Owens v. State

301 A.3d 580

Roderick OWENS, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Appellee.

No. 6, 2022

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: April 26, 2023

Decided: July 13, 2023

ZACHARY A. GEORGE, Esquire, Hudson, Jones, Jaywork & Fisher, Dover, Delaware, for Appellant Roderick Owens.

BRIAN L. ARBAN, Esquire, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Wilmington, Delaware, for Appellee State of Delaware.

Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA and TRAYNOR, Justices.

TRAYNOR, Justice:

After Roderick Owens was convicted in the Superior Court of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited and, separately, of possession of ammunition by a person prohibited, and this Court affirmed those convictions on direct appeal, Owens moved for postconviction relief under Superior Court Criminal Rule 61. Owens claimed that the proceedings leading to his convictions were unfair in a way that was not remediable on direct appeal. Specifically, Owens argued that his trial counsel was ineffective in several respects, including by failing to communicate a plea offer to him and secure his presence at a pretrial "final case review." Owens also complained that his trial counsel failed to investigate and present friendly witnesses at a hearing on a motion to suppress. These deficiencies, according to Owens, fell below the objective standard of reasonableness by which trial counsel's constitutionally required effectiveness must be measured. And more than that, his case would have been resolved more favorably—or so Owens argues—had his counsel more ably assisted him.

The Superior Court rejected Owens's bid to have his convictions set aside on those grounds. In short, the court found that Owens's trial counsel did in fact communicate all plea offers to Owens and that his presence at the final case review was not constitutionally required. The court further found that trial counsel's decision not to call the witnesses at Owens's suppression hearing was reasonable. For good measure, the court also concluded that the testimony of the witnesses Owens had identified was unlikely to have averted the denial of Owens's suppression motion.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm the Superior Court's findings and conclusions on all counts. Its determination that Owens's trial counsel conveyed all plea offers to Owens is supported by trial counsel's affidavit and entitled to our deference. And we agree that Owens's trial counsel's analysis of the relevance of the potential witnesses’ testimony and his decision not to call them was reasonable.

I

A

On December 5, 2013, Wilmington Police Department detectives working the night shift were patrolling the area around 24 ^th and Carter Streets in Wilmington. The detectives considered this "a high crime and drug area." ¹ Detective Thomas Lynch explained that, not only do "people often loiter in that area to buy, sell, and consume drugs[ ]," but there were several "shots fired" complaints in the preceding days. ²

As the detectives drove northbound on Carter Street in their unmarked police car, they noticed an individual, later identified as Owens, sitting on the steps of a vacant house at 122 East 24 ^th Street. According to Detective Lynch, the owner of the house, which was boarded up, had reported his concerns with "[u]nknown individuals sitting on the steps and on the porches of the houses that were vacant." ³ When the detective turned westbound at the corner of 24 ^th and Carter, Owens stood up and adjusted an object in his waistband. Detective Lynch, who was driving the unmarked car, made eye contact with Owens. In Lynch's words, as he "slowed the vehicle down, [Owens] began to walk off the steps. As ... we began to open on the driver's side, he immediately fled on foot." ⁴

Detective Lynch summarized what happened next:

A. When [Owens] began [to] flee on foot, I observed he was still grasping that object in his waistband. So as I exited my vehicle, began to follow him on foot. As he continued to run grasping his waistband, I yelled, "stop, police."

...

He has his right hand grabbing an object in the front of his waistband by his belt or where his pants would end near his belly.

...

I could see that it looked like a large rectangular object, and the way the shirt came down, it made a distinct line above where the waistband would be on the pants.

...

These were characteristics that are consistent with an armed subject.

...

About a block after [Owens] began to run, he discarded a firearm on Jessup Street on the corner. ⁵

Another officer then apprehended Owens in an alley. Detective Lynch recovered the object—a firearm and a magazine that was ejected from the firearm when it hit the ground —Owens had discarded while running away.

B

Because one of the postconviction relief claims Owens continues to pursue on appeal hinges on what occurred at, as well as what Owens's trial counsel could recall five and a half years later about, Owens's final case review in September 2014, a review of the procedural history of Owens's case is appropriate.

Owens was indicted in February 2014 on one count each of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited ("PFBPP"), possession of ammunition by a person prohibited ("PABPP"), carrying a concealed deadly weapon ("CCDW"), and resisting arrest. The CCDW and resisting arrest charges were severed from the PFBPP and PABPP charges, creating an "A" case as to the former and "B" case as to the latter.

At Owens's first case review, ⁶ which occurred in April 2014, the State offered a plea to CCDW and PFBPP, agreeing to cap its sentencing recommendation at 15 years of Level V incarceration. That same month, trial counsel filed a motion to suppress evidence—the firearm and magazine—arguing that the detectives who stopped Owens lacked a reasonable articulable suspicion that would justify an investigatory stop. This, according to Owens, rendered his detention and the seizure of evidence during it unlawful. Owens thus urged the Superior Court to suppress that evidence. The suppression hearing occurred in August 2014. Detective Lynch, whose testimony is summarized above, was the only witness at the suppression hearing.

The court denied Owens's motion finding that:

[U]nder the totality of the circumstances, Det. Lynch had reasonable articulable suspicion to stop Defendant. Defendant was sitting at a vacant home with boarded windows bearing a "No Loitering" sign. Det. Lynch was aware that the owner had reported that people had been loitering at the home. The home was in a high crime area where Det. Lynch had received a call of gunshots just a few days prior to the incident. Before Det. Lynch could approach Defendant, Defendant stood up and adjusted his waistband and fled while grasping a rectangular object in his waistband. Det. Lynch was familiar with these types of movements as being the movements of an armed individual. Based on the totality of these circumstances, Det. Lynch had reasonable articulable suspicion to seize the Defendant. ⁷

Owens's final case review took place on September 2, 2014, a week before the court denied the suppression motion. Trial counsel appeared on behalf of Owens. Neither Owens nor the prosecutor was present in the courtroom. During the final case review, trial counsel represented to the court that there was a pending suppression motion and that the most recent plea offer included a sentencing recommendation by the State of the "minimum mandatory" of "ten years"—down from the previously offered 15 years. Trial counsel did not have a copy of the plea offer during the final case review. Counsel did not state that Owens, who, like the prosecutor, was not in the courtroom, had rejected the 10-year offer. Nevertheless, the court responded: "Based upon your representation, I don't think I need to speak with Mr. Owens. I can understand why the plea is being rejected at this time." ⁸

Trial in the "B" case took place over two days starting on September 16, 2014. The jury found Owens guilty of both PFBPP and PABPP. The State then filed a motion to declare Owens a habitual offender and to sentence him under 11 Del. C . § 4214(a) for the PFBPP offense. If granted, Owens would be exposed to an enhanced sentencing range of 15 minimum mandatory years to life imprisonment on the PFBPP offense.

In December 2014, the court granted the State's habitual-offender motion and sentenced Owens to the minimum-mandatory 15 years at Level V for the PFBPP charge and 8 years at Level V for the PABPP charge, to run consecutively, suspended after 4 years at Level V. Owens sentence was affirmed by this Court on March 4, 2016.

C

Owens timely filed his first pro se motion for postconviction relief on February 27, 2017, alleging, among other claims, ineffective assistance of counsel. Owens was appointed postconviction counsel in March 2017, and counsel filed an amended motion for postconviction relief in March 2020. In its decision to deny Owens's motion for postconviction relief, the Superior Court attributed this three-year delay between the appointment of counsel and the filing of the amended motion to "procedural and administrative misadventures, including motions to withdraw, judicial reassignments, the COVID-19 pandemic, ⁹ and Mr. Owens's repeated deliveries of new claims via pro se letters. ..." ¹⁰

The amended motion alleged that Owens's trial counsel provided ineffective assistance in two ways. First, Owens claimed that his counsel "failed to meet with [him] to discuss the State's evidence and also to discuss any plea offers [that] were presented to [him]." ¹¹ Nestled inconspicuously in Owens's statement of this claim was a reference to the final case review as a "critical stage[ ] of his proceedings" and an allegation that Owens's absence from it caused him to "suffer[ ] constitutional prejudice." ¹² And second, Owens alleged that his counsel "failed to investigate witnesses who could have assisted in his defense" ¹³ and, in particular, in support of his motion to...