Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to file a motion to suppress defendant’s police statements; People v Cipriano; Failure to investigate & present evidence to support a battered partner syndrome defense; People v Christel; Self-defense; MCL 780.972(1)

The court held that defendant’s trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to (1) move to suppress her inculpatory police statements or (2) pursue a battered partner syndrome defense. Thus, it affirmed the trial’s court’s denial of her motion for a new trial following a Ginther hearing, and her first-degree premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder convictions. Her convictions arose from her husband’s (Hassel) shooting death. Following the Ginther hearing, the trial court found that a police detective’s (L) “questioning of defendant was neither coercive nor unfairly manipulative, and that defendant’s statements were freely and voluntarily made.” As a result, the trial court determined that a motion “by trial counsel to suppress the statements would have been unsuccessful, and accordingly, trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to file” one. The court concluded the trial court’s “finding that the Cipriano factors do not indicate an involuntary confession” was not clearly erroneous. It also determined that defendant’s “admissions that the plan to kill Hassel began four or more months before he was killed negated any honest and reasonable belief that killing Hassel was necessary to prevent defendant’s imminent death, great bodily harm, or sexual assault.” As a result, the court held that “trial counsel’s rejection of a strategy based on self-defense as a result of battered partner syndrome was not objectively unreasonable.” The court added that, even crediting her Ginther hearing testimony, “it did not support a claim of self-defense based on battered partner syndrome. Such a claim would require evidence that defendant participated in Hassel’s shooting death, but acted in self-defense because of repeated and ongoing abuse. Significantly, however, at the Ginther hearing defendant denied any involvement in” the shooting and denied ever discussing plans to shoot or kill him with her co-conspirator.