Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to elicit testimony about a victim’s prior inconsistent statements; People v Trakhtenberg; People v Douglas; Due process; Partial grant of a pretrial motion in limine to exclude other acts evidence; Objections to questions posed by defense counsel; Relevance; Lifetime registration & electronic monitoring (LEM) under the Sex Offenders Registration Act (SORA); Cruel or unusual punishment; People v Kiczenski; Unreasonable searches & seizures; People v Hallak; Children’s Protective Services (CPS)

The court rejected defendant’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim, and found that the prosecution’s objections to questions posed by defense counsel were properly sustained on relevance grounds. It also rejected his claims that (1) his lifetime SORA registration and LEM violated “his right to be free from cruel or unusual punishment” and (2) the LEM violated “the constitutional prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.” He was convicted of CSC II. He asserted that “because this case was a credibility contest between the victim and defendant, defense counsel was ineffective for not impeaching the victim with her previous denial in 2015.” The court disagreed, concluding that, as “in Douglas, defense counsel’s strategy in this case to not directly confront the victim about her denial during the 2015 CPS investigation—to avoid opening the door to other-acts evidence that would harm defendant’s position—was reasonable despite the case being a credibility contest involving” CSC allegations. Defendant next argued “that the trial court’s pretrial order granting his motion in limine violated his right to due process because it precluded his defense counsel from impeaching the victim with her prior inconsistent statements regarding whether defendant sexually assaulted her.” The court determined that to the extent the trial court “sustained the prosecution’s objections to questions posed by defense counsel solely on the basis of the pretrial order, it was error. The order explicitly only applied to the prosecution and did not prevent defendant from presenting any evidence. However, the justification for the pretrial order was defendant’s argument that such evidence was irrelevant to the charges asserted against [him]. In other words, if the evidence would be irrelevant when presented by the prosecution, it would also be irrelevant if presented by the defense.” The court found that “while the trial court may have articulated that it was sustaining the prosecution’s objections on the basis of the pretrial order, it is clear that [its] underlying justification for those evidentiary decisions was on the basis of relevance.” Affirmed.