Motion for relief from judgment; MCR 6.508(D); Juror intimidation; Admission of testimony from a victim’s mother; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to object; Prejudice; Failure to call an alibi witness; Jury instructions; Failure to provide the elements of the charged offenses in the preliminary instructions; Distinguishing People v Duncan; People v Traver; Jurisdiction over the case; MCL 766.15(1); MCR 6.110(G); Newly discovered evidence; People v Cress

Finding no errors warranting relief, the court affirmed the trial court’s order denying defendant’s motion for relief from judgment. He was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder and AWIM. He argued, among other things, “that the trial court should have further investigated the claims of juror intimidation or declared a mistrial.” The court held that even “assuming exposure to extraneous influences here,” he did not show “actual prejudice, i.e., that a real and substantial possibility existed that the extraneous influences could have affected the jury’s verdict.” The record reflected “that the trial court immediately addressed the issue, assuring the jury that court security was very good and the jurors had no reason to be concerned. The trial court admitted that spectators ‘from one side or the other’ sometimes will look at jurors, but the look could be done innocently or inadvertently, without an intent to intimidate. [It] encouraged the jurors not to feel intimidated and, after the jury was dismissed,” it advised defendant and his codefendant “to encourage their supporters to stop looking at the jurors in any attempt to intimidate them.” The court also observed “that, had the jury actually been intimidated, it likely would not have convicted defendant.” Further, the court noted that “the trial court instructed the jurors that they should consider only the evidence and should not let sympathy or prejudice influence their decision.” Defendant’s second argument centered on the testimony from victim-W’s “mother, who testified for approximately six minutes on the second day of trial and shared her daughter’s age at the time of her death and a personal detail about her daughter.” The court rejected “defendant’s arguments that the testimony was irrelevant, not probative, and served no other purpose than to garner sympathy with the jury.” He failed to show “how the jury would have given undue weight to the testimony at issue, and the testimony was not particularly prejudicial in any aspect. Further, it was a very small portion of the overall trial testimony, and” he did not show that its admission “reasonably could have affected the outcome of trial.” The court also rejected his alternative ineffective assistance of counsel argument. Next, it rejected his claim “that the trial court committed structural error by neglecting to instruct the jury on the elements of the charged offenses during” the preliminary jury instructions. The court concluded “that the jury was properly instructed on the elements of the crimes before beginning deliberations. The trial court’s procedure did not amount to a complete failure to provide the elements of the crimes to the jury, as in Duncan. Rather, the jury was instructed on the elements of the charged crimes, but in a manner inconsistent with the applicable court rule, as in Traver. Defendant was not denied a basic protection, and when viewed as a whole, the jury instructions sufficiently protected [his] rights.”