McKnight v. State

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

MILIK MCKNIGHT, §
§
Defendant Below, § No. 127, 2024
Appellant, §
§ Court Below—Superior Court
v. § of the State of Delaware
§
STATE OF DELAWARE, § Cr. ID No. N2206012342 A, B
§
Appellee. §

Submitted: November 21, 2024
Decided: January 22, 2025

Before TRAYNOR, LEGROW, and GRIFFITHS, Justices.

ORDER

After consideration of the brief and motion to withdraw filed by the

appellant’s counsel under Supreme Court Rule 26(c), the State’s response, and the

Superior Court record, it appears to the Court that:

(1) A Superior Court jury found Milik McKnight guilty of attempted first-

degree murder, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony, first-degree

conspiracy, and carrying a concealed deadly weapon. The judge then found

McKnight guilty of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited. The court

sentenced McKnight to a total of sixty-one years of imprisonment, suspended after

twenty-three years. This is McKnight’s direct appeal.
(2) McKnight’s counsel has filed a brief and a motion to withdraw under

Supreme Court Rule 26(c). Counsel asserts that he has made a conscientious review

of the record and the law and concluded that the appeal is without merit. Counsel

informed McKnight of the provisions of Rule 26(c) and provided him with a copy

of the motion to withdraw and the accompanying brief. Counsel also informed

McKnight of his right to supplement counsel’s presentation. McKnight responded

with points for the Court’s consideration, which counsel included with the Rule

26(c) brief. The State has responded to the Rule 26(c) brief and argues that the

Superior Court’s judgment should be affirmed.

(3) The charges against McKnight arose from a shooting that occurred late

in the evening of June 21, 2022, in Wilmington’s Riverside area. Shortly before

midnight, the Wilmington Police Department received a ShotSpotter alert indicating

that six shots had been fired near 2701 Northeast Boulevard. They also received a

911 call reporting the incident. The first officer who arrived on the scene found

Jarrod Reams lying on the sidewalk outside Crown Pizza, a convenience store

located at the corner of Northeast Boulevard and 27th Street. Reams had gunshot

wounds to his torso. Emergency medical personnel transported him to Christiana

Hospital, where he received lifesaving treatment. Reams declined forensic nursing

services and was intubated when the chief investigating officer, Detective Kevin

Nolan, attempted to interview him at the hospital. Reams did not testify at trial.

2
(4) Video-only surveillance cameras from several angles inside the store

and on the outside the building recorded some of what transpired on the night of the

incident. At approximately 11:53, four men crossed Northeast Boulevard and

walked down 27th Street, along the side of the Crown Pizza building. The first man

(“Suspect 1”), whom the State alleged to be McKnight, was wearing a dark

sweatshirt with a green logo, dark pants with ripped knees, and dark sneakers with

white laces and soles. The second man (“Suspect 2”) was wearing a dark sweatshirt

with a yellow Nike logo, dark pants, and blue sneakers. The third man (“Suspect

3”) was wearing light gray pants, a dark sweatshirt with a large white logo, and black

sneakers with white soles. The fourth man (“Suspect 4”) was wearing dark pants, a

dark sweatshirt with the word “Carry” on the front in large, white letters, and white

sneakers.

(5) Reams was standing inside the store and would have been clearly

visible from outside as the suspects walked by the open door. There were also

several bystanders in the store. The suspects disappeared behind the building for

less than a minute, then walked back up 27th Street and entered the store. The faces

of Suspects 1, 3, and 4 were covered with masks and their sweatshirt hoods were up,

and Suspects 3 and 4 appeared to have turned their sweatshirts inside out.1 Suspect

1
The word “Carry” on Suspect 4’s sweatshirt was still clearly visible, although backwards, and
the tags of the two suspects’ sweatshirts were now visible outside the sweatshirts.

3
2’s face was visible. Upon seeing the suspects enter, Reams promptly left the store,

followed by Suspect 1 and then the others. Outside, Suspect 1 pushed Reams against

the wall and appeared to pull something from the area of his own sweatshirt pocket

or waistband, as the two moved out of the camera view. As that happened, Suspect

3 appeared to pull out a gun and point it at Reams, moving toward Suspect 1 and

Reams and also briefly out of the camera view. Suspect 1 then ran away across

Northeast Boulevard, holding a dark object in his hand. Suspect 3 also fled across

Northeast Boulevard. Suspects 2 and 4 ran around the corner, down 27th Street.

(6) Detective Nolan also reviewed videos from the Crown Pizza cameras

from the night before the shooting and determined that some of the suspects had

visited the store the night before; the suspects’ faces were visible on the earlier

videos. After disseminating videos and still shots from the videos to other officers,

Detective Nolan identified McKnight, Arkye Matthews, and others as suspects.

McKnight was arrested on July 19, 2022. During a brief post-Miranda interview

with Detective Nolan, McKnight seemed to acknowledge that a still shot from the

Crown Pizza footage from the night before the shooting was him, though he quickly

recanted that statement.

(7) Matthews was arrested on July 22, 2022. During the execution of his

arrest warrant, an officer found a SIG Sauer 9mm handgun. A firearms identification

examiner determined that four of the five shell casings that had been found outside

4
Crown Pizza on the night of the shooting had been fired from that gun and that the

fifth casing had been fired from a different gun. A gun matching the fifth casing

was not recovered.

(8) The State’s case at trial turned on whether Suspect 1, the man wearing

the sweatshirt with the green logo, was McKnight, and whether that person had shot

at Reams. Among other evidence offered to prove that Suspect 1 was McKnight,

the State presented evidence that McKnight was wearing the same clothing—

including the sweatshirt with the green logo, the dark pants with ripped knees, and

the dark sneakers with white laces and soles—when, on the night before the

shooting, (i) he was a passenger in a vehicle and showed the officers his

identification during a traffic stop, and (ii) he visited Crown Pizza without his face

covered, as depicted on the videos from the night before the shooting.

(9) When reviewing a motion to withdraw and an accompanying brief

under Rule 26(c), this Court must be satisfied that the appellant’s counsel has made

a conscientious examination of the record and the law for arguable claims.2 This

Court must also conduct its own review of the record and determine whether “the

appeal is indeed so frivolous that it may be decided without an adversary

presentation.”3

2
Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75, 83 (1988); McCoy v. Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, 486 U.S. 429,
442 (1988); Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967).
3
Penson, 488 U.S. at 82.

5
(10) McKnight’s first argument is that the Crown Pizza surveillance videos

were not properly authenticated. He contends that the prosecution therefore engaged

in prosecutorial misconduct, and violated due process, by offering the videos into

evidence. He bases his authenticity challenge on a one-hour difference between the

videos’ timestamp and the actual time and the fact that Detective Nolan downloaded

the videos a day or two after the shooting, rather than that night. McKnight

speculates that someone might have tampered with the videos between the time of

the incident and when Detective Nolan downloaded the videos.

(11) McKnight did not object to the admissibility of the videos or assert a

claim of prosecutorial misconduct at trial. We therefore review for plain error.4 As

stated in Wainwright, “[u]nder the plain error standard of review, the error

complained of must be so clearly prejudicial to substantial rights as to jeopardize the

fairness and integrity of the trial process.”5 In reviewing a claim of prosecutorial

misconduct for plain error, we first examine the record de novo to determine whether

prosecutorial misconduct occurred.6 If we determine that no misconduct occurred,

4
Trala v. State, 244 A.3d 989, 998 (Del. 2020); Smith v. State, 839 A.2d 666, 2003 WL 22931398,
at *1 (Del. Dec. 9, 2003) (TABLE).
5
Wainwright v. State, 504 A.2d 1096, 1100 (Del. 1986).
6
Trala, 244 A.3d at 998.

6
our analysis ends.7 If we find misconduct, then we apply the Wainwright standard

to determine whether reversal is warranted.8

(12) We find no plain error as to the videos’ authentication. Rule 901 of

the Delaware Uniform Rules of Evidence provides: “To satisfy the requirement of

authenticating or identifying an item of evidence, the proponent must produce

evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it

is.”9 The authentication requirement is “fundamental,” but “it imposes only a lenient

burden that is easily met.”10 In order to authenticate an item of evidence, “the State

need only establish a rational basis from which the jury could conclude that the

evidence is connected with the defendant.”11 “There are no hard-and-fast rules about

how the State must meet the authentication requirement, and it is permissible to use

the content and context of [an item of evidence] for authentication.”12

(13) Detective Nolan provided testimony sufficient to support a finding that

the videos were what the State purported them to be—that is, surveillance footage

from inside and outside Crown Pizza on the night of the shooting and the previous

night. He testified that, although officers who had responded to the scene on the

7
Id.
8
Id.
9
Del. Unif. R. Evid. 901(a).
10
Prince v. State, 284 A.3d 713, 2022 WL 4126669, at *3 (Del. Sept. 9, 2022) (TABLE) (internal
quotations omitted).
11
White v. State, 258 A.3d 147, 155 (Del. 2021) (internal quotations omitted).
12
Id. (alteration, internal quotations, and citation omitted).

7
night of the shooting had retrieved surveillance videos, he later went to Crown Pizza

and downloaded his own copy of the videos, which he provided to the Department

of Justice.13 He described where the cameras were located and testified that the

outside videos depicted the corner of Northeast Boulevard and East 27th Street and

the side of the Crown Pizza building and sidewalk on East 27th Street.14 Detective

Nolan explained that the timestamp on the videos was one hour behind the actual

time, as corroborated by the time that the 911 call was received.15 He also identified

Reams on the videos.16

(14) McKnight has not pointed to any circumstances or characteristics of the

videos suggesting that they were not what they were purported to be, and we find no

plain error as to the authentication issue.17 In light of that conclusion, we also find

no prosecutorial misconduct in connection with the videos’ admission. Moreover,

because Detective Nolan testified that the timestamp on the videos was one hour

13
Appendix to Opening Brief at A303-06, A324-25.
14
Id. at A307-08, A311, A317, A319-21. Detective Nolan also testified that he learned from
Crown Pizza staff that the camera on the side of the building was motion activated. Id. at A313.
15
Id. at A305-07, A325.
16
Id. A317.
17
Cf. Bowers v. State, 307 A.3d 977, 2023 WL 6938238, at *3 (Del. Oct. 20, 2023) (TABLE)
(holding that the Superior Court did not abuse its discretion by determining that bystander’s cell-
phone video was sufficiently authenticated by officer’s testimony); Prince, 2022 WL 4126669, at
*3 (stating that the defendant had “not raised any actual challenge to the authenticity of the
Maryland shooting video” for which a law enforcement officer provided authentication testimony,
and concluding that the defendant did not establish that defense counsel was ineffective for not
raising an authentication objection).

8
behind the actual time, the prosecutor did not, as McKnight contends, engage in

misconduct by describing the time discrepancy during opening statements.

(15) McKnight also argues that the Superior Court erred by permitting a

police officer to identify McKnight in Crown Pizza surveillance videos from the

night before the shooting, over McKnight’s objection. Approximately two weeks

before trial, the State notified the court that it intended to offer police officer

testimony identifying McKnight and other suspects in some of the Crown Pizza

videos. The State requested a hearing to allow the State to establish the proper

foundation for the testimony.18

(16) After jury selection, but before opening statements, the court held the

requested hearing outside the jury’s presence. Wilmington Police Officer Anthony

Lerro testified that he had interacted with McKnight, face-to-face, “more than five

to ten times,” including during pedestrian stops, and that he had observed McKnight

in public but not personally interacted with him another “ten or more times.”19 He

stated that he had had the opportunity to hear McKnight’s voice and to observe

McKnight’s facial features and other physical features.20 Officer Lerro provided

18
See Saavedra v. State, 225 A.3d 364, 380-81 (Del. 2020) (“Before a law enforcement witness
uses a video clip or photograph to identify the defendant, due caution should be exercised to ensure
that a proper foundation is laid establishing, to the trial court’s satisfaction, that the witness has a
special familiarity with the defendant that would put him in a better position than the jury to make
the identification.”).
19
Appendix to Opening Brief at A140-41.
20
Id. at A141.

9
similar testimony with respect to two of the other suspects, Arkye Matthews and

Andre Sharpe,21 and stated that he had seen McKnight, Matthews, and Sharpe

together in Riverside.22 Officer Lerro said that he had never arrested McKnight and

that the interactions generally involved groups of people engaged in loitering.23 He

stated that officers would gather the individuals’ names, “run them through DELIJIS

. . . to confirm who they are,” and then send them on their way.24

(17) Reviewing several clips of the Crown Pizza videos from the night of

the shooting and the previous night, Officer Lerro identified the person wearing the

sweatshirt with the green logo as McKnight and the person wearing the “Carry”

sweatshirt as Sharpe; he stated that he recognized them “immediately” when he first

saw the footage.25 Officer Lerro also reviewed videos from the night of the shooting

and identified the person wearing the sweatshirt with a yellow Nike logo, blue

sneakers, and no mask as Matthews, stating that he recognized him “immediately”

when he first saw the footage.26

21
Id. at A142-45.
22
Id. at A145.
23
Id. at A145, A168-69.
24
Id. at A169.
25
Id. at A147-51, A159-64. As discussed below, when testifying before the jury, Officer Lerro
was not asked to identify anyone who was wearing a mask in the videos from the night of the
shooting, which included the suspect alleged to be McKnight.
26
Id. at A152-55.

10
(18) Relying, in part, on Saavedra v. State,27 the State argued that Officer

Lerro should be permitted to identify McKnight, Sharpe, and Matthews in the video

footage. In Saavedra, this Court provided guidance to trial courts considering the

admissibility of lay-opinion identification testimony by law enforcement officers.

The Court stated that the State should lay a foundation establishing that the witness

has a “special familiarity” with the defendant that would put the witness in a

better position than the jury to make the identification, and the court should consider

“whether the images from which the identification is to be made ‘are not either so

unmistakably clear or so hopelessly obscure that the witness is no better suited than

the jury to make the identification.’”28

(19) The defense argued that Officer Lerro’s interactions with McKnight, in

the context of the thousands of stops that the officer conducted each year, did not

sufficiently establish his “special familiarity” with McKnight.29 The defense also

argued that the videos were “very clear,”30 such that identification should be left to

the jury.

(20) After recessing for the night, the court gave a bench ruling on

admissibility, concluding that Officer Lerro’s identification testimony would be

27
225 A.3d 364 (Del. 2020).
28
Id. at 380-81 (citations omitted) (quoting United States v. Jackman, 48 F.3d 1, 4-5 (1st Cir.
1995)).
29
Del. Unif. R. Evid. 701; Saavedra, 225 A.3d at 380.
30
Appendix to Opening Brief at A191.

11
permitted, with a limiting instruction. After carefully considering Rule 701 of the

Delaware Uniform Rules of Evidence, this Court’s decisions on the issue, and

several decisions from other jurisdictions discussed in our case law, the court

determined that the State had sufficiently established Officer Lerro’s “special

familiarity” with McKnight and that the videos were not “so unmistakably clear or

so hopelessly obscure” that Officer Lerro would be no better suited than the jury to

identify McKnight in the videos.31

(21) Before Officer Lerro testified, the court instructed the jury as follows:

Officer Lerro is an officer with the Wilmington Police
Department, and what you are about to hear is testimony bearing on an
issue in this case concerning identification. Officer Lerro is going to
testify concerning individuals who are depicted in some of the clips
you've already seen. And you should understand that this—these
identifications are in the form of Officer Lerro’s opinion as to the
identity of those individuals.
You are the sole and exclusive judges of the facts of the case and
the credibility of a witness, and I want to remind you that you should
give this officer’s opinion as to the identifications only such weight as
you find it deserves, and you should consider whether the Defendant
and other people have been accurately identified based on the totality
of the circumstances bearing upon that issue of identification.
Officer Lerro will testify that he had prior observations or
interactions with individuals depicted in the video clips. You should
also understand and not draw any adverse inferences about these
interactions because no arrests or investigations were ever involved in
those interactions, so that they did not result in criminal charges against
anybody. They were just routine interactions.32

31
Id. at A205-12.
32
Id. at A338-39.

12
(22) Officer Lerro’s testimony to the jury began with the background

information as to how he was familiar with Sharpe, Matthews, and McKnight and

that he had previously seen them together in Riverside. He also identified McKnight

in the courtroom.33 Officer Lerro then identified the person wearing the sweatshirt

with the green logo in several of the videos from the night before the shooting as

McKnight.34 He also identified the person wearing the “Carry” sweatshirt in those

same videos as Sharpe.35 Officer Lerro was not asked to identify anyone who was

wearing a mask in any videos from the night of the shooting, which included the

individuals wearing the sweatshirt with the green logo and the “Carry” sweatshirt.36

(23) We review a trial court’s decision on the admissibility of evidence for

abuse of discretion.37 “An abuse of discretion occurs when a court has exceeded the

33
Id. at A341-45.
34
Id. at A345-47 (video identified as channel 15, dated June 20, 2022, and timestamped 11:21:18
p.m.); id. at A348 (video identified as channel 7, dated June 20, 2022, and timestamped 11:21:49
p.m.); id. at A349-50 (video identified as channel 14, dated June 20, 2022, and timestamped
11:21:49 p.m.); id. at A350-51 (video identified as channel 10, dated June 20, 2022, and
timestamped 11:21:59 p.m.).
35
Id. at A346-48, A348-49, A350, A350-51.
36
In two videos from the night of the shooting, Officer Lerro did identify the person wearing the
sweatshirt with the yellow Nike logo, blue sneakers, and no mask as Matthews. Id. at A351-52.
37
Hines v. State, 248 A.3d 92, 99 (Del. 2021); see also Torres v. State, 2024 WL 4541918, at *3
& n.22 (Del. Oct. 22, 2024) (reviewing trial court’s decision to allow officer-identification
testimony for abuse of discretion and rejecting defendant’s argument that Court should apply a de
novo standard because he contended that admission of the testimony violated his due-process rights
by invading the province of the jury).

13
bounds of reason in light of the circumstances, or so ignored the recognized rules of

law or practice so as to produce injustice.”38

(24) Rule 701 sets forth the standard for admission of lay opinion testimony.

It provides:

If a witness is not testifying as an expert, testimony in the form of an
opinion is limited to one that is:
(a) rationally based on the witness’s perception;
(b) helpful to clearly understanding the witness’s testimony or to
determining a fact in issue; and
(c) not based on scientific, technical, or other specialized
knowledge within the scope of Rule 702.39

(25) Although Rule 701 permits a lay witness to testify about his own

impressions when they are based on personal observation, the ultimate question of

identity remains one for the jury to decide.40 When a jury can readily draw the

necessary inferences and conclusions without the aid of the witness’s opinion, lay

opinion testimony is not helpful to a jury and should not be admitted under Rule

701.41 In Thomas v. State, we expressed “serious reservations” about the admission

of lay-opinion identification testimony by a law enforcement officer, finding it

“unclear” that an officer’s testimony “would be helpful to the factfinder in resolving

an identification issue.”42 Then, the following year, we provided the guidance set

38
Heald v. State, 251 A.3d 643, 656 (Del. 2021) (internal quotations omitted).
39
Del. Unif. R. Evid. 701.
40
Thomas v. State, 207 A.3d 1124, 2019 WL 1380051, at *3 (Del. Mar. 26, 2019) (TABLE).
41
Torres, 2024 WL 4541918, at *4.
42
Thomas, 2019 WL 1380051, at *3.

14
forth in Saavedra.43 Since then, several of this Court’s decisions have affirmed the

Superior Court’s application of Saavedra. For example, in Biddle v. State, we

affirmed the trial court’s determination that an officer’s face-to-face, conversational

interactions with the defendant on eight to ten occasions were sufficient to establish

special familiarity and that the images from which the identification would be made

were in the “buffer zone” between being “abundantly clear” and “hopelessly

obscure,” such that the officers’ testimony would not run afoul of this Court’s

instructions.44

(26) The Superior Court did not abuse its discretion by allowing Officer

Lerro to identify McKnight. The court considered and faithfully applied our

decisions relating to lay-opinion identification testimony by law enforcement

officers. Officer Lerro’s foundation testimony was sufficient to establish his

43
In Saavedra we wrote:
Before a law enforcement witness uses a video clip or photograph to identify the
defendant, due caution should be exercised to ensure that a proper foundation is
laid establishing, to the trial court’s satisfaction, that the witness has a special
familiarity with the defendant that would put him in a better position than the jury
to make the identification. And in determining whether the witness occupies such
a position, the court should also consider whether the images from which the
identification is to be made “are not either so unmistakably clear or so hopelessly
obscure that the witness is no better suited than the jury to make the identification.”
225 A.3d at 380-81 (citations omitted) (quoting Jackman, 48 F.3d at 4-5).
44
302 A.3d 955, 2023 WL 4876018, at *2, *7 (Del. July 31, 2023) (TABLE); see also Torres,
2024 WL 4541918, at *4 (holding that Superior Court “heeded our concerns regarding lay-opinion
identification testimony by law enforcement and properly applied our guidance” as set forth in
Biddle, Saavedra, and Thomas, where officer had “about a dozen interactions” with the defendant,
including one that lasted “a couple of hours” and the images at issue were not “unmistakably clear”
because a hat covered part of the person’s head and showed “a good part,” but not all, of the
person’s face).

15
“special familiarity” with McKnight. As the Superior Court acknowledged, the

videos in which Officer Lerro identified McKnight were at the higher end of the

clarity spectrum for surveillance videos, but we cannot conclude that the court

abused its discretion by finding that they were within the “buffer zone” within which

lay-opinion testimony is permissible. Moreover, only Officer Lerro provided lay-

opinion identification testimony at trial, although more than one officer apparently

identified McKnight in the videos during the investigation, and he identified

McKnight in videos from the night before the shooting, when McKnight was not

engaged in any wrongdoing, and not in the videos from the night of the shooting. 45

Finally, the court gave an appropriate limiting instruction.

(27) We have carefully reviewed the record and conclude that McKnight’s

appeal is wholly without merit and devoid of any arguably appealable issue. We

also are satisfied that McKnight’s counsel has made a conscientious effort to

examine the record and has properly determined that McKnight could not raise a

meritorious claim in this appeal.

45
In Biddle, several officers identified the defendant in surveillance footage that appeared to
capture the crime itself. 2023 WL 4876018, at *1, *3. In Thomas, a detective identified the
defendant in a surveillance video from near the scene of the crime, captured within minutes of the
crime. 2019 WL 1380051, at *1.

16
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior

Court is AFFIRMED. The motion to withdraw is moot.

BY THE COURT:

/s/ Abigail M. LeGrow
Justice

17