How Allen v. Cooper Breaks Important New (if Dubious) Ground on Stare Decisis

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar comments on language in a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Allen v. Cooperdiscussing constitutional stare decisis in the context of state sovereign immunity. Amar points out some of the problems with the Court’s jurisprudence on state sovereign immunity and Congress’s Section 5 power, and he questions the Allen majority’s embrace of a “special justification” requirement for constitutional stare decisis.

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Chavis v. Delaware

Docket: 520, 2018

Opinion Date: April 7, 2020

Judge: Traynor

Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

Dakai Chavis was indicted by grand jury on four counts of trespassing with the intent to peer or peep, four counts of burglary in the second degree, three counts of burglary in the second degree, and one count of theft of a firearm. A jury acquitted Chavis on all but one of the charges, finding him guilty of the second degree burglary of an apartment at 61 Fairway Road in Newark, Delaware. At that address, unlike the other residences identified in the indictment, the police had obtained a DNA sample from a bedroom window. The police sent that sample to an out-of-state laboratory for analysis, and when they later arrested Chavis and swabbed his mouth for DNA, they sent that sample to the same lab. According to one of the lab’s analysts, the evidentiary sample taken from the bedroom window at the burglary scene matched the reference sample taken from Chavis. It was undisputed that several analysts from the lab handled and performed steps in the analytical process on both samples. Even so, before the trial, the State moved in limine for an order declaring that the out-of-state laboratory’s DNA findings would be “admissible via the testimony of [the lead analyst], and that no one else from [the laboratory] needs to appear for trial.” Chavis opposed the motion, citing the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause and 10 Del. C. sec. 4331. The Superior Court agreed with the State and granted its motion. Finding no reversible error in the Superior Court's judgment, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed.

Wiggins v. Delaware

Docket: 46, 2019

Opinion Date: April 7, 2020

Judge: Montgomery-Reeves

Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

In 2018, Appellant Darren Wiggins was arrested for possession of drugs; a vial containing an amber liquid with brown chunks suspended in the liquid. The State’s chemist tested the amber liquid, which tested positive for phencyclidine (“PCP”); she did not test or otherwise identify the brown chunks. The chemist also weighed the liquid PCP and brown chunks together and determined that they weighed 17.651 grams. The chemist did not weigh the liquid or the brown chunks separately. At trial, the State presented no evidence regarding the nature of the brown chunks or their relation to the liquid PCP other than their co-location within the same vial. Nonetheless, the jury found Wiggins guilty of Aggravated Possession of PCP under Delaware’s Uniform Controlled Substances Act. Relevant here, possession of 15 grams or more of PCP, or of any mixture containing any such substance, was classified as a Class B Felony and carried a minimum sentence of two years at Level V incarceration. The parties’ sole focus in this appeal is on whether a rational jury could have concluded that the State met its burden to prove that the liquid PCP and brown chunks in Wiggins’s vial constituted a “mixture” under the statutory scheme. The Delaware Supreme Court held that the meaning of “mixture” within Delaware’s statutory scheme required a showing that the mixture was marketable or usable. As the State presented no evidence concerning what the brown chunks were, that they were in any way associated with liquid PCP, or that they were conventionally sold or used with PCP mixtures, the State made no showing that the liquid PCP and unidentified brown chunks were a marketable or usable drug mixture. Therefore, the Court vacated the conviction for Aggravated Possession of PCP and remanded for sentencing for the lesser-included offense of Misdemeanor Possession of PCP.