Excluded evidence; Unavailable witness; Right of confrontation; Jury instructions on self-defense; Sentencing; Scoring of OV 9 at 10 points; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Jurisdiction; Prosecutorial misconduct; Other acts evidence

The court concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding evidence from the witnesses at issue as irrelevant, and that defendant’s right to confrontation was not violated by the admission of an unavailable witness’s preliminary exam testimony. Further, there was no plain error affecting a substantial right as to the jury instructions on self-defense, the trial court properly scored OV 9 at 10 points, and he was not denied the effective assistance of counsel. The court also rejected his jurisdictional, prosecutorial misconduct, and other acts evidence challenges. He was convicted of FIP, CCW, and felony-firearm, second offense. He “was apprehended and two firearms were found concealed on his person” after an altercation with his girlfriend, G, and her son. He argued, among other things, that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding the testimony of LD, NL, and a records keeper at a gun store that he claimed was relevant to his defense because it would have shown the guns at issue belonged to G and not him. He claimed that he was acting in self-defense by possessing them after he took them from her purse. But LD could not testify that G possessed a gun “during the events in question. [LD’s] testimony was not about a time in close proximity to the events” here. Also, two of the incidents that NL would have testified about occurred at least eight years before G was involved with defendant. “Additionally, because defendant was not aware of the incidents, the evidence did not tend to establish that he was aware of and afraid of [G] shooting him with a gun at that time.” While NL also described a more recent incident during which he believed he saw the outline of a gun in G’s purse, this “evidence was simply not definitive evidence that [G] possessed a gun at the time of the incident. And, even to the extent that [NL’s] testimony may have tended to make it more likely that [G] did, in fact, possess a gun on the night of the incident, [NL’s] testimony also would have contradicted defendant’s theory of self-defense because [NL] would have testified that defendant did not fear [G] and had no concerns about a potential gun.” Defendant argued that the testimony of the records keeper about G’s purchase of a shotgun would have showed that G owned guns. But defendant’s self-defense theory was that the guns he took from G were in a purse. He made no mention of being fearful that G “would harm him with a shotgun, and a shotgun was not involved in the events related to” his trial.