Background
In the early morning hours of January 14, 2021, an Uber driver was shot twice in the head and killed in Detroit. Investigators linked the killing to Carlous Skipper Jr. through Uber records, a 9mm Beretta purchased at a pawn shop on Eight Mile Road, a matching shell casing recovered from the victim’s car, and surveillance video placing Skipper near the scene. Skipper was arrested roughly two months later and charged with first-degree murder; the trial court later reduced the charge to second-degree murder after granting a directed verdict on premeditation. The prosecution’s theory was straightforward: Skipper was the shooter, and his lies to investigators—including false denials of using Uber—demonstrated consciousness of guilt.
The central issue at trial was Skipper’s insanity defense. Defense experts Dr. Ann Zaborney (Center for Forensic Psychiatry) and Dr. Gerald Shiener both opined that Skipper was legally insane at the time of the shooting. Dr. Zaborney recounted Skipper’s account to her: that the Uber driver said “are you ready to die,” that a voice in his head then commanded “shoot him, shoot him,” and that he perceived the driver as a demon. The prosecution countered with Dr. Tom Shazer, who opined that Skipper suffered no mental illness and showed no symptoms of hallucinations or delusions. The jury returned a verdict of guilty but mentally ill on second-degree murder, MCL 750.317, and guilty on felony-firearm, MCL 750.227b, and the trial court sentenced Skipper to 17 to 40 years plus two consecutive years.
On appeal, Skipper challenged five prosecutorial comments from opening statement and rebuttal as prejudicial, and separately (through a pro se Standard 4 brief) raised claims of jury-panel taint, Brady violations, and additional ineffective assistance of counsel grounds targeting the cross-examination of identity witnesses and the conduct of the trial judge.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed all convictions. On the prosecutorial error claims, the court found four of the five challenged comments entirely unobjectionable. The prosecutor’s “devil made me do it” analogy in opening statement was a reasonable characterization of Skipper’s own account to Dr. Zaborney; the comment that mental illness is “not a free pass for murder” and was being used as a “last resort” was a permissible argument from the evidence, not ridicule of the defense. The prosecutor’s rebuttal statement that “at the very minimum he should be guilty but mentally ill” was not an improper invitation for jury compromise under People v. Wallace, 160 Mich App 1 (1987); read in context, it was an acknowledgment of Skipper’s documented mental-health history rather than a directive to split the difference. The prosecutor’s comments about Dr. Zaborney being “fooled” or “tricked” by Skipper were appropriate credibility arguments, not personal attacks on her qualifications or good faith, and thus did not cross the line drawn in People v. Tyson, 423 Mich 357 (1985).
The sole arguably erroneous comment—the prosecutor’s brief rebuttal mention that Skipper lied about using “LYFT,” in violation of the trial court’s order striking Lyft records for a discovery violation—did not satisfy the plain-error standard. The court reasoned that the remark’s thrust was to highlight Skipper’s false denial of using Uber (not to reintroduce the excluded Lyft records), the reference was minimal and unreinforced, and given the overwhelming evidence of identity, no reasonable probability of a different outcome existed even if counsel had objected. All related ineffective assistance claims therefore also failed for want of prejudice.
The Standard 4 claims fared no better. The comments of two prospective jurors during voir dire—both of whom were excused—were too brief and non-specific to have tainted the remaining panel; defendant bore the burden of showing actual juror partiality and could not meet it. Defense counsel’s decision to concede identity and stake the defense on insanity was found eminently reasonable given the totality of the circumstantial evidence, foreclosing the ineffective assistance claims premised on inadequate cross-examination of identity witnesses. Finally, Skipper’s Brady claim regarding an allegedly exculpatory residential video recording failed for lack of any factual support in the record and because the court found it “almost inconceivable” the video had exculpatory value given the overwhelming trial evidence of the shooting’s location.
Key Takeaways
- A prosecutor may analogize an insanity defense to “the devil made me do it” and characterize it as a “last resort” or “crutch” without committing error, so long as the characterization is grounded in record evidence and stops short of inflammatory language.
- Urging the jury to consider a guilty-but-mentally-ill verdict as the minimum appropriate outcome is not an improper invitation to compromise under Wallace when it reflects an honest acknowledgment of the defendant’s documented mental-health history.
- Calling a defense expert “fooled” or “tricked” by the defendant, with reference to specific inconsistencies in the defendant’s statements to that expert, is permissible credibility argument rather than impermissible personal attack.
- A brief, contextually ambiguous reference to excluded evidence in closing argument does not automatically reach the level of plain error where identity is not in genuine dispute and the remark is not elaborated upon.
- Excused prospective jurors’ isolated voir dire comments do not taint the entire jury panel absent a showing that remaining jurors were actually prejudiced; the purpose of voir dire is precisely to identify and remove such bias.
- A Brady claim based on an undisclosed video recording is insufficient without factual support establishing the recording’s existence and exculpatory character.
Why It Matters
This decision illustrates the considerable latitude Michigan appellate courts afford prosecutors when countering an insanity defense, particularly where the defendant’s own statements to forensic evaluators supply the rhetorical raw material. Defense practitioners should note that the court drew the line not at colorful advocacy—”devil made me do it,” mental illness as a “crutch”—but at unsupported factual assertions, personal attacks on experts’ qualifications, and improper jury compromise invitations. The opinion reinforces that a prosecutor who frames rebuttal argument around specific record evidence, and who explicitly disclaims any attack on an expert’s good faith, will generally survive appellate scrutiny.
The case also offers a practical reminder on Brady obligations and Standard 4 pleading: bare assertions about undisclosed evidence, unsupported by the recording, affidavit, or other documentation, will not carry the burden of establishing a constitutional violation. And for trial counsel navigating overwhelming identity evidence, the court’s endorsement of an all-in insanity strategy—rather than a quixotic attack on circumstantial proof—underscores that conceding the uncontestable in service of the real defense theory can itself satisfy the objective-reasonableness prong of Strickland.