Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to move to suppress or redact a body camera video of defendant’s police interview; Whether defendant was “in custody”; People v Barritt; Comments about credibility in the video; People v Musser; Failure to object to police opinion testimony; Prejudice; Distinguishing People v Hawkins; Failure to object to or move to redact evidence of the victim’s profession; Trial strategy; Cumulative error

Holding that defendant was not entitled to relief based on his ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims and that reversal for cumulative error was also not warranted, the court affirmed his felonious assault conviction. The victim was working as the assistant county prosecutor at the time of the incident. Defendant first argued that defense counsel was ineffective for failing to move to suppress or redact the body camera video of a state trooper (G) interviewing him. The questioning occurred before G formally placed defendant under arrest. It “occurred at defendant’s house, while [he] was not physically restrained, and lasted about five minutes.” Those factors weighed against a custody finding. Factors weighing in favor included that he “was surrounded by police officers, [G] told defendant to ‘stay here with me’ when defendant turned away from him, [he] was not told that he was free to leave, and [he] was arrested and taken to jail after the questioning was completed. [G] also made several accusatory statements toward [him], implied that he was lying, and asked defendant repeatedly why he hit the victim with a shovel[.]” But the court noted “the environment in which he was questioned bore little resemblance to a station house questioning.” Further, he “did not seem reluctant to speak to [G] and did not ask to end the questioning or leave. Thus,” the court held that he “was not in custody for the purposes of the Fifth Amendment and the interview footage was admissible.” His trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to make a meritless motion to suppress. And a motion to redact the footage “would have correctly been denied[.]” While the failure to object to G’s “testimony about defendant’s credibility was deficient performance,” the error did not prejudice defendant. “The jury was shown the entire video and defendant took the stand in his own defense, allowing the jury to hear his testimony and come to their own conclusion about [his] credibility.” The court also found that it “was not objectively unreasonable for defense counsel to believe that evidence of the conflict of interest created by the victim’s work as a prosecutor could damage the prosecution witnesses’ credibility rather than bolster it.”