Drug delivery; Lay witness opinion testimony; MRE 701; People v Fomby; Pretextual stop; Fourth Amendment; People v Haney; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to object; Failure to investigate; People v Trakhtenberg; Conspiracy; MCL 750.157a; People v Seewald; Prosecutorial error; People v Dobek; In-court identification; People v Posey; Brady v Maryland claim; Confrontation Clause; Lab report; Bullcoming v New Mexico; Juror challenges for cause; MCR 2.511(E)(10); People v Eccles

The court held that defendant was not entitled to relief on his evidentiary, Fourth Amendment, ineffective-assistance, evidence sufficiency, prosecutorial-error, identification, Brady, confrontation, or juror-challenge claims. He was convicted of delivery of a controlled substance and conspiracy to deliver after an undercover officer testified that defendant sold crack cocaine through an intermediary during a drug operation. On appeal, the court first held that the officer’s identification testimony was admissible because he was “a witness to, and participant in, the transaction,” and the disputed testimony addressed identity rather than directly opining on guilt. The court next held that defendant failed to show error from the stop where officers used littering as a reason to stop and identify him because, under Haney, the officer had probable cause to believe defendant committed an offense and was authorized to stop him. The court rejected defendant’s ineffective-assistance claims because he provided no offer of proof that uncalled witnesses would have helped him, counsel reasonably pursued misidentification through cross-examination, the habitual-offender notice was timely, and suppression arguments and proposed objections would have been futile. The court also held that sufficient circumstantial evidence supported conspiracy because defendant knowingly gave cocaine to the intermediary after the undercover officer provided money, permitting the jury to infer an agreement. The court further rejected defendant’s prosecutorial-error and in-court-identification claims, noting that the identification was not a first-time in-court identification under Posey. Finally, the court held that defendant failed to establish a Brady violation or Confrontation Clause violation related to the lab testing, and that the trial court properly excused jurors for cause under Eccles. Affirmed.