Discovery violation; MCR 6.201(B) & (J); Sufficiency of the evidence for an AWIGBH conviction; Intent; People v Blevins; Doctrine of transferred intent; Self-defense; MCL 780.972(1)(a); Prosecutorial error; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Futile objection

The court held that the trial court did not err or abuse its discretion in declining to prohibit the prosecution from presenting recordings of two phone calls by defendant from jail based on a discovery violation. It also held that (1) there was sufficient evidence to support his AWIGBH conviction, (2) the prosecution offered sufficient evidence to disprove his self-defense claim, and (3) the prosecutor’s challenged closing argument statements were not improper. Thus, the court affirmed defendant’s convictions of second-degree murder, discharge of a firearm from a vehicle causing death, AWIGBH, and felony-firearm. It concluded that, even assuming “the prosecution did not actually submit the telephone calls at issue in the ‘evidence.com download link,’ the trial court had the authority under MCR 6.201(J) to rule ‘as it deems just under the circumstances.’ Ruling that the telephone calls were barred from evidence would essentially reward defendant for the inadvertent error by the prosecution and defense counsel’s failure to bring the matter to the prosecution’s attention before trial.” The court also noted that defense counsel was able to review the “calls before the prosecution introduced them, and defendant” failed to explain “on appeal how his defense would have been different if the calls had been given to him before trial.” As to the sufficiency of the evidence to support his AWIGBH conviction, “a reasonable jury could infer that defendant was close enough to the GMC SUV to be able to view both of the” victims (the A brothers) inside. Further, it was “undisputed that defendant fired six or seven rounds at the GMC SUV, one of which fatally struck the driver, [A II], through the left rear window of the GMC SUV. A reasonable jury also could infer that because defendant fired numerous rounds at the GMC SUV, he attempted and intended to fatally harm not only the driver of that vehicle, but the passenger as well. In other words, while defendant himself testified that he" did not see A III in the vehicle, “there was sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that” he was aware that A III was in it, “and that he attempted and intended to fatally harm” A III as well as A II. “This was sufficient to satisfy both elements of AWIGBH.”