State v. Jackson

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE CRAIG A. KARSNITZ, SUSSEX COUNTY COURTHOUSE RESIDENT JUDGE 1 THE CIRCLE, SUITE 2 GEORGETOWN, DE 19947 TELEPHONE (302) 856-5263 October 21, 2025 Carlos Jackson SBI# 00273677 James T. Vaughan Correctional Center 1181 Paddock Road Smyrna, DE 19977 Re: State v. Carlos Jackson, Def. ID No. 0107004921A On Remand from the Supreme Court of Delaware Motion for Sentence Modification (Criminal Rule 35) Dear Mr. Jackson: In 2002, a Superior Court jury found you guilty of one count of second-degree rape, two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, one count of second-degree assault, one count of aggravated menacing, one count of first-degree unlawful imprisonment, two counts of second-degree conspiracy, one count of misdemeanor theft, and one count of resisting arrest. Following a presentence investigation, the Superior Court sentenced you to an aggregate of 33 years of unsuspended incarceration followed by decreasing levels of community supervision. The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed your convictions on direct appeal.1 On June 17, 2024, you moved for modification or reduction of your sentence under Superior Court Criminal Rule 35 (“Rule 35”) (attached as Exhibit A), arguing that exceptional circumstances justified your late filing,2 including that: (i) the Department of Correction (DOC) will never petition for your early release under 11 Del. C. § 4217 because DOC policy excludes Tier 3 sex offenders from consideration; (ii) because of the nature of the conduct that led to your rape conviction, you do not suffer from the same high likelihood of reoffending as other sex offenders; and (iii) your rehabilitative efforts, when considered together with the length of time that you have been incarcerated, warrant a reduction of sentence. On July 9, 2024, I denied that motion by a letter Order (attached as Exhibit B). You filed no appeal from my ruling. After further investigation I determined a tortuous history of the document denying your first motion. It shows on the original document a filing stamp dated July 19, 2024, and a handwritten docket number (as is currently customary). However, the docket number is out of sequence. As best as I can currently determine, someone mis-docketed this document, realized their error, 1 Jackson v. State, 2002 WL 31728746 (Del. Dec. 2, 2002). 2 Del. Super. Ct. Crim. R. 35(b) (“The court will consider an application made more than 90 days after the imposition of sentence only in extraordinary circumstances or pursuant to 11 Del. C. § 4217.”). 2 and corrected the Defendant ID# on the document, but failed to re-docket it on the correct file. A review of the document index would not identify this document. A review of the file itself would have located the July 9, 2024, Letter Order. I found it. On April 7, 2025, you filed a handwritten letter to this Court captioned “Clerical Error” (attached as Exhibit C), claiming that you were sentenced to 28 years (rather than 33 years) of prison and enclosing the Supreme Court’s decision affirming your convictions as evidence of this alleged error. On April 9, 2025, I denied that motion by letter (attached as Exhibit D). My denial deemed your letter to be a motion for modification of sentence under Rule 35, rather than a motion under Superior Court Rule 36 (“Rule 36”), which governs the correction of clerical errors.3 On May 22, 2025, you appealed my denial of your motion to the Supreme Court. In your appeal, you argued that I erred when I (i) rejected your argument that there was a clerical error in your sentence and (ii) considered your motion under Rule 35 instead of Rule 36. On September 17, 2025, the Supreme Court issued an Order which affirmed my denial of your motion on the basis that it lacked merit under Rule 36; i.e., that there was no clerical error under Rule 36 that required correction. However, the 3 Del. Super. Crim. R. 36 (“Clerical mistakes in judgments, orders or other parts of the record and errors in the record arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time and after such notice, if any, as the court orders.”). 3 Supreme Court remanded the case (jurisdiction not retained) to this Court “to permit the Superior Court to consider the merits of [your] motion for sentence modification” under Rule 35. To do otherwise would, the Supreme Court stated, preclude you from moving for sentence modification in the future because Rule 35 does not allow the court to consider repetitive requests for modification.4 The Supreme Court stated in its Order that “it appears that the court did not consider the merits of Jackson’s [Rule 35] motion filed in June 2024.” I did consider the merits of your June 2024 Rule 35 motion in my denial dated July 9, 2025 (attached as Exhibit B). In any event, on remand I hereby clarify that your June 17, 2024, Rule 35 motion for modification of sentence, which I denied on July 9, 2024, continues to be DENIED for the same reasons I stated in my July 9, 2024, Order. None of the grounds you allege meet the State v. Culp standard. Very truly yours, /s/ Craig A. Karsnitz Craig A. Karsnitz Attached: Exhibits A, B, C, and D 4 State v. Culp, 152 A.3d 141, 144 (Del. 2016) (“Rule 35(b) does not set forth any exception to the repetitive motion bar.”). 4 cc: Prothonotary Department of Justice Office of Defense Services 5