Ineffective assistance of counsel; Cross-examination of the victim & a cell phone expert; Questioning witnesses as a matter of trial strategy; Failure to develop the defenses by adequately impeaching prosecution witnesses; Prosecutorial misconduct; Improper comments; People v Abraham; Search & seizure; Motion to suppress cell phone evidence; Reasonableness of a search; People v Mullen; Particularity requirement; People v Unger; The “good-faith” exception to the exclusionary rule

Rejecting defendant’s ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct claims, and holding that the trial court did not err in denying his motion to suppress cell phone evidence, the court affirmed his convictions. He was convicted of AWIM, carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent, FIP, and felony-firearm related to shooting victim-S. He asserted ineffective assistance of counsel as to the cross-examination of S and a cell phone expert (B). The questioning of B appeared “to have elicited testimony that was helpful to defendant. Trial counsel highlighted that law enforcement did not have access to GPS (global positioning systems) data to precisely track defendant’s phone. Also, [B] acknowledged that there was a failure rate of cell phone data to map a sector, and a possibility of calls made from outside a sector showing as if they were made in” it. The court found it significant that “trial counsel relied on the information that was elicited on cross-examination to argue in closing that there was a reasonable doubt” as to defendant’s guilt. The court held that he did not show that trial counsel’s performance in cross-examining B was deficient given that he employed reasonable trial strategy. As to the cross-examination of S, the court concluded that trial counsel used a reasonable trial strategy in trying to discredit him. He asked S questions “that produced testimony that could be used to argue in closing that [S] was not credible.” Defendant failed to identify any of S’s “testimony that trial counsel failed to attempt to discredit. That some of the questions became repetitive and increasingly detailed does not establish deficient performance.” As to the prosecutorial misconduct claim, “while the specific comment did not state that it was based on the evidence—that the jury should send defendant a message based on the evidence—it was clear from the context of the remark that it was tied to the evidence of the charges and was in response to defendant’s theory of the evidence.” Finally, the court found that there was probable cause for the search warrant, that it was not a general warrant, and that even “if the three-month period was overly broad, any defect in the warrant would not require the application of the exclusionary rule because the officer relied on the warrant in good faith.”