Constitutional right to a fair trial; Evidentiary errors; Prior consistent statements; Waiver; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Stipulating to the admission of text messages; Hearsay; Matters of trial strategy; Failure to object to improper closing argument; Prejudice; Other acts evidence; MRE 404(b)(1) & (2); Appeals to the jury’s sympathy

Concluding there was “a reasonable probability that, but for the errors by” defendant-Shannon’s trial counsel, the outcome of the trial would have been different, the court reversed his convictions and remanded for a new trial. He was convicted of CSC IV. On appeal, the court found that the prosecution “did not improperly refer to the complainant’s vulnerability in” closing argument. Thus, Shannon’s trial counsel “was not ineffective for failing to object to that line of questioning. However,” Facebook messages between the complainant and her friend that were admitted at trial “were inadmissible hearsay and Shannon’s lawyer provided constitutionally deficient assistance by stipulating to their admission. The prosecution’s argument that the complainant’s testimony was consistent with her disclosure to her mother and to” a Children’s Advocacy Center “investigator was improper because it was based upon facts not admitted into evidence. Compounding this error, the prosecutor improperly bolstered the complainant’s testimony during closing argument by suggesting that she should be believed because her trial testimony was consistent with those disclosures.” The court determined that Shannon’s trial counsel “provided constitutionally deficient assistance by failing to object to the prosecutor’s improper bolstering of the complainant.” His trial counsel also “provided deficient assistance by failing to object to other-acts evidence indicating that Shannon was a drug dealer who had sold heroin to the complainant’s mother, by failing to object to testimony that he had retained a lawyer in relation to another incident, and by failing to object to the prosecutor’s use of” this testimony during closing argument. The court noted the “case was primarily a credibility contest between Shannon and the complainant. But the jury was not given an opportunity to fairly evaluate their credibility because the improper evidence and arguments by the prosecutor made stronger the complainant’s credibility and weakened Shannon’s credibility.”