Jury instructions; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to request M Crim JI 13.5; Sufficiency of the evidence; Operating a vehicle without security & a valid license; Resisting or obstructing a police officer

The court rejected defendant’s claim that his trial counsel was ineffective as to jury instructions. It also held that there was sufficient evidence to support his convictions of assaulting, resisting, and obstructing a police officer, and operating a motor vehicle without security and a license. Given that defense counsel did not object to the instructions when given the opportunity, the court addressed the lack of particular “instructions only through an ineffective assistance of counsel analysis.” Defendant asserted “his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request that the trial court read” M Crim JI 13.5. The court found that this argument failed “for two reasons. First, the trial court instructed the jury on the elements of resisting arrest, which include a requirement that the arrest be lawful. Thus, . . . the jury was instructed that the lawfulness of the arrest was an essential element of resisting arrest. Second,” trial counsel requested an instruction on “self-defense, arguing that defendant’s actions in resisting the arrest were lawful. The trial court denied the request on the basis that defendant did not have a ‘rational or reasonable expectation’ that he was going to suffer immediate death or great bodily harm ‘by simply exiting the vehicle at the request of the officers.’ Importantly, the trial court also added that [he] was not entitled to” a self-defense instruction “because he had committed criminal acts. Namely, he had ‘resisted the officer’ and ‘broken the law with respect to the vehicle.’” Thus, it was evident that trial “counsel requested a jury instruction related to the theory of unlawful arrest and that the trial court denied” it. As to the sufficiency of the evidence for the driving offenses, an officer’s bodycam footage showed “that when he arrived, the truck was idling in the travel lane and defendant was the only person nearby. The footage also showed that there were several items piled on the passenger-side of the bench seat and that when defendant entered the truck, he sat in the driver’s seat. [He] repeatedly told the officers that he was taking the truck around the block,” and did not mention the relative who testified that he, not defendant, was the driver. As to the resisting conviction, “the evidence established that the officers’ commands and defendant’s arrest were lawful” and the bodycam footage corroborated their testimonies that he “not only resisted their commands to get out of the truck, but that [he] threatened to hit one of” them. Affirmed.