Adkins v. State

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
TYRONE M. ADKINS, §
§ No. 581, 2015
Defendant Below, §
Appellant, § Court Below—Superior Court
§ of the State of Delaware
v. §
§
STATE OF DELAWARE, § Cr. ID No. 1411014640
§
§
Plaintiff Below, §
Appellee. §
Before STRINE, Chief Justice; HOLLAND and VAUGHN, Justices.
ORDER
This 28th day of September 2016, it appears to the Court that:
(1) In August 2015, following a one-day trial, a Superior Court jury
convicted defendant-appellant, Tyrone M. Adkins of three counts of Drug Dealing
(Heroin). On October 9, 2015, the Superior Court sentenced Adkins to a total of
twenty years at Level V incarceration. This is Adkins’s appeal.
(2) The sole issue on this appeal is whether the Superior Court was within
its discretion to overrule an objection to the testimony of an undercover police
officer about the circumstances of the crimes with which the defendant was
charged. Defendant Adkins argues that the Superior Court had to apply Delaware
Rule of Evidence 404(b) because the officer testified that Adkins “shorted him” in
the amount of heroin he delivered. As the Superior Court found, the officer was
testifying about the very transactions that formed the basis for the charges against
the defendant, and the testimony about shorting went to the amount of the heroin
the officer received. Not only that, the State was not using the testimony for any
purpose implicating Rule 404(b). Finally, it is impossible for us to fathom how
testimony that Adkins delivered less heroin than he was supposed to would have
led the jury to convict him improperly, and thus the admission of this evidence,
even if improper, was harmless.
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior
Court is AFFIRMED.
BY THE COURT:
/s/ Leo E. Strine, Jr.
Chief Justice
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