Cruz-Webster v. State

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

MAURICE CRUZ-WEBSTER, §
§
Defendant Below, § No. 478, 2025
Appellant, §
§ Court Below—Superior Court
v. § of the State of Delaware
§
STATE OF DELAWARE, § Cr. ID Nos. 1501005498
§ 1407016317 (N)
Appellee. §

Submitted: March 23, 2026
Decided: May 8, 2026

ORDER

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

After consideration of the appellant’s opening brief, the State’s motion to

affirm, and the record on appeal, it appears to the Court that:

(1) The appellant, Maurice Cruz-Webster, appeals from the Superior

Court’s order denying his motion for correction of an illegal sentence. The State has

filed a motion to affirm the Superior Court’s judgment on the ground that it is

manifest on the face of the opening brief that the appeal is without merit. We agree

and affirm.

(2) In 2016, a Superior Court jury found Cruz-Webster guilty of first-

degree murder and other crimes. The Superior Court sentenced Cruz-Webster to life

imprisonment for murder and a total of fifteen years of nonsuspended prison time
for the other offenses. This Court affirmed on direct appeal.1 Cruz-Webster has also

filed unsuccessful motions for postconviction and habeas relief.2

(3) In June 2025, Cruz-Webster filed a motion asserting that his sentence

for murder is illegal under Erlinger v. United States3 because a jury did not find any

aggravating circumstances identified in 11 Del. C. § 4209, the sentencing statute

applicable to first-degree murder. He argued that the court was therefore required to

vacate his sentence and resentence him under 11 Del. C. § 4205(b)(1), which

provides a sentencing range of fifteen years to life imprisonment for a class A felony.

The Superior Court denied the motion, and Cruz-Webster appealed to this Court.

(4) We review the denial of a motion for correction of an illegal sentence

for abuse of discretion, although questions of law are reviewed de novo.4 A sentence

is illegal if it exceeds statutory limits, violates double jeopardy, is ambiguous with

respect to the time and manner in which it is to be served, is internally contradictory,

omits a term required to be imposed by statute, is uncertain as to its substance, or is

a sentence that the judgment of conviction did not authorize.5

1
Cruz-Webster v. State, 2017 WL 464536 (Del. Feb. 2, 2017).
2
Cruz-Webster v. Emig, 2024 WL 5154528 (D. Del. Dec. 18, 2024), cert. of appealability denied,
2025 WL 3029564 (3d Cir. Apr. 23, 2025), cert. denied, 146 S. Ct. 903 (2025) (mem.); State v.
Cruz-Webster, 2020 WL 5117967 (Del. Super. Ct. Aug. 31, 2020), aff’d, 2021 WL 1575180 (Del.
Apr. 22, 2021).
3
602 U.S. 821 (2024).
4
Fountain v. State, 2014 WL 4102069, at *1 (Del. Aug. 19, 2014).
5
Brittingham v. State, 705 A.2d 577, 578 (Del. 1998).

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(5) Cruz-Webster contends that “non-capital murder” is not a cognizable

crime under Delaware law, and the Superior Court therefore lacked jurisdiction to

sentence him for that offense. He also argues that, even if the court had jurisdiction,

it was required to sentence him under Section 4205 rather than Section 4209, because

a jury did not determine the existence of any of the aggravating circumstances

identified in Section 4209.

(6) Cruz-Webster’s sentence is not illegal. He was convicted of first-degree

murder under 11 Del. C. § 636(a)(1).6 Section 636(b)(1) provides that, if the

defendant committed the offense after turning eighteen, first-degree murder “shall

be punished [a]s provided in § 4209 of this title.”7 At the time of Cruz-Webster’s

offense, Section 4209 provided two possible penalties: death or life imprisonment

without the possibility of probation or parole.8 The designation of the case as “non-

capital,” meaning that the State was not alleging that Cruz-Webster was eligible for

the death penalty, did not change the crime for which Cruz-Webster was indicted

and convicted—first-degree murder under Section 636(a)(1), a felony over which

the Superior Court has jurisdiction.9

6
See 11 Del. C. § 636(a)(1) (providing that a “person is guilty of murder in the first degree when”
the “person intentionally causes the death of another person”).
7
Id. § 636(b)(1).
8
Id. § 4209(a) (effective June 4, 2013, to Sept. 20, 2023).
9
See id. § 2701(c) (“The Superior Court shall have jurisdiction, original and concurrent, over all
crimes, except where jurisdiction is exclusively vested in another court.”).

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(7) The Superior Court legally sentenced Cruz-Webster to life

imprisonment under Section 4209. In Rauf v. State, this Court held that Delaware’s

capital sentencing scheme violated the Sixth Amendment to the United States

Constitution,10 and in Powell v. State, the Court held that Rauf applied retroactively

to invalidate death sentences that were already final when Rauf was decided.11 But

the Court has explicitly upheld the alternative sentence—mandatory life without

parole—set forth in Section 4209. In Zebroski v. State, the Court rejected a

defendant’s contentions that Rauf invalidated Section 4209 in its entirety and that he

therefore should have been sentenced to imprisonment for between fifteen years and

life under Section 4205, rather than to life without parole under Section 4209.12 The

Court held that the life-without-parole provision was severable from the invalid

capital-sentencing scheme and that “[a] defendant whose death sentence is vacated

under Rauf and Powell must be resentenced to the punishment the General Assembly

has specified as the alternative to death: life without parole.”13

(8) Citing Zebroski and Erlinger, Cruz-Webster contends that it was illegal

to sentence him under Section 4209 for “mere” intentional murder—that is, without

10
145 A.3d 430 (Del. 2016).
11
Powell v. State, 153 A.3d 69 (Del. 2016).
12
179 A.3d 855 (Del. 2018); see also Powell, 153 A.3d at 70-71 (“Powell’s death sentence must
be vacated and he must be sentenced to ‘imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life without
benefit of probation or parole or any other reduction’” (quoting 11 Del. C. § 4209(d)(2))).
13
Zebroski, 179 A.3d at 860.

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a jury’s having found a statutory aggravating circumstance. But Section 4209

required a finding of aggravating circumstances before a defendant could be

sentenced to death; if an aggravating circumstance was not found, the statute

mandated a life sentence.14 The jury found Cruz-Webster guilty of first-degree

murder beyond a reasonable doubt, and the Superior therefore legally sentenced him

to life imprisonment as required by Section 4209.15

14
See 11 Del. C. § 4209(e) (effective June 4, 2013, to Sept. 20, 2023) (“In order for a sentence of
death to be imposed, the jury, unanimously, or the judge where applicable, must find that the
evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of at least 1 of the following
aggravating circumstances . . . .”); id. § 4209(a) (“Any person who is convicted of first-degree
murder for an offense that was committed after the person had reached the person’s eighteenth
birthday shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for the remainder of the person’s natural
life without benefit of probation or parole or any other reduction, said penalty to be determined in
accordance with this section.”).
15
See Riley v. State, 2019 WL 3956411, at *2 (Del. Aug. 21, 2019) (affirming denial of motion
for correction of illegal sentence that challenged life sentence for first-degree murder and stating:
“As to Riley’s severability argument, this Court held in [Powell and Zebroski] that the life-without-
parole alternative in § 4209 is severable from the rest of the death penalty statute. Riley has not
shown a basis to overturn either of those decisions.”); Manley v. State, 2018 WL 6434791, at *1
(Del. Dec. 6, 2018) (“As we have now held many times, Rauf did not strike down the entirety of
the first degree murder statute—it struck down only the death penalty portion—and the proper
sentence for a defendant convicted of first-degree murder is ‘imprisonment for the remainder of
his natural life without benefit of probation or parole or any other reduction’ ”). Cf. also Reed v.
State, 2024 WL 4457496, at *2 (Del. Oct. 9, 2024) (holding that appellant’s argument that Rauf
struck down Section 4209 as unconstitutional did not overcome procedural bars to postconviction
relief because appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment, not death).

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

Court is AFFIRMED.

BY THE COURT:

/s/ Collins J. Seitz, Jr.
Chief Justice

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