Background
Antonio Javone Cummings drove 17-year-old Jakyah Demps and Denaya Fielder to a Detroit apartment building so Demps could meet a customer, Ronardo Wright. After Wright allegedly underpaid Demps, Cummings accompanied the women to Wright’s floor, attempted to kick down Wright’s door, and fired several shots through it, according to Demps’s trial testimony. Wright died from two gunshot wounds. Fielder’s testimony, surveillance footage, and cellular-location evidence corroborated portions of Demps’s account.
Demps, who had been charged with second-degree murder and felony-firearm, pleaded guilty to a reduced assault offense in exchange for truthful testimony against Cummings. A jury convicted Cummings of felony murder, felon in possession of a firearm, and two counts of third-offense felony-firearm. The trial court sentenced him as a fourth-offense habitual offender to life imprisonment for felony murder, two to eight years for felon in possession, and consecutive 10-year terms for the felony-firearm convictions.
The Court’s Holding
The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that defense counsel waived the claim that the trial court should have given the instructions for an undisputed accomplice and cautionary accomplice testimony by expressly stating that there was no objection after the court read the instructions. Even treating the issue as merely forfeited, the court concluded that the omission was not outcome-determinative because other evidence corroborated Demps, counsel exposed her plea agreement and incentive to shift blame, and the jury received general credibility instructions plus a specific instruction addressing her agreement with the prosecution.
The court also rejected Cummings’s ineffective-assistance claim because there was no reasonable probability that requesting the accomplice instructions would have changed the verdict. His Standard 4 claims likewise failed: the record was insufficient to establish an unlawful arrest, search, seizure, or exploitative arraignment delay; good cause supported continuing the preliminary examination and no prejudice was shown; substitute counsel represented him at the pretrial hearing with his consent; stipulating to his prior-felony and firearm-ineligibility status was reasonable strategy; and he failed to establish prejudice from the missing plea transcript or unintroduced body-camera footage. The court declined to remand because Cummings supplied no affidavits or other offers of proof showing that further factual development was necessary.
Key Takeaways
- Expressly approving jury instructions after they are read waives an appellate claim that accomplice instructions were omitted.
- Even absent waiver, omitted accomplice instructions may not warrant reversal when corroborating evidence, cross-examination, closing argument, and other credibility instructions adequately expose the witness’s incentive to testify.
- Suppression, ineffective-assistance, and remand claims require a record or offer of proof sufficient to establish the alleged error and resulting prejudice.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the consequences of affirmatively approving jury instructions and the difficulty of showing prejudice from omitted accomplice instructions when the jury otherwise learns about the accomplice’s charging exposure, favorable plea agreement, and potential bias.
It also underscores an appellant’s responsibility to provide the materials needed for meaningful review. Allegations concerning arrest procedures, warrant support, detention, missing records, or unintroduced footage will not support reversal when the appellate record does not establish what happened or how the alleged error affected the trial.