Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to request special jury instructions; Failure to object to the admission of other acts evidence

Holding that “defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel was not violated,” the court affirmed his conviction of assaulting, resisting, or obstructing a police officer causing bodily injury requiring medical attention. He first argued that counsel was ineffective for failing to request special instructions about the deputy’s (R) “authority to arrest him and defendant’s right to resist an unlawful arrest.” The court agreed “that the jury instructions were lacking as they did not provide a rubric for determining whether [R’s] actions were lawful.” But it found that by “omitting an instruction on the lawfulness of the arrest and instead focusing on the circumstances of the arrest and defendant’s ability to comply, counsel capitalized on the vagueness of whether the command was lawful, without drawing the jury’s attention to a likely conclusion that it was lawful.” The court concluded that “even assuming that defense counsel’s failure to request special instructions was below an objective standard of reasonableness for effective assistance of counsel, defendant” failed to show that there was “a reasonable probability that it was outcome-determinative.” The court held that “defense counsel’s failure to request further jury instructions was not objectively unreasonable, and there was no reasonable probability of a different result had defense counsel requested the jury instructions.” As to the other acts evidence, the court concluded that some of it “was likely admissible regardless of whether defense counsel had objected.” It found that even “if some of the testimony may have been excluded had defense counsel objected, defense counsel had strategic reasons to refrain from objecting.” It noted that “many of the remarks were made in passing and it was reasonable trial strategy not to object when doing so could have drawn more attention to them—for example, [R’s] comment that defendant had made a previous threat against his life.” On the facts presented, the court could not “conclude that defense counsel’s failure to object to the admission of evidence of defendant’s prior bad acts was objectively unreasonable or that there was a reasonable probability that the jury would have acquitted” him had defense counsel objected.