Opinion
1105015873
06-30-2023
STATE OF DELAWARE, v. DANTE DILLARD, Defendant.
Submitted: April 11, 2023
Upon Consideration of Defendant's Motion for Postconviction Relief: SUMMARILY DISMISSED
ORDER
SHELDON K. RENNIE, JUDGE
1. On April 11, 2023, Defendant Dante Dillard filed this, his second motion for postconviction relief.
D.I. 81. Mr. Dillard's first motion for postconviction relief was denied on February 23, 2022, and his appeal of the denial was dismissed by the Delaware Supreme Court. See Dillard v. State, 2022 WL 2311517, at *1 (Del. June 27, 2022).
2. The Court has given Mr. Dillard's submission preliminary consideration under Superior Court Criminal Rule 61(d)(2) and determined the motion is subject to summary dismissal for the reasons presented below.
3. Although the petition is extensive, Mr. Dillard's claims fall into two categories: he allegedly received ineffective assistance of counsel at the time of sentencing, and the sentencing judge failed to "break down" the elements of first-degree murder during his plea colloquy.
Mr. Dillard offers the second argument through a "Supplemental Constitutional Claim" attached to his motion. See id.
4. The motion is procedurally barred for two reasons under Rule 61:
A. First, as a threshold matter, it is untimely under Rule 61(i)(1) because it was filed more than one year after Mr. Dillard was sentenced on October 12, 2012. That alone ends the inquiry.
B. But even if the motion was timely, it would still be subject to summary dismissal under Rule 61(d)(2)'s pleading requirements. Rule 61(d)(2) permits a second or subsequent motion for postconviction relief only if (i) the movant was convicted after a trial; and (ii) the motion pleads with particularity that either: (a) new evidence creates a strong inference the movant actually is innocent in fact, or (b) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review, applies to the movant's case and renders the conviction invalid.
Super. Ct. Crim. R. 61(i)(1); see also Super. Ct. Crim. R. 61(m)(1).
Super. Ct. Crim. R. 61(d)(2).
5. Despite Mr. Dillard's attempts to overcome the bars to relief with the now-out-of-date language of Rule 61(i)(5), as discussed above, his plea and sentence do not meet the requirements of Rule 61(d)(2) in any sense. Mr. Dillard was not sentenced, as he contends, for "[two] first-degree murder charges when it was only one body [sic]." He was sentenced to life in prison because he murdered a man during a botched robbery while high on drugs. The fact that Mr. Dillard pled to felony murder and first-degree murder in exchange for avoiding the death penalty does not come close to creating a basis for overcoming summary dismissal under Rule 61(d)(2).
Mr. Dillard's motion (repeatedly) asks for postconviction relief "in the interest of justice." The Court presumes Mr. Dillard is referring to the prior language of Rule 61(i)(5), which afforded the Court discretion to consider an otherwise barred claim if "reconsideration of the claim [was] warranted in the interest of justice." See, e.g., State v. Baker, 2011 WL 4638790, at *2 (Del. Super. Sept. 22, 2011). In June 2014, however, that language was substantially amended with the adoption, among other things, of a new pleading standard for second or subsequent motions for postconviction relief. The "new" pleading standard - found in Rule 61(d)(2) and incorporated in Rule 61(i)(2) and (i)(5) - governs the motion before the Court. See, e.g., Durham v. State, 2017 WL 5450746, at *2 (Del. Nov. 13, 2017).
Mr. Dillard was not convicted after trial, and does not argue that newly available evidence creates a strong inference of actual innocence or that a new rule of constitutional law invalidates his conviction. See Super. Ct. Crim. R. 61(d)(2).
D.I. 81. The Court notes, in passing, that this claim is meritless on its face. As the Delaware Supreme Court has made clear, "felony murder and intentional murder are not the same offense, and, thus, a criminal defendant permissibly may be charged and convicted of both crimes for the death of a single person." Liu v. State, 628 A.2d 1376, 1385 (Del. 1993).
D.I. 60.
6. For the foregoing reasons, it plainly appears from the motion and the record that Mr. Dillard is not entitled to relief. Accordingly, his second motion for postconviction relief is SUMMARILY DISMISSED.,
IT IS SO ORDERED.