Ineffective assistance of counsel; Trial strategy; Failure to make a futile objection; Right to a properly instructed jury; People v Mills; Right to a unanimous verdict; People v Gadomski; Distinguishing between first-degree felony murder & first-degree premeditated murder; People v Fullwood; Failure to move to suppress defendant’s police statements & evidence from his cell phone; Miranda v Arizona; Search & seizure; Probable cause; Cumulative error

The court held that defendant was not denied his right to the effective assistance of counsel. He was convicted of first-degree murder, AWIM, first-degree home invasion, and felony-firearm for breaking into his ex-wife’s home, shooting her, shooting and killing her new boyfriend, and shooting a neighbor. On appeal, the court rejected his argument that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the trial court’s unanimity instruction and use of an allegedly faulty verdict form. The trial court “was not required to give a specific unanimity instruction because there was sufficient evidence to establish both first-degree premeditated murder and felony murder, the charges were proved by substantially the same evidence, and there was no evidence of juror confusion.” As such, “even if trial counsel had objected to the verdict form and requested a specific unanimity instruction, his request would have been denied.” The court also rejected the claim that trial counsel should have moved to suppress defendant’s incriminating statements to police because he was not provided his Miranda rights before being subjected to custodial interrogation in a patrol car. His “incriminating statements made in the patrol car on the way to jail were admissible because they were not obtained via custodial interrogation in violation of Miranda. [He] has not provided any ground on which to invalidate the Miranda waiver provided by defendant before being interrogated by” an officer at the jail. “Because the motion to suppress the statements to police would have been denied as meritless, trial counsel cannot be deemed ineffective for failing to raise the argument.” As to the decision to not move to suppress evidence retrieved from his cell phone, because “the warrant to search defendant’s cell phone was constitutionally sound, any motion to suppress evidence obtained from it would have lacked merit. Alternatively, even if the affidavit supporting the warrant was technically deficient, the motion to suppress still would have been denied on the basis of the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.” Finally, the court rejected his cumulative error argument given that he did not identify “any actual errors that occurred during the trial.” Affirmed.