Adeyanju v. Wiersma

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s habeas petition, that challenged his attempted homicide and endangering safety by use of firearm convictions on ground that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to give jury instruction on lesser included offense of attempted homicide, i.e., first degree recklessly endangering safety, under circumstances where defendant contended at trial that he was not involved with shooting of rival gang members, and that shooters intended only to scare, but not kill their rival gang members. No error occurred, where jury already had option of considering endangering safety by use of firearm charge that corresponded with defendant’s theory of case, which jury chose not to accept. Also, giving proposed jury instruction would not have convinced jury to find that defendant and shooters lacked intent to kill, especially where there was overwhelming evidence that supported finding that shooters had intent to kill their gang rivals. As such, defendant failed to show reasonable probability that but for counsel’s failure to propose lesser-included offense instruction, his trial would have come out differently.