Brown v. State

• Court: Supreme Court of Delaware
• Decided: March 27, 2025
• Docket: 2, 2025
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

DAWON BROWN, § § No. 2, 2025 Plaintiff Below, § Appellant, § Court Below—Superior Court § of the State of Delaware v. § § Cr. ID No. 2306012215 (N) STATE OF DELAWARE, § § Appellee. § §

Submitted: February 5, 2025 Decided: March 27, 2025

Before VALIHURA, TRAYNOR, and LEGROW, Justices.

ORDER

After consideration of Dawon Brown’s opening brief, the State’s motion to

affirm, and the record on appeal, we conclude that the judgment below should be

affirmed on the basis of the Superior Court’s order, dated December 4, 2024,

denying Brown’s second motion for sentence reduction under Superior Court

Criminal Rule 35(b). As the Superior Court recognized, the non-suspended ten-year

portion of Brown’s fifteen-year Level V sentence for possession of a firearm by a

person prohibited was a minimum mandatory sentence under 11 Del. C. § 14481 that

1 Section 1448(e)(1)(c) requires the imposition of a minimum sentence of ten years at Level V if the person has been convicted on two or more separate occasions of any violent felony. could not be reduced under Rule 35(b).2 When Brown pleaded guilty, he and the

State agreed to recommend a sentence of fifteen years of Level V incarceration,

suspended after the ten-year minimum mandatory. The parties also agreed that

Brown had several prior violent-felony convictions, including for second-degree

robbery in 2020 and drug dealing in 2012. In addition, the Superior Court did not

err in concluding that the motion for sentence reduction was time-barred and

repetitive.

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the Motion to Affirm is

GRANTED and the judgment of the Superior Court be AFFIRMED.

BY THE COURT: /s/ Gary F. Traynor Justice

2 State v. Sturgis, 947 A.2d 1087, 1092 (Del. 2008) (holding that Rule 35 does not authorize reduction of a statutory minimum mandatory sentence). 2