Delaware Supreme Court to hear arguments in Kellam case

Delaware Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday, Feb. 19 in Dover over whether to overturn the remaining convictions of Steven Kellam, and allow Kellam to have a new trial.

Kellam was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder along with robbery, conspiracy and weapons charges for the January 2014 murders of Cletis Nelson and William Hopkins, along with two other home invasions. Prosecutors alleged that Kellam was the ring leader of a group of men that carried out the murders and robberies. Kellam was sentenced to two life sentences and 769 years in prison.

In May, Kellam’s murder convictions were vacated by the Superior Court due to erroneous jury instructions. Now, Kellam’s attorneys, Zachary George and Angelica Mamani, are seeking to have the remainder of his convictions vacated and for Kellam to get a new trial.

In June 2015, Kellam was originally indicted for a series of robberies and home invasions that included the murders of Nelson and Hopkins at a home on Harmons Hill Road near Millsboro. At trial, it was established that Kellam did not pull the trigger himself in the murders of Nelson and Hopkins, but prosecutors argued that he was the one who gave the order for the two men to be killed and that he provided the guns used in the murders, allegedly carried out by Rhamir Waples, Damon Bethea and Richard Robinson, cousins of Kellam who had come to Sussex County from the Philadelphia area to commit a robbery. Waples and Robinson each took guilty pleas for their part in the murders, but Bethea was found not guilty at trial.

George and Mamani make two arguments for why the remaining convictions against Kellam should be vacated. First, that prosecutors made substantive changes to Kellam’s indictment without seeking re-indictment and that the Superior Court made an error when it allowed the state to move forward without a re-indictment. 

The second argument is that Kellam’s trial counsel was ineffective in not objecting to erroneous jury instructions. Kellam’s appellate attorneys made a similar argument in getting his murder conviction vacated. 

Meanwhile, state prosecutors argued that Kellam’s non-murder convictions should be upheld and also filed an appeal of their own to reverse the Superior Court’s decision to vacate Kellam’s murder convictions. 

Deputy Attorney General Kathryn Garrison argued that the Superior Court abused its discretion in finding that Kellam had ineffective counsel when it failed to object to the erroneous jury instructions. Garrison argued that nothing in the language of those instructions affected how the jury considered Kellam’s guilt or innocence. 

Garrison said that Kellam’s guilt was determined based on his accomplice liability for Nelson and Hopkins’ murders. She argues that while Kellam did not pull the trigger himself, he provided the guns and directed and assisted the others in doing the killings 

“The court properly instructed the jury that Kellam could be guilty of felony murder committed by another person ‘when, intending to promote or facilitate the commission of the offense, the person aids, counsels or agrees to aid the other person in planning or committing it,” Garrison said.