Charles M. Cohen was charged in Delaware with the murders of his parents, which took place on November 12, 1988. He was one of seven defendants whose capital cases waited on a Delaware Supreme Court ruling in early 1992. Each of the seven faced a first-degree murder charge, and the State intended to seek the death penalty against each. The Superior Court had stayed all capital murder trials until the justices answered certified questions about the state's revised death penalty statute. They decided the matter on February 14, 1992, upholding the new law on most of the points put to them, while ruling that a jury in a capital case must be death qualified.
Cohen's case in New Castle County did not go to a jury. He entered a plea of guilty but mentally ill, and Judge Herlihy of the Superior Court accepted it, entering the finding on February 13, 1992. The statute requires the court to be satisfied that the defendant was in fact mentally ill at the time of the offense to which the plea is entered. The court found a factual basis for a plea of guilty but mentally ill to two murders committed by Cohen, the deaths of his parents.
A second killing was attributed to Cohen in February 1989, in San Francisco, where the victim was Conrad Lutz. By the time of the Delaware ruling Cohen had been indicted in California for that death, but he had not been tried for it. He admitted the killing to police. The exact wording of the California charge is not on record.
A late 1988 incident in Los Angeles was never charged. In April 1990 Cohen was arrested in Louisiana under a false name, and his real identity was established several weeks later. The Louisiana charges were later dropped without a trial.
Because the State was seeking the death penalty, the Superior Court, as the final sentencing authority, dealt with pretrial questions about what the penalty hearing could include. The defense moved to bar evidence of conduct that had not been adjudicated, and the motion was denied. The court ruled that such conduct, to be admitted, must be shown in a plain, clear and convincing way. The court also held that a finding of guilty but mentally ill establishes a mitigating circumstance as a matter of law.
The Superior Court ruled on these questions on March 18, 1992, issued a supplemental ruling on April 21, 1992, and reissued its decision on June 30, 1993. The outcome of the penalty hearing and the sentence are not on record. A California trial, verdict and sentence for the San Francisco killing are not on record either, and neither is Cohen's present place of custody.
Cohen's conviction in Delaware rests on his own plea: guilty but mentally ill, to the two murders of his parents on November 12, 1988. The San Francisco killing of February 1989 was a separate event; in 1992 it stood as an indictment, not a conviction.
November 12, 1988: the murders of Cohen's parents in Delaware.
Late 1988: an incident in Los Angeles; no charge is on record.
February 1989: the killing of Conrad Lutz in San Francisco; Cohen is later indicted in California.
April 1990: arrested in Louisiana under a false name; the Louisiana charges are later dropped.
February 13, 1992: the Delaware Superior Court enters its finding on his plea of guilty but mentally ill to two murders.
February 14, 1992: the Delaware Supreme Court decides the certified questions on the death penalty statute in the consolidated capital cases.
March 18, 1992: Superior Court opinion on penalty hearing evidence; supplemental opinion April 21, 1992; reissued June 30, 1993.