Fourth Amendment search & seizure claim; Police failure to show the warrant before conducting the search; United States v Hector (9th Cir); Groh v Ramirez; Hudson v Michigan; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to raise a futile theory in the trial court; Sentencing; Scoring of 25 points for OV 3; MCL 777.33(1)(c) & (d); “Life-threatening or permanent incapacitating injury”

The court held that defendant failed to establish any error, let alone plain error, affecting his substantial rights as to his Fourth Amendment claim. Also, he was not denied the effective assistance of counsel, and the trial court did not err by assessing 25 points for OV 3. He argued that the evidence seized should have been excluded from trial because the police failed to show him the warrant when conducting the search. He asserted that the police were required to do so “and provide him with the opportunity to produce the items described in the warrant, thereby enabling him to prevent the search and avoid further intrusion of his privacy.” The court held that this interpretation of the Fourth Amendment was not supported by legal authority. Review of Groh revealed that the U.S. Supreme Court noted it did not address “[w]hether it would be unreasonable to refuse a request to furnish a warrant at the outset of the search, when, as in this case, an occupant of the premises is present and poses no threat to the officers’ safe and effective performance of their mission . . . .” The court held that this was “hardly the case here given the police expectation that defendant retained possession of the firearm used to repeatedly shoot the victim.” In any event, Hector, citing Hudson, held “that ‘[t]he causal connection between the failure to serve the warrant and the evidence seized is highly attenuated, indeed non-existent’ because ‘[r]egardless of whether the police officers had actually shown Hector the search warrant, they would have executed it and recovered the drugs and firearms inside his apartment.’” The court found that the Hector “Court’s conclusion that failure to present the warrant did not affect the validity of the ensuing search also defeats defendant’s argument that evidence seized during the search was the fruit of an illegal search.” He asserted that “if he had seen the warrant from the onset, as he requested, he would have had the option of providing the officers with information on the location of the gun and phone, and, thereby limited the invasion of privacy. In either event, however, the officers would have seized the gun and phone.” Affirmed.