Feb. 15—The 11th District Court of Appeals affirmed Ivan Jamall Grover’s conviction on felonious assault and gun charges earlier this week.

Grover was indicted on Feb. 12, 2022, on one count of felonious assault and one count of improperly discharging a firearm at or into a habitation or school safety zone, second-degree felonies. He pleaded not guilty.

At trial, one of the victims testified that Grover was one of three people in a vehicle that came to the victim’s home, where an argument ensued. The victim testified that Grover and another person circled him and he attempted to use pepper spray against the men, then all of the parties went to retrieve guns.

One person was shot in the leg.

Grover was convicted on both counts, and was sentenced t o a total of 22 to 26 years in prison.

Attorneys for Grover raised five points for appeal in the case, that he was denied his right to counsel, the trial court abused its discretion by denying a motion for a mistrial, the court improperly overruled an objection to jury instructions, that the conviction was against the weight of evidence, and Grover did not receive effective assistance of counsel.

For the first grounds of appeal, Grover’s attorneys argued that an assistant prosecutor in the case had an outburst during the trial, causing an alternate seating arrangement to be implemented and the chief assistant prosecutor to be called into court to be warned about the assistant prosecutor’s behavior.

The court found = measures taken by the judge corrected any issues that could have been caused by the assistant prosecutor’s conduct.

According to the 11th District opinion, the second assignment of error claimed the jury may have heard an outburst from the assistant prosecutor in the judge’s chambers warranted a mistrial in the case.

The judge instructed jurors they should disregard anything that may have been heard, negating any potential issue, according to the opinion.

The opinion extensively addressed the claim that the the that the jury instructions were flawed, finding Grover was at fault for creating the situation, so therefore the self-defense claim his attorney tried to put forward does not rise to the level of a reversible error.

Grover’s claim the convictions were against the weight of evidence rested on his claim of self-defense, but the 11th District found the jury did not lose its way when it convicted Grover.

The final claim in his appeal proposed that Grover lacked effective assistance of counsel at trial, and the 11th District opinion found, in this case, Grover could not meet either of the required parts of the test for ineffective assistance of counsel.