State v. Sloman

886 A.2d 1257, 2005 Del. LEXIS 431, 2005 WL 2923497
CourtSupreme Court of Delaware
DecidedNovember 4, 2005
Docket511,2004
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 886 A.2d 1257 (State v. Sloman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Sloman, 886 A.2d 1257, 2005 Del. LEXIS 431, 2005 WL 2923497 (Del. 2005).

Opinion

STEELE, Chief Justice:

After receiving a sentence for his 14th DUI, the defendant, Gene Sloman, working with a TASC alcohol counselor, managed to obtain a recommendation for a sentence modification from a Superior Court Commissioner. A Superior Court judge — not the original sentencing judge— entered an Order adopting the Commissioner’s recommendation. The State later learned of the modification and, before the original sentencing judge, moved to vacate the modification and to reinstate the original sentence on the grounds that there was no legal authority for the sentence modification. The original sentencing judge denied the State’s motion and refused to vacate the modified sentence. Because the sentence modification resulted from ambiguous terms of the initial sentence and TASC’s reasonable interpretation of those terms, the original sentencing judge’s affirmation of the modification was carried out under his inherent authority to modify the original sentence. Accordingly, there was legal authority for the sentence modification. We, therefore, affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

I. Facts

In July 2003, Sloman drove his car through a red light at an intersection in New Castle County and collided with an oncoming vehicle. After Sloman refused to submit to a field-sobriety test, investigating police officers transferred him to a nearby hospital for evaluation. Doctors took a blood sample that revealed that Sloman had a blood-alcohol content of .30, three times the legal limit then in effect.

The following month, a grand jury indicted Sloman for driving under the influence of alcohol and other related offenses. Because Sloman had a record of at least four other DUI convictions, the latest charge constituted a felony and carried a six-month mandatory term of Level V incarceration. In September 2003, Sloman pleaded guilty to the DUI count and several other offenses.

On December 5, 2003 a Superior Court judge sentenced Sloman on two charges: 1) DUI; and 2) Driving After Judgment Prohibited. On the DUI charge Sloman received five years at Level V suspended after three years for decreasing levels of supervision. On the second charge the judge sentenced Sloman to the six month mandatory minimum. Sloman, thus, received 5^ consecutive years at Level V suspended after 3lh years under the terms of his initial sentence.

Sloman began serving his sentence on July 16, 2003. From July 16, 2003 to January 16, 2004, Sloman served his six-month mandatory sentence for Driving After Judgment Prohibited. Sloman then began his three-years at Level V for the DUI charge. Under the original sentence, then, Sloman would have been incarcerated under Level V supervision until January 16, 2007. Only after this point would Sloman have been able to enter the final phase of his original sentence: Level IV residential treatment. This is not how events ultimately unfolded.

On February 25, 2004 Sloman moved pro se for a reduction of his sentence pursuant to Superior Court Criminal Rule 35(b). The original sentencing judge denied this motion on March 11, 2004. While incarcerated, Sloman met with a Treat *1259 ment Access Center (TASC) case manager. Pursuant to TASC’s statutorily-mandated mission “to coordinate the provision of substance abuse evaluation and treatment ... to criminal defendants,” 1 the case manager worked with Sloman to help address his alcohol-related problems. The case manager also sought and received a “fast track” conference before a Superior Court Commissioner to review Sloman’s rehabilitation.

At the July 15, 2004 fast track hearing, at which no representative of the Department of Correction or Attorney General’s office appeared, the case manager related Sloman’s progress and noted that Sloman was scheduled to complete the TASC program before serving his full term of incarceration. In a “sort of like exploratory/modification request” before the Commissioner, the case manager asked that successful completion of the TASC alcohol program be an added condition of Sloman’s sentence. The Commissioner granted the case manager’s request.

On July 28, 2004 another Superior Court judge accepted the Commissioner’s recommendation and adopted it. Under the terms of the Order, Sloman was still sentenced to five years at Level V. Unlike the original sentence (which required Sloman to serve three years at Level V), under the terms of the modified sentence, after the successful completion of the Level V TASC program (“Key”), Sloman’s sentence would be suspended for a Level IV treatment program (“Crest”). After successful completion of the Level IV treatment program, Sloman would serve 90 days of work release at Level III. After the completion of the work release, the balance of the modified sentence was to be further suspended for 18 months at Level III.

Still unsatisfied with his modified sentence, Sloman filed a second Rule 35(b) motion for sentence modification on September 2, 2004. The original sentencing judge considered the second motion, and after citing the July 23 Order, denied Slo-man’s second motion. 2 While preparing its response to Sloman’s second Rule 35(b) motion, the State first learned of the TASC proceeding, the Commissioner’s findings, and the July 23 Order modifying Sloman’s sentence. The State asserted that the July sentence modifications were illegal and unsupported by the “extraordinary circumstances” required to be shown before the Superior Court may consider an untimely Rule 35(b) motion. The State, therefore, separately moved for an Order vacating the July 23 Order.

Sloman’s original sentencing judge presided at a November 2004 hearing on the State’s motion to vacate. Although he was “not overjoyed with the downward modification of Level V time,” he found that under the “totality of the circumstances,” the July 23 Order should remain in effect. Because it is a “regular practice ... to amend these sentence Orders in terms of where we are suggesting that TASC can do it,” the original sentencing judge found that “extraordinary circumstances” — as he apparently believed Rule 35(b) contemplated — existed to warrant the reduction in sentence.

The original sentencing judge, therefore, denied the State’s motion to vacate Slo-man’s July 23 sentencing Order. On November 15, 2004, he then entered a new sentencing Order that reaffirmed the July 23 Order. 3 One of the Conditions of Su *1260 pervision under the work release portion of the new sentencing Order was that Slo-man was not to possess or consume alcoholic beverages. The State appealed, claiming that the original sentencing judge abused his discretion by ratifying the July 23rd modifications to the original sentence in his final Order of November 2004.

As noted above, Sloman began his sentence for the DUI charge on July 16, 2004. During the course of all of the foregoing legal proceedings, Sloman was incarcerated at Level V. Under the terms of the modified sentencing Order approved on November 15, 2004, Sloman left Level V custody to go to Level IV on December 29, 2004.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Miller
Superior Court of Delaware, 2025
State v. Evans
Superior Court of Delaware, 2024
State v. Scott
Superior Court of Delaware, 2023
State v. Thomas
Superior Court of Delaware, 2022
State v. Jolley
Superior Court of Delaware, 2022
Comeger v. State
Supreme Court of Delaware, 2019
Eley v. State
Supreme Court of Delaware, 2017
Stinson v. State
Supreme Court of Delaware, 2017
Santiago v. State
Supreme Court of Delaware, 2016
State of Delaware v. Tollis.
Superior Court of Delaware, 2016
Watts v. State
Supreme Court of Delaware, 2015
Cornish v. State
Supreme Court of Delaware, 2015
State of Delaware v. Remedio.
108 A.3d 326 (Superior Court of Delaware, 2014)
Shaw v. State
Supreme Court of Delaware, 2014
Taylor v. State
Supreme Court of Delaware, 2014
Dawkins v. State
994 A.2d 744 (Supreme Court of Delaware, 2010)
Moody v. State
988 A.2d 451 (Supreme Court of Delaware, 2010)
Martin v. State
984 A.2d 124 (Supreme Court of Delaware, 2009)
VANDERHOEVEN v. State
976 A.2d 172 (Supreme Court of Delaware, 2009)
Smith v. State
913 A.2d 1197 (Supreme Court of Delaware, 2006)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
886 A.2d 1257, 2005 Del. LEXIS 431, 2005 WL 2923497, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-sloman-del-2005.