By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
The Michigan Court of Appeals on Thursday affirmed Ahmed Hasan Williams-El's first-degree murder conviction in the 2002 shooting death of Damon Burroughs.
A jury of six men and six women after a seven-day trial also found Williams-El guilty of possessing a firearm during commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a felony.
Williams-El, 22, of Vandalia, was found guilty in November 2003 for the shooting death of Burroughs, 37, of Union, in an attempted robbery in connection with a drug deal the previous fall.
Burroughs was shot on Oct. 25, 2002, and found the next day by passersby off of North Street in Jefferson Township south of Cassopolis.
In closing arguments, Cass County Prosecutor Victor Fitz said Williams-El shot Burroughs like an animal, once in the back and five times to his head with a .22-caliber rifle.
Burroughs the day of his murder asked the defendant at a Cassopolis gas station where he could buy some marijuana.
The defendant first argues that an audio-taped statement by Renaldo Florence, who witnessed Williams-El shoot and kill Burroughs and testified to that at trial, was improperly admitted into evidence because it constituted hearsay.
However, by indicating that he had "no objection" to the admission of the transcripts of this tape or the playing of the tape to the jury, counsel for the defendant waived this issue for appellate review and "in doing so extinguished any error arising from admission of the statement into evidence," wrote Judges Joel P. Hoekstra, Kathleen Jansen and Kirsten Frank Kelly. "Accordingly, there is no error for this court to review."
The defendant also argued that an audiotape of a telephone conversation between defendant and another person made while defendant was incarcerated was improperly admitted because it likely confused the jury and was more prejudicial than probative. The defendant "cites no authority to support his terse and conclusory argument of evidentiary error. A party may not leave it to this court to search for authority to sustain or reject its position … In any event, we find that the trial court correctly determined that the portion of the taped conversation admitted into evidence, wherein defendant appears to acknowledge his role in the murder, constituted an admission and was thus properly admissible by the prosecution … Moreover, although certainly prejudicial, this admission was not so prejudicial as to warrant its exclusion … which requires that the danger of unfair prejudice associated with marginally relevant evidence 'substantially outweigh' its relevancy. Furthermore, any confusion of the jurors regarding the context of the admission was sufficiently allayed by defense counsel's explanation of the statement during closing argument. Accordingly, we find no basis on which to afford defendant any relief on this claimed evidentiary error."
Citing a number of grounds, the defendant next argues that his trial counsel was ineffective. "Defendant has failed to demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's failure to produce these witnesses, the results of the proceedings would have been different," the judges said.
Defendant next argues that his trial counsel's cross-examination of prosecution witnesses Roberta Nickens and Lisa Stitt fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.
Finally, Williams-El argued that the manager of the gas station where he first met the victim was unable to testify effectively because he lacked the aid of an interpreter at trial.
Defendant claims that his counsel's failure to obtain an interpreter for the manager equates to a failure to even call the witness.