Court Opinion

ID: 9894179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-31 19:04:19.380831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:58.338545
License: Public Domain

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

JOHN MUHAMMAD,                         §
                                       §
            Defendant-Below            §      No. 361, 2022
            Appellant,                 §
                                       §      Court Below—Superior Court
                                       §      of the State of Delaware
                   v.                  §
                                       §      Cr. ID No. 2007003170 (N)
STATE OF DELAWARE,                     §
                                       §
            Appellee.                  §

                          Submitted: August 9, 2023
                          Decided:   October 31, 2023

Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; TRAYNOR and LEGROW, Justices.

                                     ORDER

     This 31st day of October, 2023, after careful consideration of the parties’ briefs

and the record on appeal, it appears to the Court that:

     (1)    John Muhammad was indicted by a New Castle County grand jury on

five counts of unlawful sexual contact in the second degree for molesting the

underage daughter of his ex-wife. Muhammad testified in his own defense at trial,

and a Superior Court jury found him guilty on all counts. The trial judge deferred

sentencing and ordered a presentence investigation.

     (2)    At Muhammad’s sentencing hearing, which took place four months

after the jury verdict, the court noted that it had read the presentence-investigation
report and received “a whole book full of extenuating circumstances” from

Muhammad.1

       (3)    Pointing to aggravating circumstances, including prior arrests for

offenses involving public lewdness, and Muhammad’s violation of a no-contact

order during the investigation in this case, and his failure to accept responsibility

for his actions, the State recommended a sentence of three years Level V

incarceration. Muhammad’s counsel argued in favor of a lesser sentence of home

confinement.

       (4)    After hearing from counsel, the court apprised Muhammad of his right

of allocution, giving him the “opportunity to say anything” he would like.2 He took

the opportunity to describe his role as an informant in several police investigations,

his schooling and military service, his work history, his family life as a grandfather,

and the support he gave to his mother and to his friend, a mentally disabled man.

Muhammad spoke, apparently reading a written statement, for approximately nine

transcript pages before the court interrupted him, remarking, “I want to assure you,

I’ve read basically everything you just said. You’ve written me a book. . . . I don’t

know what you just picked up, but I hope it’s not to read more papers. Why don’t

you just talk to me?”3

1
  App. to Opening Br. at A508.
2
  Id. at A521.
3
  Id. at A530.
                                          2
         (5)   The sentencing judge then asked Muhammad, “[w]hat sentence do you

think you should get?” He replied, “I’m not saying I’m guilty of anything except

being good to a family in need . . . . That’s all I did was be good to a family who

needed my assistance who was going through drug and alcohol abuse, who I was

always there, even though she had five brothers who were all into the same lifestyle.

They would always call me, because I was dependable.”4 Then, Muhammad

described how the victim’s father had a DUI and ended up in a nursing home, noting

that he helped the family at that time. The judge stopped him, stating, “Okay, I need

to impose the sentence, and then I need to move on to the next two cases, okay?” 5

Muhammad said, “Okay, I have just one more thing[.]”6 The judge permitted

Muhammad to make his “final point.”7

         (6)   Muhammad then launched into a critique of the victim’s social media

posts.     The information pertaining to the victim’s social media, which was

apparently part of his written submission to the judge, was not evidence presented

at trial. The court allowed Muhammad to speak on the issue briefly but then

interrupted, explaining that it was already familiar with the point that Muhammad

was trying to make, having “already read all the social media stuff”8 that Muhammad

4
  Id. at A530–31.
5
  Id. at A531–32.
6
  Id. at A532.
7
  Id.
8
  Id. at A533.
                                         3
had included in his written submission. The court then expressed its intent to

announce its sentence, and Muhammad, seemingly content, responded politely,

“Okay, yes, sir.”9

       (7)     After noting that Muhammad had submitted “a lot of good character

recommendations,”10 the court observed that “the facts of this case quite clearly

demonstrate a pretty manipulative person who manipulated this young girl[.]”11

The court bemoaned the extent to which Muhammad had traumatized his young

victim—a consequence that Muhammad, in the court’s eyes, did not appreciate—

and signaled its intention to adopt the State’s sentencing recommendation.

Accordingly, it imposed an aggregate fifteen-year term of incarceration, suspended

after three years followed by decreasing levels of supervision.

       (8)     In this appeal, Muhammad contends that “[t]he sentencing judge

violated [his] rights to allocution by repeatedly interrupting, and eventually

prohibiting [him] from finishing his remarks even though they were substantively

appropriate and reasonable in length.”12

       (9)     Neither Muhammad nor his counsel objected when the sentencing

judge cut Muhammad’s allocution short. And the parties agree that unpreserved

9
  Id.
10
   Id.
11
   Id.
12
   Opening Br. at 8.
                                           4
challenges to restrictions on the right of allocution are reviewed for plain error.

Both cite Capano v. State13 as supporting this standard of review. But Capano

involved the scope of allocution during the penalty phase of a capital murder trial,

where the allocution was before a jury. We see the dynamics of allocution under

that circumstance to be fundamentally different than allocution before a judge who

has presided over the defendant’s trial and who has had the benefit of a presentence

investigation.

       (10) The rigorous “plain error” standard,14 which is triggered when a party

fails to object to an error in the trial court, is not suitable to the circumstances here.

The court had made it clear that it had heard and read enough from Muhammad,

and an objection from Muhammad or his counsel would have been, it seems,

superfluous and, given the context, imprudent. Accordingly and for the reasons

given below, we review the sentencing judge’s statements to Muhammad during his

allocution not for plain error but under an abuse-of-discretion standard.

13
  Capano v. State, 781 A.2d 556, 659, 664 (Del. 2001).
14
  See Watson v. State, — A.3d –, —, 2023 WL 5030026, at *5 (Del. Aug. 8, 2023) (“For an error
to be ‘plain’ under this standard, it ‘must be so clearly prejudicial to substantial rights as to
jeopardize the very fairness and integrity of the trial. Findings of plain error are limited to material
defects that are ‘apparent on the face of the record[,] . . . basic, serious and fundamental in their
character. . . . ” (quoting Dutton v. State, 452 A.2d 127, 146 (Del. 1982) and Wainwright v. State,
504 A.2d 1096, 1100 (Del. 1986)).
                                                   5
       (11) A defendant’s right to allocution is not grounded in either the federal

or our state constitution. The right is grounded in Superior Court Criminal Rule

3215 and Delaware decisional law.16

       (12) This Court has not defined the contours of the right of allocution in the

non-capital sentencing context. The federal courts, however, have recognized that

under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32, which, as to allocution, is

substantially similar to Superior Court Criminal Rule 32, the right is not unlimited.17

The right “may be limited both as to duration and as to content. [A defendant] need

be given no more than a reasonable time; he need not be heard on irrelevancies or

repetitions.”18 It is therefore within the discretion of the sentencing judge to place

restrictions, when necessary, on the scope of allocution.19 These standards are

appropriately applied here.

       (13) As required by Rule 32, the court addressed Muhammad and

determined that he wished to address the court.                 Having already considered

Muhammad’s apparently voluminous written submission and the presentence

15
   Rule 32(a)(1)(c) provides that “[b]efore imposing sentence, the court shall . . . [a]ddress the
defendant personally and determine if the defendant wishes to make a statement and to present
any information in mitigation of the sentence.”
16
   Shelton v. State, 744 A.2d 465, 495 (Del. 2000).
17
   See United States v. Ward, 732 F.3d 175, 182 (3d Cir. 2013) (“Under existing jurisprudence, the
defendant’s right of allocution is not unlimited. The sentencing judge has always retained the
discretion to place certain restrictions on what may be presented during an allocution.” (citing
opinions from the Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits)).
18
   Ashe v. North Carolina, 586 F.2d 334, 337 (th Cir. 1978).
19
   Ward, 732 F.3d at 182.
                                                6
report, the court allowed Muhammad to speak at length.             After Muhammad

recounted tales of his cooperation with law enforcement in unrelated investigations,

he provided the court with basic background information, including his date of birth,

educational and military background, employment history, and family composition.

When Muhammad’s statement appeared to lose focus, the sentencing judge assured

him that he had already read the “book” Muhammad had submitted in advance of

the sentence hearing. Muhammad then redirected his remarks to social media

information that the court had already reviewed in anticipation of the hearing.

When the court once again tried to redirect Muhammad’s attention to the issue at

hand, asking him, “What sentence do you think you should get?” Muhammad was

not responsive, digressing instead to more “irrelevancies [and] repetitions.”20 And

when Muhammad said that he had “just one more thing”21 to share with the judge,

he was allowed to do so to his apparent satisfaction. We cannot find an abuse of

discretion or an abridgment of Muhammad’s right of allocution on these facts.

         NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior

Court is AFFIRMED.

                                             BY THE COURT:

                                             /s/ Gary F. Traynor
                                                   Justice

20
     See supra note 18.
21
     App. to Opening Br. at A532.
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