IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
JAMEEL ANDERSON, §
§ No. 199, 2022
Defendant Below, §
Appellant, § Court Below—Superior Court
§ of the State of Delaware
v. §
§ Cr. ID No. 1812001967 (N)
STATE OF DELAWARE, §
§
Appellee. §
Submitted: September 30, 2022
Decided: October 18, 2022
Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA and VAUGHN, Justices.
ORDER
Upon consideration of the appellant’s opening brief, the appellee’s motion to
affirm, and the record below, it appears to the Court that:
(1) The appellant, Jameel Anderson, filed this appeal from the Superior
Court’s denial of a motion for correction of illegal sentence. The State has moved
to affirm the judgment below on the ground that it is manifest on the face of
Anderson’s opening brief that his appeal is without merit. We agree and affirm.
(2) In October 2019, Anderson pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm
during the commission of a felony (“PFDCF”) and two counts of second-degree
assault. The charges arose from an incident on November 20, 2018, during which
Anderson shot a person with whom he had had an altercation and a bystander. The
victims were both transported to the hospital in critical condition and required
extensive medical treatment and multiple surgeries. As part of the plea, Anderson
agreed to seek no less than five years of unsuspended prison time, and the State
agreed to seek no more than ten years of unsuspended prison time. After receiving
sentencing memoranda and mitigation information, including a mitigation report and
the report of a psychological examination that concluded that the events surrounding
the shooting incident supported a finding of extreme emotional distress, on
December 13, 2019, the Superior Court sentenced Anderson to ten years of
imprisonment for PFDCF and to eight years of imprisonment, suspended for two
years of probation, for each assault count.
(3) Anderson filed an unsuccessful motion for modification of sentence.
On February 22, 2022, he filed a motion seeking correction of an illegal sentence
under Superior Court Criminal Rule 35(a). The Superior Court treated it as a motion
for sentence modification and denied it as both meritless and repetitive, and
Anderson has appealed to this Court.
(4) We review the denial of a motion for correction of sentence under Rule
35(a) for abuse of discretion.1 To the extent the claim involves a question of law,
we review the claim de novo.2 A sentence is illegal if it exceeds statutory limits,
1
Fountain v. State, 2014 WL 4102069, at *1 (Del. Aug. 19, 2014).
2
Id.
2
violates double jeopardy, 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 uncertain as to its substance, or is a sentence that the judgment of
conviction did not authorize.3
(5) Anderson concedes that the applicable minimum-mandatory sentence
for the PFDCF offense was five years based on his criminal history.4 He asserts that
his PFDCF sentence is illegal because the sentencing judge did not sufficiently
explain the aggravating factors resulting in the upward departure from the minimum-
mandatory sentence, as required by 11 Del. C. § 4204(n).5 More specifically, he
argues that Section 1447A(c) imposed an enhanced minimum-mandatory sentence
based on Anderson’s criminal history, so the Superior Court was required to identify
additional aggravating factors to explain the ten-year sentence that it imposed.
(6) The appeal is without merit. As an initial matter, Anderson filed the
motion for correction of illegal sentence more than two years after the imposition of
sentence. This Court has previously construed a motion for sentence correction
based on the sentencing judge’s failure to explain the reasons for departing from the
3
Brittingham v. State, 705 A.2d 577, 578 (Del. 1998).
4
Opening Brief at 9; see also State v. Anderson, I.D. No. 1812001967, Sentencing Transcript, at
4:10-11, 31:11-16, 33:4-8 (Del. Super. Ct. Dec. 13, 2019). The applicable version of Section
1447A established a minimum-mandatory sentence for PFDCF of five years for a person with two
prior felony convictions. 11 Del. C. § 1447A(c) (effective May 24, 2018, to June 24, 2019).
5
See 11 Del. C. § 4204(n) (“Whenever a court imposes a sentence inconsistent with the
presumptive sentences adopted by the Sentencing Accountability Commission, such court shall
set forth on the record its reasons for imposing such penalty.”).
3
Sentencing Accountability Commission (“SENTAC”) guidelines as a claim that the
sentence was imposed in an illegal manner that must be raised within ninety days of
sentencing.6 Absent extraordinary circumstances, which Anderson has not
identified, his motion was untimely.
(7) In any event, Anderson’s argument that the Superior Court did not
sufficiently explain its reasons for exceeding the minimum-mandatory sentence is
not persuasive. Section 4204(n) provides that “[w]henever a court imposes a
sentence inconsistent with the presumptive sentences adopted by the Sentencing
Accountability Commission, such court shall set forth on the record its reasons for
imposing such penalty.”7 The presumptive sentence for a class B violent felony such
as PFDCF is between two and five years, and the SENTAC Benchbook also
recognizes the five-year minimum-mandatory sentence established in Section
1447A(c) for a defendant with two predicate felony convictions.8
(8) The court provided a detailed statement of its reasons for imposing the
ten-year sentence in this case. The sentencing judge observed that he had taken into
account the aggravating factors as set forth in the State’s sentencing memorandum,9
6
Richmond v. State, 2022 WL 2276282, at *2 (Del. June 22, 2022).
7
11 Del. C. § 4204(n); see also Gibson v. State, 2020 WL 7213227, at *2 (Del. Dec. 3, 2020)
(stating that Section 4204(n) “imposes a statutory duty upon a sentencing judge to state on the
record the reasons for any sentence that falls outside the SENTAC presumptive sentence”).
8
SENTAC Benchbook 2019, at 38, 39, 43, available at https://cjc.delaware.gov/wp-content/
uploads/sites/61/2019/01/Benchbook-2019.pdf. We refer to the 2019 version of the Benchbook
because Anderson was sentenced in 2019. Gibson, 2020 WL 7213227, at *1 n.1.
9
State v. Anderson, I.D. No. 1812001967, Sentencing Transcript, at 27:16-20, 29:21-30:1.
4
which included prior violent criminal conduct and the fact that Anderson had been
conditionally released from Level V confinement less than a month before the
shooting (implicating various SENTAC aggravating factors, including custody
status at the time of the offense, need for correctional treatment, and lack of
amenability to less-restrictive sanctions).10 The judge also emphasized the “dire”
consequences to the two victims and that “[t]he consequences here could have been
even worse, they could have been fatal, there could have been two dead
individuals.”11 The judge also recognized the mitigating factors and suggested that
he had “struggle[d] with whether to exceed the recommended sentence by the State”
because of the “serious” nature of the offense.12 But weighing the aggravating
factors, the mitigating factors, and defense counsel’s extensive presentation, the
court imposed the ten-year sentence recommended by the State.13 We conclude that
the court sufficiently explained on the record its reasons for the sentence that it
imposed.14
10
See State v. Anderson, I.D. No. 1812001967, Docket Entry No. 45, State’s sentencing
memorandum (filed Dec. 11, 2019); SENTAC Benchbook 2019, at 132 (listing aggravating and
mitigating factors).
11
State v. Anderson, I.D. No. 1812001967, Sentencing Transcript, at 29:8-11.
12
Id. at 29:16-20.
13
Id. at 29:21-30:19.
14
Cf. Lloyd v. State, 2022 WL 4372760, at *3 (Del. Sept. 22, 2022) (affirming denial of motion to
correct illegal sentence because sentencing judge had sufficiently explained upward departure
from SENTAC guidelines).
5
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/ Karen L. Valihura
Justice
6