Cleveland A. Baldwin v. State of Delaware

STRINE, Chief Justice:

The Superior Court Rule of Criminal Procedure that governs postconviction relief, Rule 61, has the difficult job of striking the balance between fair consideration of postconviction claims and the preservation of scarce defense resources. It does so by granting access to counsel for certain first petitions, 1 but also by allowing the Superior Court to weed out by summary dismissal claims that lack colorable merit. 2 Here, the Superior Court used that gating mechanism to summarily dismiss all the claims of a first petitioner without appointment of counsel for him, without…