Background
In May 2013, Lekaro Rembert pleaded guilty in Delaware Superior Court to second-degree robbery, second-degree assault, and assault on a law enforcement animal under three separate criminal action numbers (CANs) within Criminal Case No. 1212010128. He was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment, suspended after one year and six months for decreasing levels of supervision. He did not appeal.
In October 2014, following a violation of probation (VOP) proceeding — apparently part of a global plea agreement — the Superior Court discharged Rembert as unimproved on all three CANs. However, the written VOP order only referenced one of the three CANs. The omission was never corrected, and the Department of Correction’s records continued to reflect that Rembert remained under active sentences on the other two CANs.
Based on those erroneous DOC records, the Superior Court found Rembert in violation of probation twice more — in November 2023 and March 2025 — and resentenced him on the two CANs he had actually been discharged from in 2014. Rembert filed a motion for correction of an illegal sentence in August 2025, arguing he had been fully discharged from probation in all three CANs back in October 2014. The Superior Court denied the motion, and Rembert appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Delaware Supreme Court reversed the Superior Court’s denial of Rembert’s motion. The State confessed error in its answering brief, acknowledging that Rembert had in fact been discharged from probation in the two disputed CANs in October 2014, rendering the 2023 and 2025 VOP sentences illegal. The Court accepted the State’s concession and agreed that the sentences must be vacated.
The Court remanded the matter to the Superior Court with directions to enter corrected VOP sentencing orders. It expressly noted that any other sentence Rembert may be serving in any other CAN is unaffected by the ruling. Jurisdiction was not retained.
Key Takeaways
- A clerical omission in a VOP order — failing to list two of three CANs covered by a discharge — led to Rembert being sentenced twice on charges from which he had already been released in 2014.
- The State confessed error, acknowledging that DOC records inaccurately reflected active probation where none legally existed, and the Supreme Court agreed the resulting sentences were illegal.
- The case underscores the importance of accurate written sentencing orders: an uncorrected clerical gap in a 2014 order produced cascading illegal resentencings more than a decade later.
Why It Matters
This case illustrates how a single uncorrected error in a court order can have lasting, compounding consequences for a defendant. Because the 2014 VOP order failed to document the discharge of two CANs, Rembert remained trapped in the corrections system on charges he had legally resolved years earlier — subjected to two additional VOP proceedings and resentencings as a result.
For practitioners, the decision is a reminder to carefully audit written orders against the record of proceedings, particularly in multi-charge cases involving global plea or VOP agreements. It also demonstrates the significance of the State’s candor in confessing error: the Supreme Court credited the State’s acknowledgment and reversed without extensive analysis, resolving what might otherwise have required protracted litigation over a years-old clerical mistake.