Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to assert a defense of illegal police action; Reasonable suspicion that defendant was a disorderly person (MCL 750.167); Failure to have defendant’s medical records admitted into evidence

The court held that defendant’s trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to (1) assert an illegal police action defense or (2) have his medical records admitted into evidence. He was convicted of attempted malicious destruction of police property, and drunk and disorderly person. The court concluded his first ineffective assistance claim was “misplaced because the police conduct was not unlawful.” The court noted that the police were called “because an employee of the business where defendant was arrested testified that defendant was intoxicated and would not leave the workplace. When police arrived, defendant was so intoxicated that they could not understand him. The report from the business that an intoxicated man needed to be removed from their premises, combined with police observations of defendant’s intoxication level, formed a sufficiently particularized and objective basis for reasonable suspicion that [he] had committed the offense of being a drunk and disorderly person[.]” Thus, his temporary detainment was lawful, and a defense that it “was unlawful would not have been successful[.]” As a result, “trial counsel’s performance did not fall below an objective standard of reasonableness for failing to raise” it. As to the medical records, trial counsel “elicited testimony from defendant that his reactions to the police were either involuntary pain responses or caused by his poor left side vision, and used this testimony to argue during closing that defendant was entitled to acquittal[.]” He was acquitted of assaulting, resisting, or obstructing a police officer charges. His “medical records were unnecessary for this argument to succeed, so trial counsel was not ineffective.” Affirmed.