Court Opinion

ID: 9372440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-21 17:02:44.901314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:35.519993
License: Public Domain

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

  HILLARD M. WINN,                        §
                                          §   No. 260, 2022
        Defendant Below,                  §
        Appellant,                        §
                                          §   Court Below–Superior Court
        v.                                §   of the State of Delaware
                                          §
  STATE OF DELAWARE,                      §
                                          §   Cr. ID No. 0603002909 (N)
        Appellee.                         §

                          Submitted: December 27, 2022
                          Decided:   February 20, 2023

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

                                      ORDER

      After consideration of the appellant’s opening brief, the State’s motion to

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

      (1)    The appellant, Hillard M. Winn, filed this appeal from the Superior

Court’s denial of his motion for correction of an illegal sentence. The State has filed

a motion to affirm the judgment below on the ground that it is manifest on the face

of Winn’s opening brief that his appeal is without merit. We agree and affirm.

      (2)    Following a four-day trial in 2006, a Superior Court jury found Winn

guilty of one count of first-degree burglary, one count of possession of a deadly

weapon during the commission of a felony (“PDWDCF”), one count of third-degree
assault, and one count of terroristic threatening. Before sentencing, the State moved

to have Winn declared a habitual offender under then-extant 11 Del. C. § 4214(a).

On January 3, 2007, the Superior Court granted the State’s motion and sentenced

Winn as follows: for first-degree burglary, as a habitual offender, to thirty years of

incarceration; for PDWDCF, to two years of incarceration; for third-degree assault,

to one year of incarceration, suspended for decreasing levels of supervision; and for

terroristic threatening, to one year of incarceration, suspended for one year of Level

II probation. We affirmed Winn’s convictions and sentence on direct appeal.1

       (3)    In 2010, Winn filed a motion under Superior Court Criminal Rule 35(a),

arguing, among other things, that his sentence was illegal because (i) the court did

not hold a separate hearing on the State’s habitual-offender motion, (ii) the State

failed to provide Winn with adequate notice of the evidence on which it intended to

rely in support of the habitual-offender motion, and (iii) Winn’s nolo contendere

plea to escape after conviction could not be used as a predicate felony to support the

habitual-offender motion. The Superior Court denied the motion, and we affirmed

that denial on appeal.2 In 2017, Winn filed another motion for correction of an illegal

sentence. The Superior Court denied the motion, and we affirmed that denial on

appeal.3

1
  Winn v. State, 2008 WL 223257 (Del. Jan 28, 2008).
2
  Winn v. State, 2011 WL 556439 (Del. Feb. 16, 2011).
3
  Winn v. State, 2018 WL 2435547 (Del. May 29, 2018).
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       (4)    In June 2022, Winn filed a third motion for correction of an illegal

sentence, arguing (i) the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to consider the

State’s motion to declare Winn a habitual offender because the motion was untimely

and improperly filed; (ii) the State failed to present evidence of the requisite number

of prior convictions to subject Winn to habitual-offender sentencing; and (iii) his

prior convictions resulting from plea agreements could not be used to establish his

habitual-offender status because they “contain legal error.” On July 8, 2022, the

Superior Court denied the motion, finding that Winn’s motion was simply a rehash

of the arguments he raised in his 2010 motion for correction of an illegal sentence,

the denial of which was affirmed by this Court. This appeal followed.

       (5)    We review the denial of a motion for correction of illegal sentence for

abuse of discretion.4 To the extent a claim involves a question of law, we review the

claim de novo.5 A motion to correct an illegal sentence may be filed at any time.6

A sentence is illegal if it exceeds statutory limits, violates the Double Jeopardy

Clause, is ambiguous with respect to the time and manner in which it is to be served,

is internally contradictory, omits a term required to be imposed by statute, is

4
  Fountain v. State, 2014 WL 4102069, at *1 (Del. Aug. 19, 2014).
5
  Id.
6
  Del. Super. Ct. Crim. R. 35(a).
                                              3
uncertain as to its substance, or is a sentence that the judgment of conviction did not

authorize.7

       (6)     On appeal, Winn argues that the Superior Court erred when it relied on

the law-of-the-case doctrine to deny his motion because he did not raise his current

objections to his sentence in his 2010 motion. Winn also argues that the Superior

Court erred when it failed to hold an evidentiary hearing on his motion. Winn’s

arguments are unavailing.

       (7)     The first claim Winn asserted below was that his sentence is illegal

because the State failed to file the documentation supporting its habitual-offender

motion before the first scheduled sentencing date and did not formally request a

continuance of the sentencing hearing in violation of the Superior Court’s rules. We

find this argument—essentially, that the State did not provide proper notice of its

intent to seek habitual-offender sentencing—to be substantially similar to Winn’s

2010 argument that the State had failed to give him adequate notice of the evidence

on which it intended to rely in support of its habitual-offender motion. Accordingly,

the Superior Court correctly determined that the claim was barred by the law-of-the-

case doctrine.8 Similarly, Winn’s argument that his 1998 nolo contendere plea to

escape after conviction could not be used as a predicate conviction was also raised

7
 Brittingham v. State, 705 A.2d 577, 578 (Del. 1998).
8
 See id. at 579 (finding that the law-of-the-case doctrine bars re-litigation of an illegal sentence
under Rule 35(a) when that issue has been previously decided by this Court).
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and rejected in connection with his 2010 motion.9 It, too, was therefore barred by

the law-of-the-case doctrine.

       (8)     Winn also argued below that his 1985 prior robbery conviction (the

underlying felony for his 1988 conviction for escape after conviction) could not also

be used as a predicate felony for habitual-offender purposes. Winn’s position is not

supported by our case law and is without merit.10 As to Winn’s last argument—that

Winn’s 1992 and 1988 pleas could not be used to establish his habitual-offender

status because prior to 2008 the Truth-In-Sentencing Guilty Plea Form did not list

the right to assistance of counsel on appeal as one of the rights a defendant waived

by entering into a plea agreement—relief is not available to him under Rule 35(a).11

As a final matter, the Superior Court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to

hold a hearing on Winn’s motion because Rule 35 does not call for, much less

require, an evidentiary hearing.

9
   Not only did Winn raise this issue in his 2010 motion for correction of sentence, but he also
raised the issue at sentencing, thereby preserving the argument for appeal.
10
    See, e.g., Stevenson v. State, 2016 WL 258783 (Del. Jan. 19, 2016) (upholding a habitual-
offender sentence predicated on a federal conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon as well
as the underlying felony conviction).
11
   See Brittingham, 705 A.2d at 578 (“Because [the appellant’s] claims [concerning the validity of
his predicate convictions] would require an examination of errors occurring at other proceedings
prior to the imposition of the sentence, no relief is available to [the appellant] under Rule 35(a).”
(cleaned up)).
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     NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the motion to affirm is

GRANTED and the judgment of the Superior Court is AFFIRMED.

                           BY THE COURT:

                           /s/ Collins J. Seitz, Jr.
                                 Chief Justice

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