Sufficiency of the evidence; Felonious assault; Felony-firearm; Ineffective assistance of counsel

Concluding that (1) there was sufficient evidence to support defendant’s felonious assault and felony-firearm convictions, and (2) she was not denied the effective assistance of counsel, the court affirmed. Victim-S testified that defendant “pulled out a firearm, walked over to [S’s] vehicle, pointed the firearm at [S], then started banging it on the hood of” S’s vehicle. S “also testified that while defendant was doing this, she kept saying that she was going to kill” S. The court found that this “testimony, if believed, provided a sufficient basis for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant committed an unlawful act that placed [S] in reasonable apprehension of an immediate battery, that she did so intentionally, and that she used a firearm to do so.” Thus, the evidence was “sufficient to support defendant’s convictions[.]” She countered that S’s “testimony was not worthy of belief because it was inconsistent.” This argument was misplaced. That S’s “testimony supporting defendant’s conviction was inconsistent is not grounds for concluding that the evidence was insufficient to support defendant’s conviction, and [her] argument to the contrary” was without merit. “Next, she claimed that her trial counsel was ineffective because he submitted an amended witness list naming five witnesses, but when questions arose about whether counsel had submitted an initial witness list, counsel represented that it was irrelevant because the prosecution had stipulated to two witnesses.” The court found that assuming “without deciding that this aspect of defense counsel’s performance was objectively unreasonable, defendant [failed] to explain how she was prejudiced by this performance.” She did “not identify who these uncalled witnesses were or what they would have said if called to testify at defendant’s trial.” Without this information, the court could not “conclude that, had these witnesses been called, there [was] a reasonable probability that the outcome of defendant’s trial would have been different.”