Sufficiency of the evidence; Felony murder; Armed robbery; Conspiracy; Felony-firearm; Identity; Constitutional challenge to a mandatory life in prison without parole (LWOP) sentence for a defendant who was 22 at the time of the crime; People v Aaron; People v Lorentzen; People v Hall; People v Abraham

The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant-Manning’s convictions of felony murder, armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and felony-firearm. It also rejected his cruel or unusual punishment challenge to his mandatory LWOP felony murder sentence. This consolidated appeal involved three cases arising from a crime spree involving defendant and two codefendants (R and H). He was 22 years old at the time of the crimes. He first challenged the sufficiency of the evidence of his identity as a perpetrator. The court found that the trier of fact could infer from the trial evidence that he “was in possession of his phone and, accordingly, at the scene of various crime events, until he left it in the Audi, and that he and his phone were in the same locations as [R] and [R’s] phone before they separated.” Further, surveillance video showed “Manning, identified by his shoes, trying to break into the EZ Mart, and it displayed three people who were in the Equinox just before [H] stole the Audi and when the Audi was in” a parking lot. A jury could reasonably infer from this evidence that he was with R and H “in the Equinox, and later in the Audi, and therefore, that Manning was present and participated in the various” crimes. As to the felony murder conviction, a “reasonable juror could infer that armed persons, approaching an individual they did not know, who was using an ATM, late at night, with a gun pointed at him, did so with the intent of robbing him. The absence of evidence that they took property from [victim-W] is irrelevant because an actual taking is not an element of armed robbery or felony murder predicated on armed robbery.” The lack of a taking was consistent with a witness’s testimony that W went to the ATM to transfer money between accounts, not to withdraw cash. As to the requisite malice, use “of a firearm serves as evidence that the shooters ‘intentionally set in motion a force likely to cause death or great bodily harm.’” As to his sentencing claim, Hall “is binding authority holding that mandatory LWOP for felony murder does not violate Michigan’s constitutional prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment.” And in Abraham the court rejected a facial challenge to the constitutionality of a mandatory LWOP sentence for felony murder where the defendant was 22 years old. Affirmed.