Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to advance a voluntary manslaughter theory & to request a jury instruction on it; Sufficiency of the evidence for a FIP conviction under MCL 750.224f(2); Whether attempted CCW constitutes a “specified felony”; People v Parker

The court rejected defendant’s claim that defense counsel was ineffective for failing to advance a voluntary manslaughter theory at trial and to ask for a jury instruction on that offense. It also held that his “prior conviction of attempted CCW was a ‘specified felony’” sufficient to support his conviction of FIP under MCL 750.224(f)(2). He was also convicted of first-degree murder and felony-firearm. As to his ineffective assistance claims, the court found that he failed to show either deficient performance or prejudice. As to the former, “any effort to rely on the theory of voluntary manslaughter would have been futile because a rational view of the evidence plainly did not support a voluntary manslaughter instruction.” As to the latter, the court could “find no reasonable probability that the jury would have convicted defendant of voluntary manslaughter, as opposed to first-degree murder.” As to his sufficiency of the evidence challenge, he argued that “his prior conviction of attempted CCW cannot constitute a ‘specified felony’ under MCL 750.224f(2).” The court noted that it “has expressly concluded that attempted CCW is a ‘specified felony’” in multiple other unpublished decisions. Those decisions relied on Parker “for the proposition that an attempt to commit a crime that is a ‘specified felony’ must be treated just the same as the commission of the crime itself, so an attempt to commit a ‘specified felony’ is, itself, necessarily a specified felony.” Applying Parker, the court reached the same conclusion in this case. Affirmed.