1997 WL 776208, -1 (Del.1997) (Berger, J., order).

. The ability of federal defendants to file for a reduction of sentence within 120 days of imposition was deleted from Fed.R.Crim.P. 35 as part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Pub.L. No 98-473.

. Fallen v. United States, 378 U.S. 139, 142-43, 84 S.Ct. 1689, 1691-92, 12 L.Ed.2d 760 (1964). Although Fallen addressed the filing of an appeal under Fed.R.Crim.P. 37, an earlier decision of the Court analogized the strict limitations of Rule 37 with the then-6 0-day limitation for filing a Motion for Reduction of Sentence under Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(b). United States v. Robinson, 361 U.S. 220, 80 S.Ct. 282, 4 L.Ed.2d 259 (1960).

. Southern Prod. Co., Inc. v. Sabath, 87 A.2d 128 (Del.1952); State ex rel. Traub v. Brown, 197 A. 478 (Del.1938).

. In the case cited by the Gural court, Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 88 S.Ct. 1556, 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968), the collateral consequence faced by the petitioner was disqualification from certain employment. Other potential consequences attendant to a conviction include loss of voting privileges and disqualification from service on a jury.

. Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 9, 118 S.Ct. 978, 984, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998) (discussing Pollard v. United States, 352 U.S. 354, 77 S.Ct. 481, 1 L.Ed.2d 393 (1957)).

. Spencer, 523 U.S. at 11-12, 118 S.Ct. at 985 (quoting Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans for Separation of Church and State, *1205Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 474, 102 S.Ct. 752, 759, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982)).

. Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 120-21, 45 S.Ct. 332, 337, 69 L.Ed. 527. 267 U.S. 87, 45 S.Ct. 332, 69 L.Ed. 527 (1925); Egan v. United States, 268 F.2d 820 (8th Cir.1959).

. In re McKinney, 138 A. 649, 651-52 (Del.Super.Ct.1927)