Resisting or obstructing a police officer (R&O); Jury instructions; Lawfulness of warrantless arrest; Probable cause; M Crim JI 13.5; Waiver; Express approval of jury instructions; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Prejudice; Collective knowledge of police; People v Nguyen

The court held that defendant waived his challenge to the R&O jury instructions by expressly approving them and failed to establish ineffective assistance of counsel based on counsel’s failure to request a probable-cause instruction. Police went to his apartment to arrest him based on a woman’s allegations of sexual assault. Defendant refused to exit his vehicle because the officers did not have an arrest warrant, and after approximately 20 minutes of unsuccessful attempts to obtain his compliance, officers broke a window and removed him using a taser. The jury acquitted defendant of the CSC charges but convicted him of R&O. He argued that the jury should have been instructed that it had to determine whether the officers had probable cause for the warrantless arrest and should have received M Crim JI 13.5 defining probable cause. But defense counsel expressly agreed to the instructions, which constituted an affirmative approval and “waived any claim of error regarding the jury instructions, precluding judicial review.” His ineffective-assistance claim also failed on prejudice. Before trial, the trial court found probable cause based on the collective knowledge of the officers investigating the sexual-assault allegations, and evidence concerning those allegations was presented to the jury. Although the jury ultimately acquitted defendant of the underlying CSC charges, the court emphasized the substantial difference between probable cause and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The record gave no reasonable basis to conclude that the jury would have found the arrest unsupported by probable cause had M Crim JI 13.5 been given. Defendant therefore failed to show a reasonable probability of a different outcome. Affirmed.