Constitutional right to a properly instructed jury; The verdict form; People v Wade; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to raise a meritless objection; Prosecutorial misconduct; Vouching; Arguing from facts in evidence that a witness is worthy of belief; People v Cain; Sentencing; Effect of a within-guidelines sentence; People v Anderson; Cruel &/or unusual punishment; People v Bowling

The court found no merit to defendant’s unpreserved challenge to the verdict form, and concluded that the prosecution’s closing argument remarks were not improper when viewed in context. It also rejected his ineffective assistance of counsel claims and his sentencing challenges. He was convicted of second-degree murder, FIP, CCW, and felony-firearm. He was sentenced as a second-offense habitual offender to concurrent terms of 562 months to 99 years for murder and 47 to 90 months each for FIP and CCW, to be served consecutive to 2-year terms for his felony-firearm convictions. As to the verdict form, the court determined that it “specifically gave the jury the option to select a general ‘Not Guilty’ verdict for the first-degree premeditated murder charge. Similarly, the trial court instructed the jury that one of the available options for the first-degree premeditated murder charge was a verdict of ‘not guilty’ and to ‘return only one verdict on each count.’” Thus, the record clearly showed “the jury was given the opportunity to return a general verdict of not guilty[.]” Defense counsel was not ineffective for raising a meritless objection to the verdict form or to the prosecution’s closing argument remarks, which the court found were “responsive to the evidence and to the defense theory presented at trial . . . .” Defendant’s reasonableness challenge to his sentence for the murder conviction failed as the sentence was at the top of his guidelines range of 270 to 562 months. Finally, the court rejected his claim that the sentence constituted cruel and/or unusual punishment. His primary complaint was that it was “a de facto life sentence because he will be 119 years” old after serving the maximum sentence. He emphasized “that while he will be 67 years old after serving the 562-month minimum sentence, ‘there is no guarantee that [he] will be released by that date.’ Defendant incorrectly assumes that he is entitled to parole, i.e., to be released. . . . A sentence is not cruel or unusual because the defendant’s age will effectively result in the defendant spending the remainder of his or her life in jail.” His presumptively proportionate within-guidelines sentence was not cruel or unusual, and his age was not a ground for overcoming that presumption. Affirmed.