Gatewood v. State ( 2016 )

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
STANLEY GATEWOOD, §
§ No. 415, 2016
Defendant Below- §
Appellant, §
§
v. § Court Below—Superior Court
§ of the State of Delaware
STATE OF DELAWARE, §
§ Cr. ID 1407022963
Plaintiff Below- §
Appellee. §
Submitted: October 18, 2016
Decided: December 12, 2016
Before STRINE, Chief Justice; HOLLAND, and SEITZ, Justices.
ORDER
This 12th day of December 2016, upon consideration of the appellant’s
opening brief, the State’s motion to affirm, and the record below, it appears
to the Court that:
(1) The appellant, Stanley Gatewood, filed this appeal from the
Superior Court’s denial of his motion for correction of sentence. The State
has filed a motion to affirm the judgment below on the ground that it is
manifest on the face of Gatewood’s opening brief that his appeal is without
merit. We agree and affirm.
(2) The record reflects that Gatewood pled guilty on May 11, 2015
to Possession of a Firearm by a Person Prohibited (“PFBPP”), Receiving a
Stolen Firearm, and Conspiracy in the Second Degree. After a presentence
investigation, the Superior Court sentenced Gatewood, effective October 13,
2014, to serve a total period of twenty years at Level V incarceration, to be
suspended after serving ten years in prison for decreasing levels of
supervision. Gatewood did not appeal.
(3) In September 2015, Gatewood filed a motion for credit time,
which the Superior Court denied. This Court affirmed the Superior Court’s
decision on appeal.1 In rejecting Gatewood’s claims in that appeal, we noted
that Gatewood previously had been convicted of two prior violent felonies,
PFBPP in 2011 and Distribution of a Controlled Substance within 300 Feet
of a Church in 2010.2 Gatewood’s prior violent felony record prohibited the
Superior Court from imposing any concurrent prison sentences in
Gatewood’s case.3
(4) In July 2016, Gatewood filed a motion for correction of
sentence under Superior Court Rule 35(a). Gatewood argued that he did not
have two predicate violent felony convictions subjecting him to an enhanced
ten-year sentence for his 2015 PFBPP conviction. The Superior Court
denied his motion. This appeal followed.
1
Gatewood v. State, 2016 WL 792382 (Del. Feb. 29, 2016).
2
Id. at *1 n.2. At the time of his respective prior convictions, these offenses were
designated violent felonies under 11 Del. C. § 4201(c).
3
Id. at *1 (citing 11 Del. C. § 3901(c)).
2
(5) We find no merit to Gatewood’s appeal. The Court previously
held in Gatewood’s most recent appeal that he had been convicted of two
prior felonies that, at the time of his convictions, had been designated
“violent” under 11 Del. C. § 4201(c).4 We are not required to reconsider this
claim simply because it has been refined or restated.5 Moreover, to the
extent Gatewood is attempting to challenge the constitutionality of 11 Del.
C. § 1448 or the validity of his plea agreement, he failed to raise those
arguments in the Superior Court. We will not consider those claims in the
first instance.6
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the
Superior Court is AFFIRMED.
BY THE COURT:
/s/ Collins J. Seitz, Jr.
Justice
4
Id.
5
Chrichlow v. State, 2014 WL 4243629, *2 (Del. Aug. 26, 2014).
6
Del. Supr. Ct. R. 8 (2016).
3