Taylor v. State

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

SHAWN TAYLOR, §
§ No. 323, 2023
Defendant Below, §
Appellant, § Court Below—Superior Court
§ of the State of Delaware
v. §
§ Cr. ID No. 2204012723(N)
STATE OF DELAWARE, §
§
Appellee. §

Submitted: June 26, 2024
Decided: August 14, 2024

Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; TRAYNOR and GRIFFITHS, Justices.

ORDER

On this 14th day of August 2024, it appears to the Court that:

(1) Following a bench trial, Shawn Taylor was found guilty of possession

of a firearm by a person prohibited (“PFBPP”) and sentenced to fifteen years in

prison suspended after the minimum mandatory sentence of five years.1 He appeals

to this Court, arguing that the State failed to present sufficient evidence to establish

that he possessed the firearm. We disagree and affirm.

1
See 11 Del. C. § 1448(e)(1) (“[A] person who is a prohibited person . . . who knowingly possesses
. . . a firearm . . . while so prohibited shall receive a minimum sentence of . . . [f]ive years at Level
V, if the person does so within 10 years of the date of conviction for any violent felony or the date
of termination of all periods of incarceration . . . imposed pursuant to said conviction[.]”).
(2) On the night of April 24, 2022, Trooper Hunter Bordley of the

Delaware State Police pulled over a two-door, dark grey Dodge Challenger for

speeding. The vehicle was going twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. When

Trooper Bordley approached the vehicle, he observed four people seated in the car

— two in the front and two in the back. Taylor was seated in the back seat behind

the driver. Naim Abdullah, a friend of the driver, sat next to Taylor in the backseat.

(3) During the stop, Trooper Bordley detected the odor of marijuana.

Accordingly, he removed the driver from the vehicle and called for backup, which

included Detective George Justice, to help remove the other passengers from the

vehicle and control the scene. When Detective Justice attempted to remove the front

seat passenger from the vehicle, Trooper Bordley, standing at the rear of the vehicle,

observed Taylor lean toward the floorboard of the vehicle. Because the reason for

the downward reach was unknown, Trooper Bordley decided to quickly remove

Taylor from the car. Because the Dodge Challenger was a two-door coupe,

removing Taylor from the back seat required pulling the front seat forward.

(4) After Taylor was removed, Trooper Bordley went back to the vehicle

and searched the floorboard in front of where Taylor had been sitting. There, he

found two items: a water bottle containing burnt marijuana and a loaded green

firearm that, according to Trooper Bordley, was not visible when he removed Taylor

from the back seat.

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(5) Delaware State Police collected the firearm for fingerprinting and DNA

analysis. None of the prints or DNA samples were interpretable. During police

interviews, both Taylor and Abdullah denied knowing to whom the gun belonged.

Although Abdullah later took responsibility for the gun, Trooper Bordley testified

that Abdullah had only done so in the hope that Taylor would be released and then

post Abdullah’s bail.

(6) Due to their prior criminal histories, both Taylor and Abdullah were

indicted for PFBPP, carrying a concealed deadly weapon (“CCDW”), possession of

ammunition by a person prohibited (“PABPP”), and second-degree conspiracy.

Abdullah pleaded guilty to CCDW and second-degree conspiracy. Taylor opted for

a bench trial. At trial, the State’s theory was that, when Taylor leaned forward, he

had taken the gun, either from his person or Abdullah, and placed it under the

driver’s seat.

(7) For some unknown reason, the police did not collect the water bottle

containing the burnt marijuana. The court was therefore required to assume when

weighing the evidence of the water bottle, had it been preserved, would have been

exculpatory.2 In Taylor’s case, the court understood the required inference to be

that, if preserved, forensic analysis of the water bottle would have established that

2
See Coleman v. State, 289 A.3d 619, 624 (2023) (“[I]f the government fails to preserve important
physical evidence, a criminal defendant may be entitled to an inference that the missing evidence
would have been exculpatory.”) (citing Deberry v. State, 457 A.2d 744, 753–54 (Del. 1983)).

3
Taylor was its sole prior possessor. Even with the inference—that Taylor was

reaching for the water bottle—the court convicted him of PFBPP but acquitted him

of all other charges.

(8) On appeal, Taylor contends that the State’s evidence was insufficient

to support his conviction for PFBPP. To avoid usurping the role of the fact finder,

the scope of our review of such a claim is limited.3 We are not called upon to step

into the fact finder’s shoes and ask whether, upon review of the evidence, we believe

Taylor is guilty of PFBPP.4 Nor are we called to “rule out every hypothesis except

that of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”5 Rather, we are required to determine

whether, when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, any

rational trier of fact could have found Taylor guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.6 In

doing so, we draw no distinctions between the direct and circumstantial evidence

against Taylor.7

3
See Skinner v. State, 575 A.2d 1108, 1121 (Del. 1990).
4
See id. (“[T]he Court is not required to ask itself whether it believes that the evidence at trial
established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”).
5
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 326 (1979); see also Monroe v. State, 652 A.2d 560, 567 (Del.
1995) (“[T]he State no longer needs to disprove every possible innocent explanation in pure
circumstantial evidence cases[.]”) (citing Williams v. State, 539 A.2d 164, 167 (Del. 1988)).
6
Monroe, 652 A.2d at 563 (citations omitted).
7
Robertson v. State, 596 A.2d 1345, 1355 (Del. 1991) (citing Shipley v. State, 570 A.2d 1159,
1170 (Del. 1990)).

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(9) With this standard in mind, we conclude that the State presented

sufficient evidence to justify an inference by a rational finder of fact that Taylor, a

person prohibited,8 possessed the firearm found under the driver’s seat of the

Challenger and was, therefore, guilty of PFBPP.9 The possession required to

establish PFBPP can be either actual or constructive.10 Actual possession is “having

physical custody or control of a [firearm].”11 Constructive possession requires that

a defendant know of the weapon’s location and have the ability and intention to

exercise control over it.12 Generally, testimony that the defendant was reaching

toward an accessible spot where the police later found the weapon, either to conceal

it or grab it, is sufficient to support a finding of possession.13

8
Taylor stipulated at trial that he was a person prohibited from possession of a firearm under 11
Del. C. § 1448 and does not contest the issue on appeal.
9
See 11 Del. C. § 1448(b) (“Any prohibited person . . . who knowingly possesses . . . a deadly
weapon . . . while so prohibited shall be guilty of possession of a deadly weapon . . . by a person
prohibited.”).
10
Lecates v. State, 987 A.2d 413, 425–26 (Del. 2009).
11
Id. at 425 n.82 (quoting United States v. Nenadich, 689 F. Supp. 285, 288 n.1 (S.D.N.Y. 1988)).
12
Id. at 426 (citations omitted).
13
See, e.g., United States v. Bailey, 553 F.3d 940, 947–49 (6th Cir. 2009) (holding that “to
determine that the defendant had constructive possession over the firearm we require additional
circumstantial evidence beyond the defendant’s having driven the car in which the firearm was
found” such as “police officer’s testimony that he or she saw the defendant bend down to conceal
something beneath the seat[.]”); United States v. Flenoid, 718 F.2d 867, 868–69 (8th Cir. 1983)
(holding sufficient evidence of possession of a firearm by passenger where police officer testified
he saw the defendant “bend down and reach under the car seat at the moment after the police
stopped the car[.]”); United States v. Clark, 184 F.3d 858, 863–64 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (holding
defendant’s “reaching actions are sufficient to link him to the gun and to indicate that ‘he had some
stake in it–and the fact that it was located directly under his seat further indicates that he had ‘some
power over [it].’”) (citations omitted).

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(10) Here, Trooper Bordley testified that he observed Taylor reaching

toward the floorboard in front of him and later found the gun in that spot. This

testimony supports a rational inference that, during the reach, Taylor either placed

the weapon under the seat—establishing his actual possession—or that he had seen

the gun under the seat when entering the car and was trying to grab it—establishing

his constructive possession of the gun. Even though the court was required to infer

that the water bottle of marijuana found beside the gun was exculpatory, it was not

required to give that inference controlling weight. The court decided that, despite

the required inference, it did not have a reasonable doubt that Taylor actually or

constructively possessed the gun. In view of all the evidence, this was not an

irrational conclusion and, therefore, we will not disturb it.

(11) We note that Taylor’s acquittal for CCDW does not affect our

conclusion that there was sufficient evidence to support Taylor’s conviction for

PFBPP. Because the elements of CCDW and PFBPP are different, an acquittal of

one does not suggest that the evidence cannot support a conviction for the other.14

Particularly relevant here is CCDW’s concealment element, which is not an element

of PFBPP. “A person is guilty of carrying a concealed deadly weapon when the

person carries concealed a deadly weapon upon or about the person without a

14
See Ryle v. State, 271 A.3d 1142, 2022 WL 288084, at *2 (Del. Jan. 31, 2022) (ORDER) (citing
11 Del. C. §§ 1442, 1448(b); Upshur v. State, 420 A.2d 165, 168 (Del. 1980)).

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license to do so[.]”15 Concealment means “hidden from the ordinary sight of another

person . . . [meaning] the casual and ordinary observation of another in the normal

associations of life.”16 Given that Trooper Bordley could see the firearm under the

driver’s seat when he returned to the car, the trial judge could have determined that

the State failed to prove concealment beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a

determination would not necessarily undermine the trial judge’s finding that Taylor

constructively possessed the firearm.

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the Superior Court’s judgment

is AFFIRMED.

BY THE COURT:

/s/ N. Christopher Griffiths
Justice

15
11 Del. C. § 1442 (emphasis added).
16
Robertson v. State, 704 A.2d 267, 268 (Del. 1997) (adopting majority rule and quoting Ensor v.
State, 403 So.2d 349, 354 (Fla. 1981)) (ellipsis and brackets in original).

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