Summary
affirming the Superior Court's summary denial of Heron's petition for a writ of error coram nobis, which had instead treated Heron's petition as a motion for postconviction relief and barred the petition based on the then-applicable three-year limitations period of Rule 61
Summary of this case from State v. HinsonOpinion
No. 392, 2000.
Submitted: December 18, 2000.
Decided: January 17, 2001.
Court Below — Superior Court of the State of Delaware, in and for New Castle County, C.A. No. 00M-06-064.
Before VEASEY, Chief Justice, WALSH, and STEELE, Justices.
ORDER
This 17th day of January 2001, upon consideration of the briefs of the parties, it appears to the Court that:
(1) In 1989, the appellant, Clive Heron, pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute marijuana. The Superior Court sentenced him to five years in jail to be suspended after serving two years for three years of probation. Heron, who is Jamaican, was discharged from his probation as unimproved in September 1991and was later deported from the United States. He later re-entered the country and eventually was convicted of illegally entering the country and sentenced to a federal prison term. In June 2000, he filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis in the Superior Court seeking to challenge his 1989 conviction. The Superior Court summarily denied Heron's petition, and this appeal ensued.
(2) Having considered the parties' briefs and the record on appeal, we find the Superior Court's decision to be manifestly correct. This Court has held that the writ of error coram nobis, which was an ancient common law writ of error for review of facts only, has been abolished in Delaware and has been supplanted by modern rules of procedure for reopening a judgment. In Delaware, Superior Court Criminal Rule 61 is the exclusive remedy for seeking to set aside a final judgment of conviction. Treating Heron's petition as a motion for postconviction relief under Rule 61, the Superior Court properly determined that Heron's petition was barred by the three year limitations period provided under Rule 61(i)(1).
See In re Nicholson, Del. Supr., No. 4, 1994, Walsh, J. (Jan. 31, 1994) (ORDER) (citing Tweed v. Lockton, Del. Super. 167 A. 703, 705 n. 2 (1932)).
Super. Ct. Crim. R. 61(a)(2).
See Robinson v. State, Del. Supr., 584 A.2d 1203, 1204 (1990).
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior Court is AFFIRMED.
BY THE COURT:
/s/ E. Norman Veasey Chief Justice