Following a jury trial, Mario Antwan Hanes was found guilty of malice murder and aggravated assault in connection with the shooting death of Monterrance Thomas and the shooting injury of Michael Stewart, respectively.1 On appeal, Hanes contends that the trial court erroneously permitted the admission of similar transaction evidence from a 2009 traffic stop and improperly denied his motion to suppress evidence of a handgun recovered during Hanes’s 2010 arrest for the crimes related to this matter. Hanes further contends that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to object to the admission of the 2009 similar transaction evidence and by failing to request a limiting instruction or jury charge concerning his convicted felon status. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence reveals that, on April 1, 2010, Thomas and Stewart pulled into the parking lot of an AutoZone store, where Hanes was shopping. Testimony indicated that Thomas and Hanes had a prior dispute because Thomas believed that Hanes had stolen a notebook computer from him that contained software for recording rap music. After parking, Stewart approached the store window, looked inside, then returned to Thomas’s car to retrieve a baseball bat. Hanes exited the store as Thomas and Stewart approached. Hanes pulled a gun from under his shirt and shot Thomas in the chest at close range. As Stewart ran away, Hanes shot him in the arm, and the bullet ultimately lodged in Stewart’s side. Hanes immediately fled, Thomas died at the scene, and Stewart, who survived, refused to cooperate with authorities. The shooting was captured by the store’s surveillance camera, and a store clerk identified Hanes as the shooter. The fatal bullet recovered from Thomas’s chest was determined to have been shot from a .45 caliber Taurus pistol.
