Judge drops remaining murder charge against Michael Jackson-Bolanos in Samantha Woll case

A Wayne County Circuit Court judge on Friday dropped the remaining murder charge against the suspect in the killing of prominent Detroit Jewish leader and political activist Samantha Woll, but sentenced him to 18 months to 15 years in prison for a lying to police.

It's the latest development in the high-profile case that has people split on whether or not Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 29, is the killer.

Judge Margaret Van Houten said she dismissed the felony murder charge because of case precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in their ruling on Yeager v. United States in 2009, which generally says that in instances of a hung jury, a person can't be retried on deadlocked charges that share the same element as the underlying charge — in this case, since a jury found Jackson-Bolanos not guilty of first-degree murder, they can't retry him on the felony murder charge.

"I can't ignore precedent that's been set by the U.S. Supreme Court," Van Houten said in issuing her ruling.

The prosecution said it plans on appealing to the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Woll's family sat motionless. Jackson-Bolanos held his head high.

Jackson-Bolanos was accused of fatally stabbing Woll eight times during a home invasion in Detroit in October 2023. But a jury wasn’t convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed her: Last month, after a weekslong trial and five days of deliberations, the jury found him not guilty of first-degree murder, convicted him of lying to police, but deadlocked on two other charges — felony murder and home invasion.

Van Houten threw out the felony murder charge, as well as the home invasion charge, essentially granting the defense's motion to dismiss, arguing the Yeager case precedent would forbid the prosecution from retrying the deadlocked charges.

However the prosecution, along with Woll's family, remain adamant that "the evidence indisputably points to only one man, Michael Jackson-Bolanos," said Monica Woll Rosen, sister of the slain Jewish leader.

"There is absolutely zero doubt (in) my family’s mind that MJB did this to my sister. All we ask is that justice is served," Rosen said in a statement.

Samantha Woll murder trial:Here are the 4 crimes the jury decided

The prosecution showed during the five-week trial numerous videos of Jackson-Bolanos in the area of Woll’s home breaking into cars the night she was killed, Oct. 21, 2023. He was the only one seen in the area around 4:20 a.m., the time of the killing, prosecutors argued.

And Woll's blood was found on Jackson-Bolanos' black jacket, the same jacket he appears to be wearing in video footage from that night, prosecutors said.

They argued Jackson-Bolanos, who is a habitual offender, had a motive to kill Woll: He knew he was facing more prison time if he got caught for another crime. So, he killed her, the prosecution argued, and then lied to police about it. 

Jackson-Bolanos tied himself to the crime when he took the rare step of testifying in his own defense during trial. He admitted he was breaking into cars when he saw Woll’s body lying on the ground in front of her Detroit home, checked her for a pulse, then fled after realizing she was dead, fearing he would be blamed for her death — but only after lying more than 40 times about his actions that night, the prosecution argued.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys for Jackson-Bolanos, who maintained their client's innocence "without a shadow of a doubt," took the rare legal move of starting a petition to convince prosecutors to let their client go.

The defense attorneys argued that it was not "humanly possible" for their client to struggle with Woll, stab her multiple times, and then flee during the time frame of the killing that the prosecution presented in court. They repeatedly pointed to other potential suspects, like Woll's ex-boyfriend, who initially admitted to killing Woll before recanting. After investigating, police determined his statements were false.

Police investigated other suspects, such as the ex-boyfriend — who told police he had doubled-up on his new prescription medication and taken a couple tokes from a marijuana vape pen and was in a state of panic when he initially told police he thought he may have killed his ex-girlfriend — but found no evidence connecting them to the killing, prosecutors argued. Evidence against Jackson-Bolanos, prosecutors countered, did.

The case has drawn so much intrigue, numerous lawyers unrelated to the case were in the courtroom on Friday to watch.

Judge gives prison time to Jackson-Bolanos for lying to police

Before Jackson-Bolanos was sentenced for the only crime he was convicted of — lying to police — Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Dominic Degrazia told Van Houten that lying to police is not a victimless crime.

He also noted the numerous times Jackson-Bolanos was convicted of property and theft crimes throughout his life, sentenced to probation, only to commit more crimes shortly after. During a four-year prison sentence for property crime, he racked up 40 major offenses, Degrazia told the judge. Documentation of those offenses from the Michigan Bureau of Prisons were obtained by the Free Press and show Jackson-Bolanos had been found guilty of assaults, sexual harassment and more during his time in prison.

Brian Brown, an attorney for Jackson-Bolanos, argued his client should not serve time for lying to police. He said his client "won't even jaywalk going forward."

And Jackson-Bolanos spoke for himself: "I don't want no more trouble," he said softly.

Van Houten ultimately sentenced him to 18 months to 15 years in prison because Jackson-Bolanos is a habitual offender.

Jackson-Bolanos looked straight forward, his head no longer held high.

Editor's note: The prosecution plans on appealing the dropped charges to the Michigan Court of Appeals, not the U.S. Supreme Court. A previous version of this report has been corrected to reflect that.

Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. She can be contacted atasahouri@freepress.com.