Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to move to suppress defendant’s statements; Miranda v Arizona; Custody; Interrogation; Lack of coercion; Invocation of the right to remain silent; Effect of defendant reinitiating the conversation; Failure to move to suppress a shell casing

Concluding that defendant was not denied his right to effective assistance of counsel as to the failure to move to suppress his statements or a shell casing, the court affirmed. Defendant’s mother (G) was shot and killed in her home. “After the shooting, defendant swallowed the shell casing from the bullet that was used to kill” her. He was convicted of second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, possession with intent to deliver heroin, FIP, resisting or obstructing a police officer, and felony-firearm. Defendant argued “that he was denied his right to effective assistance of counsel based upon counsel’s failure to move to suppress the statements [he] made to the police in violation of Miranda” and failure to move to suppress evidence. The court found that he “was in custody during his initial interview with” a police detective (R). “A reasonable person in defendant’s situation would not have believed that he was free to leave.” When R “initially approached him, defendant had recently been shot with a taser, restrained with handcuffs, and placed in the back of a police cruiser. Those circumstances also created an inherently coercive environment.” The court also concluded that defendant was interrogated. It held that he “should have been advised of his Miranda rights during his initial encounter with [R]. But that initial interview yielded nothing of any significance that could be used against defendant, so [his] claim about the Miranda violation at the initial interview necessarily pertains to the second and third interviews as well.” The court noted that “to obtain exclusion of voluntary statements made after an initial unwarned statement, the questioning must be coercive.”  It found there was no such evidence of coercion here. Defendant also argued “that his Miranda rights were violated during his second interview at the Flint Police Station because the police continued to question him after he invoked his right to remain silent.” He also maintained “that his statements during his third interview should be suppressed as ‘fruits’ of the violation of his right to remain silent.” The court held that because he “reinitiated conversation with the police after stating he did not want to speak with them anymore, trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to file a motion to suppress the statements defendant made during his second interview, nor were the statements made in his third interview ‘fruits’ of any violation.” The court added that given all the evidence and his own testimony, there was “no reasonable probability that” a suppression motion would have changed the outcome.