Court Opinion

ID: 9948913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-08 15:02:53.417288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:26:19.061761
License: Public Domain

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

RAMON SANTIAGO,                         §
                                        §      No. 165, 2023
      Defendant Below,                  §
      Appellant,                        §      Court Below: Superior Court
                                        §      of the State of Delaware
      v.                                §
                                        §      Cr. ID No. 2112000595 (K)
STATE OF DELAWARE,                      §
                                        §
      Appellee.                         §
                                        §

                          Submitted: January 31, 2024
                          Decided:   March 8, 2024

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

                                      ORDER

      After consideration of the parties’ briefs and the record on appeal, the Court

reverses Ramon Santiago’s conviction under Count I of the indictment and remands

the case to the Superior Court to declare a mistrial on Count I. Our reasoning

follows.

      (1)     After a four-day trial, a Superior Court jury found Ramon Santiago

guilty of operation of a vehicle causing death (Count I). The jury could not reach a

verdict on the predicate charge of careless or inattentive driving (Count II). Santiago

moved for a mistrial on both Counts. He argued that the jury verdicts were

inconsistent because a conviction under Count I required a conviction under Count
II. Invoking jury lenity, the Superior Court denied the motion.1 On appeal, Santiago

argues (and the State agrees) that the Superior Court had to declare a mistrial on

Count I because the State did not prove a predicate offense under Count II necessary

to convict under Count I. Santiago also argues (and the State agrees) that jury lenity

does not apply. We agree and reverse.

         (2)     On August 6, 2021, Santiago, while driving a SUV, collided with John

Gilbert, who was riding his motorcycle.2 Gilbert was taken to Kent General

Hospital, where he died from injuries sustained in the accident.

         (3)     The State charged Santiago with violating 21 Del. C. § 4176A,

operation of a vehicle causing death (Count I), and 21 Del. C. § 4176, careless or

inattentive driving (Count II). The State sought to prove at trial that Santiago was

inattentive when the accident causing death occurred. Section 4176A(a) states:

           A person is guilty of operation of a vehicle causing death when, in
           the course of driving or operating a motor vehicle or OHV in
           violation of any provision of this chapter other than § 4177 of this
           title, the person’s driving or operation of the vehicle or OHV causes
           the death of another person.

And Section 4176(b), the inattentive driving statute, states:

           Whoever operates a vehicle and who fails to give full time and
           attention to the operation of the vehicle, or whoever fails to maintain
           a proper lookout while operating the vehicle, shall be guilty of
           inattentive driving.

1
    State v. Santiago, 2023 WL 2384948, at *1 (Del. Super. March 7, 2023) [hereinafter Decision].
2
    Opening Br. at 3.
                                                 2
       (4)     The trial judge instructed the jury that “[i]n order to find the defendant

guilty of [Section 4176A] . . . you must find that all of the following elements have

been established beyond a reasonable doubt. (1) The defendant drove or operated a

motor vehicle while in violation of 21 Del. C. § 4176, Inattentive Driving; and (2)

The defendant’s driving or operation of the vehicle caused the death of John R.

Gilbert.”3

       (5)     On November 4, the jury sent a note to the court stating that they agreed

on a guilty verdict for Count I, but were hung on Count II.4 Santiago immediately

raised concerns with the court about the inconsistency of such a verdict.5 Later that

day, the jury returned a guilty verdict on Count I but remained hung on Count II.6

Santiago moved to declare a mistrial on both Counts.7 He argued that the jury was

required to find him guilty of inattentive driving (Count II) before it could convict

him for operating a vehicle causing death (Count I).8 The State disagreed and

requested a mistrial only for Count II.9 The court granted a mistrial for Count II and

3
  A219–20.
4
  A255.
5
  Id. (“My concern, Your Honor, is that Count 2 is part of an element in Count 1. And if [the jury]
can’t decide on Inattentive Driving, that forms the basis of Count 1. So I don’t understand how
they could come to a conclusion on 1, but not be able to come to a conclusion, one way or another,
on 2.”).
6
  A261.
7
  Id.
8
  Id.
9
  A263.
                                                3
deferred sentencing until the resolution of post-trial motions on the inconsistent

verdict issue.

       (6)     In opposing a mistrial on Count I, the State argued that lenity permits

inconsistent jury verdicts in Delaware.10 The State acknowledged that under another

decision of this Court, Priest v. State, an inconsistent verdict is not permitted when

the conviction is for a compound offense where the statute creating the compound

offense limits the application of jury lenity.11 Nonetheless, the State argued in the

Superior Court that Priest was inapposite because Santiago was convicted of

violating a different statute – Section 4176A – which does not contain language that

“limits the application of normal principles of jury lenity.”12 The State offered no

further analysis of the referenced statutes.

       (7)     On March 7, 2023, the Superior Court declined to set aside the Count I

verdict and declare a mistrial.13 The court accepted the State’s argument and found

10
   A286 (citing Tilden v. State, 513 A.2d 1302, 1306 (Del. 1986); US v. Powell 469 U.S. 57 (1984)).
11
   A286–87 (citing Priest v. State, 879 A.2d 575 (Del. 2005)). In Priest, this Court vacated a
conviction for being unlawfully inconsistent. The jury found the defendant guilty of Possession
of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony (PFDCF) but acquitted him of the underlying
felony charge. Priest, 879 A.2d at 575. The PFDCF statute stated that “A person may be found
guilty of violating this section notwithstanding that the felony for which the person is convicted
and during which the person possessed the firearm is a lesser included felony of the one originally
charged.” Id. at 583 (quoting 11 Del. C. § 1447A(g)). We determined that the PFDCF counts
“were expressly tied to the underlying felonies” and therefore a legal basis did not exist to support
the verdict. Id. at 588. Therefore, the weapons convictions could not be sustained as a matter of
law.
12
   A298 (“Santiago was convicted of violating 21 Del. C. § 4176A, not 11 Del. C. § 1447A as in
Priest. Unlike the latter statute, § 4176A does not contain language which limits the application
of normal principles of jury lenity.”).
13
   Decision at *4.
                                                 4
that “the Priest exception applies only when there is specific statutory evidence,

above and beyond the enumeration of a predicate offense, of legislative intent to

abrogate the jury lenity doctrine.”14 In other words, the statutory language must

literally require a “conviction.”15 The Superior Court held that Section 4176A’s

language – “in violation of any provision of this chapter” – does not literally require

a conviction under Section 4176(b) to sustain a conviction under Section 4176A.16

The court also held that sufficient evidence supported the Count I conviction.17

       (8)     On appeal, Santiago argues that the Superior Court misread and

misapplied our holding in Priest. According to Santiago, the Count I conviction

under Section 4176A was defective because Santiago was not found in “violation”

of any predicate offense. On appeal, the State now agrees that Section 4176A

requires a guilty verdict under Section 4176(b) to support a conviction.

       (9)     We agree with the State’s concession.                  In our recent decision in

Hernandez-Martinez v. State, we reversed the Superior Court’s denial of a

defendant’s request to withdraw his guilty plea. We found that the plea was

defective because the plea form charged a violation under Section 4176A(a) without

14
   Id. (emphasis in original).
15
   Id. (stating that there is “a critical distinction between criminal statutes in which a conviction of
a predicate offense is an element of a crime and statutes in which commission of a predicate offense
is sufficient” (emphasis in original)).
16
   Id. at *6.
17
   Id. at *7.
                                                   5
charging a required traffic offense under the same chapter.18 If a voluntary plea is

defective because the plea form lists a would-be crime under Section 4176A without

stating a separate charge to a separate offense under the same chapter, then it follows

that a defendant cannot be found guilty for the lead offense when no conviction

occurred under the predicate offense.19 Section 4176A is not a crime without a

separate guilty verdict for a “violation of any provision of this chapter[.]” Here, the

State had to convict Santiago for inattentive driving to sustain a conviction under

Count I. It did not.

       (10) The General Assembly has structured the law such that a “violation”

under Chapter 41 of Title 21 is an element of a crime under Section 4176A. The

jury instruction in this case reflected that requirement. It is correct that this Court

has employed jury lenity. As we stated in Priest, however, “ultimately judicial

deference to the factfinder, embodied in the doctrine of jury lenity, cannot supersede

the judiciary’s primary obligation to give effect to the General Assembly’s

formulation of the criminal law.”20 Here, the General Assembly required a predicate

conviction for inattentive driving before convicting for operating a vehicle causing

18
   Hernandez-Martinez v. State, 2023 WL 8254350, at 3 n.12 (Del. Nov. 29, 2023) (ORDER) (“In
other words, to charge Martinez with a crime under § 4176A(a), the State had to recite that he was
driving the car, caused another’s death, and committed another traffic offense under Chapter 41 of
Title 21 other than § 4177 (driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs).”).
19
   “No conduct constitutes a criminal offense unless it is made a criminal offense by this Criminal
Code or by another law.” 11 Del. C. § 202.
20
   Priest, 879 A.2d at 590.
                                                6
death. The State agrees that the Superior Court should have declared a mistrial for

Count I.

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

is REVERSED, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this

order. Jurisdiction is not retained.

                                            BY THE COURT:

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

                                        7