Opinion
ID No. 1702005493
10-11-2019
STATE OF DELAWARE, v. DARNELL D. MARTIN, Defendant.
cc: Timothy G. Maguire, Deputy Attorney General Gregory E. Smith, Deputy Attorney General Benjamin S. Gifford, IV, Esquire Mr. Darnell Martin, pro se
Cr. A. Nos. IN17-02-1754 & 55.
ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR CREDIT TIME
This 11th day of October, 2019, upon consideration of the Defendant Darnell D. Martin's pro se Motion for Credit Time (D.I. 58-59), the State's response thereto (D.I. 61), and the record in this matter, it appears to the Court that:
(1) On January 9, 2018, following a bench trial, Darnell Martin was convicted of drug dealing and another related charge. He was immediately sentenced to serve, inter alia, a 25-year term of imprisonment suspended after two years for 18 months of supervised probation. The two years of unsuspended imprisonment was a statutory minimum term of incarceration the imposition of which was required and could not be suspended. The effective date of Martin's sentence was January 9, 2018, because he was at liberty until his conviction and sentencing.
DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 16, § 4752(2) (2016) (drug dealing a tier 2 quantity of marijuana with an aggravating factor is a class B felony); id. at tit. 11, §§ 4205(b)(2) & (d) (sentence "[f]or a class B felony [is] not less than 2 years . . . [and any] minimum, mandatory, mandatory minimum or minimum mandatory sentence [ ] required by subsection (b) of [§ 4205] . . . shall not be subject to suspension by the court").
See Sentencing Order, State v. Darnell D. Martin, I.D. No. 1702005493 (Del. Super. Ct. Jan. 9, 2018).
(2) Martin filed a direct appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court. His convictions and sentence were affirmed. And so, now Martin is pursuing postconviction relief via a separate application.
Martin v. State, 2018 WL 4959037 (Del. Oct. 12, 2018).
D.I. 39-44.
(3) Martin previously filed an unsuccessful motion for sentence reduction under Superior Court Criminal Rule 35(b). Martin also previously filed an unsuccessful state petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
State v. Martin, 2019 WL 1126059 (Del. Mar. 12, 2019).
D.I. 53-57.
(4) Martin's present motion, filed from prison, asks the Court to "grant[] him an additional 2 days previously served." Martin alleges he was held in police custody for two days when he was first arrested and before he made bail. But Martin provides no evidentiary support for this contention and there is nothing on the face of the record that reveals this alleged two-day term of "incarceration."
Def. Mot. at 2.
Id. at 1-2.
(5) Martin's is a motion seeking application of the statute that requires credit for "any period of actual incarcertation" previously served on a given charge when determining the termination date of an inmate's sentence for that charge.
DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 11, § 3901(c) (2016):
Any period of actual incarceration of a person awaiting trial, who thereafter before trial or sentence succeeds in securing provisional liberty on bail, shall be credited to the person in determining the termination date of sentence.
(6) But Martin is no longer held at Level V; the incarcerative portion of his sentence terminated on September 25, 2019. Thus, any application of credit time to diminish his prison time now is moot.
D.I. 61.
See, e.g., Gural v. State, 251 A.2d 344 (Del. 1969) (adopting and applying the "collateral consequences" rule: "the satisfaction of the sentence renders the case moot unless, in consequence of the conviction or sentence, the defendant suffers collateral legal disabilities").
(7) Martin is now serving a term of probation, however. So if he is correct in his assertions (i.e., that he has some unaccounted-for previous "period of incarceration") and his calculations (i.e., that is a two-day period), and if he violates his probation, the maximum Level V term Martin could face would be diminished by the two additional days he sought here. That is how, when, and the only way he might receive credit for time he believes he is due. But that calculation simply is not yet—and hopefully never will be—a matter ripe for determination by the Court.
See Sentencing Order, at 1 (providing that Martin must serve an 18-month probated term); see also D.I. 61 (confirming that Martin is now serving that probated term).
See DEL. CODE ANN., tit. 11, § 4334(c) (2016); Pavulak v. State, 880 A.2d 1044, 1046 (Del. 2005); Gamble v. State, 728 A.2d 1171, 1172 (Del. 1999).
(8) NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that Darnell D. Martin's motion for credit time is DENIED as MOOT.
SO ORDERED this 11th day of October, 2019.
/s/ _________
Paul R. Wallace, Judge Original to Prothonotary cc: Timothy G. Maguire, Deputy Attorney General
Gregory E. Smith, Deputy Attorney General
Benjamin S. Gifford, IV, Esquire
Mr. Darnell Martin, pro se