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State v. Sloman11/4/2005
Submitted: October 19, 2005
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND, BERGER, JACOBS and RIDGELY, Justices, constituting the Court en banc.
Upon appeal from the Superior Court. AFFIRMED.
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 1/2 consecutive years at Level V suspended after 3 1/2 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 Treatment 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," 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 Cou
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