Kara BergThe Detroit News
Detroit — A Detroit man was acquitted Thursday of first-degree murder for the death of synagogue president Samantha Woll, but the jury deadlocked on the charges of felony murder and home invasion.
The jury found Michael Jackson-Bolanos guilty of lying to police after deliberating for nearly 23 hours over five days and said they were deadlocked three times before reaching a partial verdict early Thursday afternoon. A legal expert said it is rare for cases to end in mistrials.
Friends of Woll, the former president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue in downtown Detroit, declined to comment after the verdict. Woll's family, who attended every day of testimony during the trial, was not in court to hear the verdict, but their attorney, Brian Legghio, said in a family statement that they were stunned and deeply saddened by the outcome.
"... There is overwhelming evidence that Michael Jackson-Bolanos took our beloved Samantha’s life," the Woll family said in the statement. "Samantha spent much of her life working toward justice, and it pains us that justice for Samantha has not yet been served. We will not rest in our pursuit of justice on her behalf. ... This senseless tragedy leaves us with holes in our hearts that will never heal. But Samantha believed in a world of kindness and peace. We hope that as a society, we can continue to strive for good in Samantha’s honor."
Jackson-Bolanos, 29, who took the stand in his own defense, maintained that he didn't kill Woll, though he acknowledged he was in the area of her Lafayette Park townhouse in the early morning hours of Oct. 21, when Wayne County prosecutors said she was murdered. He testified that he saw Woll but didn't notify police because he worried he'd be held responsible. He also acknowledged lying to police.
Brian Brown, Jackson-Bolanos' attorney, said he was frustrated that jurors didn't acquit Jackson-Bolanos of home invasion and felony murder but that it was a "small partial victory" that he was acquitted of first-degree premeditated murder.
"As far as the other counts they were deadlocked on, we feel the evidence was more than substantial to acquit him," Brown said. "(Jackson-Bolanos) is feeling frustrated, of course. He knows he's innocent. Putting your faith in complete strangers' hands, it's frustrating."
Jackson-Bolanos faces up to two years in prison for the lying to police conviction.
The verdict wraps up a six-week trial connected to the death of Woll, who was stabbed and found dead outside her townhouse Oct. 21.
The jury members spent much of their time in deliberations deadlocked, but Wayne County Circuit Judge Margaret Van Houten sent them back each time to continue trying to reach a verdict.
“After such a long trial, we wanted to give every opportunity to try to reach a full verdict as to all counts, and I understand it’s just not possible," Van Houten said Thursday after the jury gave their verdict.
Will Wayne County retry case?
Jackson-Bolanos was originally not charged with first-degree murder, but 36th District Judge Kenneth King added the charge after a preliminary exam in January. King noted that Jackson-Bolanos had enough time to consider his actions "after the first time he stabbed her, the second time, the third time ... all the way up to the eighth time."
Prosecutors did not say Thursday if they would retry Jackson-Bolanos on the home invasion and felony murder charges. Van Houten set a pretrial hearing for July 25 to discuss the issue. Prosecutors have the choice to set a second trial date for Jackson-Bolanos, offer him a plea deal or dismiss the case. Jackson-Bolanos can plead guilty or no contest to Woll's death or he can go to trial again.
“First, I want to thank the jury for their time, dedication and attention to this case," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement. "We were hopeful that a decision could (be) reached today, but we will press on for justice for the Wolls and will determine our next course of action at the pre-trial hearing."
Mistrials are rare, said Scott Weinberg, a former prosecutor and a criminal defense attorney for Bloomfield Hills-based Hertz Schram, especially considering most cases do not end up in trial.
An average of 2.3% of Michigan criminal cases ended with a jury verdict in the past 10 years, according to state court data. The state does not track how often a case ends in a mistrial, said Michigan Supreme Court spokesperson John Nevin.
"When you have a jury, it is more likely than not there will be a verdict," Weinberg said.
Jurors declined to speak to reporters Thursday after they finished deliberations. Van Houten told the jurors she preferred they did not give interviews because prosecutors might end up retrying the case, but ultimately said: “You are free to do what you want to do.”
Prosecutors' case against Jackson-Bolanos
Prosecutors put 48 witnesses on the stand and centered their case largely on GPS data from Jackson-Bolanos' cellphone that put him in the area of Woll's townhouse, along with surveillance footage. DNA evidence also found a small amount of Woll's blood on Jackson-Bolanos' coat and backpack.
Prosecutors argued that Jackson-Bolanos entered Woll's home through her opened front door and stabbed her eight times in the head and neck before fleeing. A motion detector in Woll's living room went off at 4:20 a.m. and indicated activity until 4:22 a.m. when the alarm system went idle.
Jackson-Bolanos admitted to being in the area of Woll’s townhouse around 4:20 a.m., and surveillance footage and phone data also put him in the area.He was seen on video walking in Greektown at 4:23 a.m.
He denied killing Woll and said he came across her body when he returned to Lafayette Park to retrieve a bag he'd stolen earlier. He said he approached a dark figure and realized it was a person lying with his or her back to him. He testified that he touched the person's neck to see if he or she was OK.
“They wasn’t OK,” Jackson-Bolanos said. “Once I realized I just touched a dead person, I grabbed the bag and I left. …I’m a Black guy out in the middle of the night breaking into cars, and I found myself standing in front of a dead White woman. That doesn’t look good at all.”
Brown, Jackson-Bolanos' attorney, said in his closing argument that the case involved the “wrong person who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time” and that a shoddy police investigation left a lot of questions unanswered.
Former boyfriend's testimony
The trial against Jackson-Bolanos was unusual in that it included testimony from a former boyfriend, Jeffrey Herbstman, who told police during a self-described, full-fledged panic attack in November that he thought he killed Woll but did not remember it. Police said they ruled him out as a suspect based on his phone's GPS data and a lack of evidence connecting him to the crime.
Brown alleged several other people could've been involved in Woll's murder, which he argued appeared to be a crime of passion, including Aaron Pergament, a man Woll went on several dates with prior to her death who, her sister said without any evidence, was stalking her, and who Brown said may have lied to police.
Brown also pointed to Brett Foreman, a friend who had a conversation with a mutual friend of Woll's about how he would hypothetically get away with murder; and a person who was seen on surveillance video running near the area of Woll’s apartment just before 1:30 a.m. who was never identified.
Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Elsey said because Woll was using her phone to watch Netflix until 1:35 a.m., the unidentified person could not have killed her. That was the last activity on her phone.
During his closing argument, Elsey said there were "too many coincidences" to suggest anyone other than Jackson-Bolanos killed Woll.
“Reasonable doubt in this case means these coincidences are reasonably explainable. And they’re not," Elsey said.
'It happened inside that apartment'
Defense attorney Lillian Diallo, who is the president of the Wayne County Criminal Defense Bar Association, questioned why Jackson-Bolanos was charged in the first place with such a weak case when Herbstman confessed to the crime. Herbstman testified for prosecutors but was given immunity for everything he spoke about on the stand.
Diallo said she has never seen immunity for a witness used in this way, when someone confessed to the crime but was not charged. Police testified during Jackson-Bolanos' trial that they ruled out Herbstman as a suspect based on his GPS phone data and a lack of other evidence connecting him to the crime.
"The prosecutor's obligation is to be the administer of justice and not just the facilitator of convictions," Diallo said. "In this case, it looks like it’s a facilitation of a conviction. ... You don't have anybody putting him inside of the apartment. If you can't put me in the apartment, that's a not guilty right there. Whatever happened, it happened inside that apartment."
Diallo said she has lost sleep over this case, which she is not involved in but has paid close attention to. She said Jackson-Bolanos is a non-confrontational thief but is not a murderer.
"If you find him guilty based on everything that I sat there and watched … then you’re finding him guilty simply because he sits in that chair, not because the prosecutor proved (Jackson-Bolanos) did what (the prosecutor) said he did," Diallo said. "With the amount of blood on that scene, that boy's shoes, socks, underwear, pants, everything would have been saturated."
Policefound small traces of Woll's bloodon Jackson-Bolanos' North Face jacket and the backpack he was seen wearing in surveillance video from the night of Woll's murder.
Will prosecutors retry the case?
In murder cases that end in a mistrial, Bloomfield Hills lawyer Weinberg said, it is likely that the prosecutors will end up retrying the case — unless they feel like they cannot prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard for convicting someone of a crime. They may offer a plea deal to a defendant in lieu of retrying the case if they feel they cannot prove it, Weinberg said.
Prosecutors will want to talk to the jurors to see what the split was, and what their issues were with convicting Jackson-Bolanos, he said. If the jury was mostly in favor of convicting Jackson-Bolanos, prosecutors would be more likely to want to retry the case than if the jury leaned more in favor of acquitting him, Weinberg said.
Jurors talked to the prosecutors and defense attorneys after the verdict and the ruling of a mistrial.
Detroit-based defense attorney Bill Swor said he would be surprised if prosecutors did not choose to retry the case based on its high-profile nature. If they choose to retry the case, prosecutors would have to go back and decide what worked in the original case and what did not, Swor said. They may try to change their strategy and present additional evidence or not emphasize certain evidence that they did in the first trial, he said.
Weinberg said if prosecutors feel the evidence was not sufficient, they may have to go back and continue investigating so they can address any questions the jury felt were left unanswered. They also should talk to the victim's family about what they want, he said.
"If they have all the same evidence and still feel comfortable going for it again, they may do it regardless of what the juror makeup was," Weinberg said. "It's pretty hard to walk away from reprosecuting a murder case ... . Many victims' families want justice, and therefore, even if it is emotional, they want the prosecutor to retry the case to get some sort of justice."
kberg@detroitnews.com
