DETROIT (WXYZ) — Jurors didn't reach a verdict on day four of deliberations in the Samantha Woll murder trial. They will return on Thursday to continue deliberating.
Her body was discovered outside her condo in Detroit's Lafayette Park neighborhood in October 2023. Jurors are trying to decide if Michael Jackson-Bolanos is the killer.
On Tuesday, the jury asked for copies of more transcripts to review for when they return.
Judge Margaret Van Houten told jurors, "See if there's any further movement on Thursday and if not, then we'll accept the deadlock."
7 News Detroit asked attorney James Harrington, managing partner at Fieger Law, what his take is on this jury given the amount of time that's passed during deliberations.
“It sounds like they’re really having some solid discussions. They’re really holding tight to their convicted beliefs," Harrington explained. “In my practice, in many jury trials, I would love to be a fly on the wall and hear what they’re doing."
Harrington said the jury selection process is the single most important process of a trial.
“One of the mistakes that I see a lot of lawyers make is they don’t spend enough time in jury selection," he said.
Harrington said it’s a “social process” in which attorneys use their social skills to understand a potential juror's bias, and that bias could ultimately influence the final outcome of a trial.
“They don’t know your client. They don’t know anything about you, and you have a very short period of time to get them to open up and talk to you about their feelings, get them to be vulnerable and talk about their beliefs," he explained.
Video: Day three of deliberations in Woll murder trial as juror replaced
"You can’t try your case in jury selection, which is called voir dire, but what you can do is you get to learn about them and try to understand which ones will be able to see the case and the story as you tell it versus the way the others tell it."
Those viewpoints play out during deliberations. A verdict must be unanimous and a guilty verdict must be reached beyond a reasonable doubt.
Video: Defendant says he didn't stab Woll, was casing cars when he found her body
“Even if there’s one person holding out and really sticking to it and saying we need, for example, we need the prosecution to have shown us that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and I don’t think they have it here, here and here, is what maybe a juror is saying that. Maybe multiple jurors are saying that," he said.
Deliberations will resume Thursday morning instead of Wednesday because of a juror's scheduling conflict.
