UPDATE JULY 12, 2024: JURY DEADLOCKED. CBS News legal expert Rick Convertino, who predicted a quick acquittal, still calls the prosecution’s case “the weakest” he’s ever seen (above.)
CBS NEWS DEFENSE EXPERT PREVIOUSLY PREDICTED ACQUITTAL
DEFENSE ATTY. BRIAN BROWN’S BRILLIANT CLOSING ARGUMENTS
DEFENSE PLAYS ATTY.-CLIENT JAIL CONVERSATION FOR JURY (below)
VOD was not able to cover this trial in person due to time constraints, but is publishing key videos from other media, focusing on defense presentations
Mainstream media has covered prosecution’s case in detail; go to YouTube (Search “Samantha Woll trial”) to watch those portions of the trial
Why did Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy bring this case on such scant evidence against a poor Black man after a well-to-do white man confessed?
Police officers who took stand included Stephen Kue, fully exposed as a liar by Channel 7 Investigator Ross Jones
Police claimed Jackson-Bolanos never said he accidentally came upon and touched Woll’s body; but DPD officer tells atty. he DID tell him that
CROSS-EXAM OF WOLL’S EX-BOYFRIEND JEFFREY HERBSTMAN
DPD OFFICER: Jackson-Bolanos DID tell him he saw, touched Woll’s body
Samantha Woll, Pres. Isaac Agree Synagogue
GUEST EDITORIAL By Roberto Guzman, with Diane Bukowski
With her family and community, VOD mourns the tragic loss of Samantha Woll, a beautiful vibrant young woman and Isaac Agree Synagogue president. We call on police and prosecutors to target the real perpetrator of her brutal, horrific murder.
July 12, 2024
Marvin Cotton’s mother Ms. Fortune with paralegal Roberto Guzman at 2016 press conference on Davontae Sanford’s release. VOD photo.
Detroit — At a time when all the party balloons, awards dinners, and media frenzy have taken hold with proclamations of the “re-birth” of Detroit, and as officials herald the move of Wayne County courts and prisons to a new Criminal Justice Center and a “new era,” the case of Michael Jackson-Bolanos proves that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
There before us in real time is another wrongful conviction unfolding right before our eyes, in the wake of dozens of exonerations of men and women in Wayne County who were railroaded by the Detroit Police Department in league with the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office. Like Larry “Butter” Smith, who just won an $8.9 million settlement from the city after spending 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, nearly 40 exonerees spent many decades in prison.
Michael Jackson-Bolanos and his atty. Brian Brown as the jury begins deliberations July 10.
There are thousands more remaining in Michigan’s prisons who were similarly railroaded. Private Investigator Scott Lewis estimates that up to thirty percent of the state’s prisoners are likely innocent. During the period of the 1990’s and the “Ring of Snitches,” estimates of wrongful convictions go up to eighty percent.
But now unfolding before us in real time is another wrongful conviction, that of Michael Jackson-Bolanos. We must not let this happen as a result of our neglect and complacency. If this was happening in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the community would be rising up in anger and horror. Here again, another innocent Black man finds himself tangling with a powerhouse of corrupt and deceitful police and prosecutors intent on framing him for the murder of Samantha Woll, synagogue director and leader in the Jewish community.
This is nothing but an effort to appease public pressure to bring someone to justice. Anyone. Just do it. Make Michael Jackson-Bolanos the scapegoat, their sacrificial lamb, handed over on a silver platter.
Poster from 2020 Victoria-Burton Harris campaign for Wayne County Prosecutor.
But where is their evidence? Other than their belief that his color and presence in the area of the victim’s home made him a likely suspect in the minds of overzealous cops and prosecutors? They found two specks of blood on the sleeve of his jacket, invisible to the naked eye, and pounced on that. This is despite the fact that there was a common-sense innocent explanation for it as exposed by his testimony and defense attorney Brian Brown’s brilliant presentation of his case.
Namely, that in the course of committing petty vehicular crimes in the area, Jackson-Bolanos stumbled upon the dead victim, and obviously concerned for her safety, checked her vitals and got those specks of blood on his jacket. This was enough for cops and prosecutors to pounce, deapite the fact that the apartment where Samantha Woll was brutally attacked and stabbed eight times to to death while fighting for her life, was covered in blood, as was her body.
Two specks of blood don’t fit the facts. Even to an average citizen. But unfortunately, police and prosecutors aren’t just average citizens. They are power-tripping arrogant egotistical maniacs who care nothing about innocence, and especially not a Black man’s innocence.
Inset: Davontae Sanford with mother Taminko on his release in 2016; Background: Roberto Guzman (l) with Sanford ‘s family after a 2012 appeals court hearing. The COA ruled in his favor, but Worthy appealed again and the Mich. Supreme Court reversed it, leaving this child to suffer more years in prison. VOD photo.
In the case of Michael Jackson-Bolanos, we are reminded again of the rushes to judgment that have typified the career of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who many people are hailing as a hero with a heart for justice. But she is just the opposite of that. She rushed to file false murder charges against yet another innocent young Black man without questioning the scant evidence presented to her by the Detroit Police Department, with its shameful history of framing hundreds of others over the years.
Davontae Sanford was a 14-year-old child when he was snatched from his mother and similarly framed by Detroit Police in league with Prosecutor Kym Worthy in 2008. He was charged with the murders of four adults in an alleged drug house.
It was only after his mother led a determined battle to free her child that the truth of his innocence finally came out; but he had spent nine years in adult prisons subjected to torture and abuse by prison personnel.
New Wayne Co. Criminal INJUSTICE Center?
The Michigan State Police cited Detr0it police reports from the night of the crime in which eyewitnesses described another man who did not fit Sanford’s description. That man, Vincent Smothers, later confessed. Charges against Sanford should have been dismissed WITH PREJUDICE, but Worthy would agree only to dismissal WITHOUT prejudice, according to Attorney Julie Hurwitz. To this day, Worthy will not admit Sanford is innocent.
Today, Worthy’s supporters continue to praise her and urge the public to trust her. Their lies, and their fanciful claims of a new day in Wayne County courts have only emboldened her arrogant power to do as she pleases. Today Jackson-Bolanos stands falsely accused of murder. Hopefully, the jury will acquit him, deadlock, or at least hang with only one juror who like me knows and feels what innocence is when we see it. Only then will justice ring true. Jackson-Bolanos’ story will be the one worth telling. Not the lies. Not the praise for abuse of power. Hopefully, Jackson-Bolanos will not have to wait years for his exoneration as did Davontae Sanford.
RELATED:
DETROIT PAYS $2 MILLION TO SETTLE COMPLAINT VS. DPD’S STEPHEN KUE, ALREADY HIT WITH 85 COMPLAINTS
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