DETROIT– The case against a man accused of murder of synagogue leader in Detroit collapsed Friday when a judge dismissed a remaining murder charge, three weeks after a jury acquitted him of a similar but separate charge.
Judge Margaret Van Houten said retrying Michael Jackson-Bolanos for murder would be unconstitutional and amount to “double jeopardy”.
It was a victory for Jackson-Bolanos, who has repeatedly declared his innocence in the fatal stabbing of Samantha Woll. Prosecutors acknowledged that the pending murder charge likely should be dismissed, but it was still a blow to the high-profile case.
Woll, 40, was found dead outside her Detroit home last October, sparking speculation about whether the attack was some kind of anti-Semitic retaliation amid the war between Israel and Hamas, though Police could not find a connection.
A jury acquitted Jackson-Bolanos in July of first-degree murder. But it could not reach a unanimous verdict on a separate charge of first-degree murder, which in Michigan is a killing committed during another crime. In that case, prosecutors alleged a home invasion.
The judge on Friday ruled out a second trial, citing a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on partial jury verdicts.
Van Houten said it was a “bad decision” but that she had to apply it to Jackson-Bolanos. She dismissed the remaining charges of murder and home invasion. Prosecutors promised to appeal.
Van Houten subsequently sentenced Jackson-Bolanos to 18 months in prison for lying to police during the investigation — his only conviction in the trial. Defense attorney Brian Brown asked for probation.
“If lying was an Olympic sport, you would get a gold medal, sir,” the judge told Jackson-Bolanos.
Woll’s body was found outside just east of downtown Detroit hours after she returned from a fall wedding. Investigators believe she was attacked in her home but went outside before collapsing in the middle of the night.
Jackson-Bolanos testified in his own defenseinsisting he had no part, but admitting he had touched Woll’s body when he found it while he was nearby. Bloodstains were on his jacket.
“I’m a black man breaking into cars in the middle of the night and I’m standing in front of a dead white woman, that doesn’t look good at all,” Jackson-Bolanos said when asked why he didn’t call the police.
Brown said he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Investigators first arrested an ex-boyfriend who frantically called 911 and told authorities he might have killed Woll but didn’t remember it. He blamed his claims on a side effect of medication and wasn’t charged.
Woll was president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue and also active in Democratic politics, working for U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin and Attorney General Dana Nessel.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer said Woll was a “beacon in her community.”