Preview:

January 30, 2003

Honorable E. Norman Veasey Chief Justice Suprem e Court State Office Building 820 North French Street Wilmington, DE 19801 RE: Chris Crosby v. State of Delaware No. 8, 2002 State of Delaware v. Chris Crosby Cr.A. No. IN01-06-1203 & IN01-06-1206 Dea r Ch ief Justic e Ve asey: The Supreme Court has remanded this matter to me for the following purposes: This matter should be remanded to the Superior Court for additional proceedings. The Superior Court should consider the potential impact on this case of Solem (Solem v. Helm , 463 U.S. 277, 103 S. Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed. 2d 637 (1983)) and related cases regarding the Cruel and Unusu al Punishm ents Claus e of the E ighth Am endmen t. The Superior Court should likewise consider the potential impact of the recent cases of Andrade v. Attorney G eneral (270 F.3d 743 (9 th Cir. 2001), cert. granted sub nom. Lockyer v. Andrade, 122 S . Ct. 1434 (2002)) and Brown v. Mayle (283 F.3d 1019 (9 th Cir. 2002)) as well as the potential impact of the SENTAC guidelines on the exercise of its discretion. The Superior Court should conduct further proceedings as approp riate and file a report w ith this Court with it conclusions and the reasoning 1

behind its discretionary decision under Section 4214(a) to sentence Crosby to life imprisonment without possibility of probation or parole and any deviation from SENTAC guidelines. Finally, the Superior Court should specify the documentary basis upon which it relied in coming to its decision.1 As directed, this Court has undertaken that review . Starting with "additional procee dings," first, the Court m et with counsel on September 5, 2002, shortly after the remand was received. The defendant requested permission to supplement the record and additional time to do so. The State also wanted an opportun ity to do so. The se requests were granted, but the time necessary for the defense to gather the information was much longer than anticipa ted. The "a dditional proceedings" have involved only written submissions by the parties which have now been completed. The remand was apparently prompted by this Court's imposition on December 1, 2001, of a life sentence on Crosby as an habitual offender for a plea to forgery in the second degree. On September 28, 2001, Judge Gebelein of this Court signed an order upon motion by the State declaring Crosby an habitual offender under the provision of 11 Del. C.

Download 19640.pdf

Delaware Law