Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to investigate & present evidence about a prior incident; Self-defense theory; Failure to obtain & offer a police report about the prior incident; MRE 801(c); Failure to adequately advise as to the prosecutor’s plea offer; Lafler v Cooper

Concluding that defendant was not denied the effective assistance of counsel, the court affirmed his convictions of AWIGBH, felonious assault, felony-firearm, and reckless use of a firearm. He maintained that he shot H, who was having an affair with defendant’s wife, D, in self-defense. Defendant argued, among other things, that “counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present evidence regarding a previous incident when [H] had allegedly pulled a gun on defendant, in order to show that he honestly and reasonably believed that deadly force was necessary at the time he acted.” But the court was “not persuaded that information about an additional prior incident would have led to a different outcome at trial, particularly in light of undisputed evidence already in the record about the turbulent relationship between [H] and defendant. Any additional such evidence would have been cumulative. What was missing from the record was any evidence supporting defendant’s self-serving claim that [H] was armed, and even pulled a gun on him, before defendant shot him. [H] denied that he was armed that day, and the persons standing right next to him during the shooting—[D] and one of her coworkers—testified that they never saw” H with a gun. According to H, “defendant was not responding to a perceived threat from him, but rather drove toward [H] with the gun pointed at him.” Further, H claimed that “he did not reach for anything, but was instead merely holding a bottle of alcohol and a beverage. Without evidence supporting defendant’s account of facing an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm at the time of the shooting, the evidence of additional past conflicts between [H] and defendant would have been cumulative with regard to the existence of some personal tensions between them, and would not have changed the outcome of the trial.” For these reasons, he failed to show that counsel was ineffective for failing to further develop the self-defense theory.