Admission of defendant’s police interview statements; Voluntariness; Distinguishing People v Stewart; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to make a futile motion to suppress; Failure to call an expert on youth brain science to support a self-defense theory; Reliance on People v Parks; Right to an impartial jury; Juror qualifications; MCL 600.1307a(1)(d); Seating jurors who had previously served together; Whether an error was structural; People v Miller; Whether a new trial was necessary; MCL 600.1354(1); Extraneous jury influences; Jury instructions on transferred intent & self-defense; Cumulative error

The court held that the Stewart factors did not support that the then-17-year-old defendant’s police interview statements were involuntary. His trial counsel was not ineffective for, among other things, failing to make a futile motion to suppress or for failing to call an expert on youth brain science. He was not entitled to a new trial based on three jurors’ prior jury service. The “juror qualification error was not structural” and he failed to show prejudice. His claims about jury instructions as to transferred intent and self-defense failed. Finally, the potential errors as to unqualified jurors and jurors exposed to extraneous influences did not result in substantial prejudice so as to entitle him to relief based on cumulative error. He was convicted of second-degree murder, AWIGBH, and felony-firearm. As to the voluntariness of his statements, defendant conceded “the 40-minute interview was not excessively long and that the interviewing officers were not physically abusive.” The fact that he “was 17 years old certainly is relevant. However, unlike the defendant in Stewart, defendant no longer lived with his parents and did not request to call them during his interview. Nor did the interrogating officers make references to [his] age or otherwise indicate that [his] youth was influencing” his treatment. Thus, this case was “distinguishable from Stewart.” He also conceded “that, despite his young age, he had prior experience with law enforcement, including several arrests. Regarding his intelligence level, defendant was taking ninth-grade classes online and was employed a few months before the shooting, until he quit.” The record also did not support that he “was in any way impaired during his interview.” Further, the court rejected his claim “that the officers used coercive psychological tactics,” determining that their statements were “much more similar to general observations about honesty and leniency[.]” It held that “based on the totality of the circumstances,” the police interview not coerced. The court was also unpersuaded by his “novel” argument about trial counsel’s failure to call an expert on youth brain science for his self-defense theory. Absent any case law “applying Parks or its underlying concepts in the context of a juvenile’s” self-defense claim the court could not find “that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to be the first to” do so. Affirmed.