On August 28, 2018, Crystal Banks drove her former boyfriend, 32-year-old Andre Fort, to the Warren, Michigan trailer home of 24-year-old Reinaldo Jamison. Fort suspected Jamison in the theft of Fort’s vehicle two days earlier.
Banks would later testify that she and her children remained in the car as Fort went inside Jamison’s trailer in the Glenwood Mobile Village mobile home park. She then heard glass breaking and the sounds of an argument. Shortly after, Fort returned to the car and assured Banks that everything was fine. At that point, Banks left to go to a liquor store. When she returned 20 minutes later, she found Fort dead of multiple gunshot wounds inside the trailer.
First responders had to shove open the front door to enter the trailer because the location of Fort's body behind it made entry difficult. The glass in the lower portion of the window next to the front door was broken, with most of the glass shards on the front steps. The police also discovered cocaine and drug paraphernalia in what appeared to be Jamison’s bedroom.
Two days later, Jamison was arrested. He was charged with second-degree murder, carrying a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of less than 25 grams of cocaine.
In September 2019, Jamison went to trial in Macomb County Circuit Court. Banks testified to hearing the argument and glass breaking before Fort assured her he was fine. She said she left and returned 20 minutes later to find Fort dead and called the police. She denied that she had used the word “confront” when she told police why Fort went to Jamison’s home.
Jamison’s neighbor, Sue Ann Willson, testified that she woke up from a nap that afternoon to the sound of arguing coming from Jamison’s home. She said that not long after, she was sitting outside with her dog when she saw Jamison walk quickly to his vehicle, do something inside the car, then go back toward his trailer. Willson said she heard a loud thump, like something hit the side of her trailer facing Jamison’s home, but did not see anything when she looked at her trailer. Shortly thereafter, Jamison ran to his car and took off “like a bat out of hell,” hitting a garbage can in the process, she said.
Sergeant Goral Rousseau, testifying as an expert in firearms and toolmark identification, said he concluded that the seven recovered cartridge cases were .40-caliber casings. He said that two fired bullets were consistent with .40-caliber ammunition. All the fired cartridge cases were shot from one gun, and the fired bullets that had enough information for analysis were fired from one gun, but Rousseau could not say if all the fired components were shot from the same gun.
Dr. Daniel Spitz, who performed the autopsy, testified that Fort was shot six times: twice in the head; once in the arm, with the same shot also entering Fort’s chest; once in his left wrist; once in the back, with a superficial trajectory traveling across Fort’s back; and once in the chest. With the exception of the direct chest wound, all of the shots hit the left side of Fort’s body. The trajectory of the chest wound differed in that it had a sharply upward angle and went from front to back without deviation, rather than across the body as the other shots had done. Dr. Spitz opined that the angle was consistent with having been shot while lying on the ground by a person standing some distance beyond Fort’s feet. Fort also had non-gunshot wounds, including a superficial cut on the inner surface of his left wrist.
Cell phone evidence showed that Jamison’s phone was in the trailer at the time of the shooting and went to Pelkey Street, where relatives of his lived, afterward. A DNA expert analyzed a blood-stained t-shirt recovered from the Pelkey residence and concluded that it had been worn by Jamison. The analyst also concluded that blood and additional contact DNA on the t-shirt came from Fort.
In closing arguments, Jamison’s defense attorney, David Cripps, emphasized the lack of eyewitnesses or evidence about how the shooting actually occurred. He also noted the gun used in the shooting had never been found and argued that there remained a question about “what occurred and who brought the weapon to the scene.”
Cripps also argued that common sense suggested Fort came to Jamison’s home with a gun to confront him about “whatever beef” they had. The jury was not told that Fort’s car had been stolen two days earlier.
Cripps told the jury that Banks had lied when she denied using the term “confront.” Cripps argued that Banks wanted to hide the truth, which was that Fort came to Jamison’s home with a gun. Cripps further argued that Fort’s intent to break in could be inferred from the fact that he told Banks to park in an area where she could not see the front door, that he was carrying gloves in his pocket, and that he told Crystal to leave for a while.
Cripps asked the jury to infer that Fort entered the house by breaking the window with his gun, thereby causing the loud noise heard by Willson and the minor wounds on his wrist.
“Fort broke into that location, armed with a weapon, was disarmed from it, and was shot,” Cripps argued. He said the jury could infer that Banks took the gun from the scene before calling the police. He also questioned the failure to submit more evidence for DNA testing, in particular the fired cartridge casings, which might have revealed Fort’s DNA on the casings and clarify who the gun belonged to.
Cripps told the jury there was no evidence about how many people were in the home at the time of the shooting. He suggested that Jamison left before the shots were fired, and that the shooter might have left through the backyard, which could not be seen by Willson, the neighbor.
On September 23, 2019, the jury convicted Jamison of second-degree murder, carrying a weapon during the commission of a felony, and possession of cocaine. He was sentenced to 23 to 50 years in prison.
During a post-trial hearing on a motion for a new trial based on his claim that his defense lawyer provided ineffective assistance of counsel, Jamison testified that from the very beginning he told Cripps he acted in self-defense. He testified that the day before the shooting, Fort had sent threatening text messages to Jamison’s brother, Mario, who was a paraplegic who used a wheelchair.
Jamison testified that a few hours before the shooting, Fort called him and made additional death threats toward him and Mario, claiming that he was “coming today.” Jamison said that Fort broke into his trailer that afternoon and confronted him with a gun. Jamison said he tackled Fort, wrested the gun from him, and shot as Fort was rushing toward him. Jamison said he fled from the scene, because he was afraid Fort had others outside waiting as backup.
Jamison testified that he told Cripps what had happened at their first meeting and never denied being the shooter. Jamison said he did not agree with Cripps’s plan to make the prosecution first prove that he was the shooter, but that he relented and agreed to follow Cripps’s advice.
In support of his motion for a new trial, Jamison also produced the text messages between Mario and Fort, and affidavits from Mario and two others about their knowledge that he wanted to pursue a self-defense case. Jamison also presented recorded jail calls between himself and defense counsel.
Cripps denied Jamison’s claims about their pretrial strategizing. He testified that Jamison consistently denied being the shooter and asserted that someone else must have shot Fort after Jamison left. Cripps said he pursued a defense consistent with these assertions. He said it was not until midway through the trial that Jamison first suggested a self-defense claim, and by that time, Cripps did not believe it would be effective to alter their defense.
The trial court concluded that Jamison had failed to establish a meritorious claim of ineffective assistance and denied the motion for a new trial.
Jamison appealed. On September 15, 2022, the Michigan Court of Appeals vacated his convictions and ordered a new trial.
The court noted, “Contrary to the trial court’s view of the recorded phone calls, two of the pretrial conversations provide strong evidence that defendant communicated his claim of self-defense to defense counsel early in their professional relationship.”
The court said that in one call during an early discussion regarding Cripps’s plan for the case, Cripps explained that he intended to force the prosecution to prove everything at the preliminary examination, then added, “[P]lus we have the background to, you know, self-defense claim, if it gets to that.”
The appeals court said, “Considering defense counsel’s opinion that the evidence did not support such a claim, it is difficult to imagine why he would believe self-defense was a viable fallback option if defendant had not discussed that theory with him.”
Moreover, the court said, “With that context in mind, a conversation that took place approximately one month before trial becomes even more telling. Defendant indicated that the way defense counsel wanted to handle the case was not working, that ‘they don't even know what happened,’ and ‘they charging me with second degree and that ain’t even really what it is.’”
Jamison noted that at the preliminary hearing, the defense attempt to make the prosecution prove he “did it” had backfired and “that wasn't even my position.” Jamison insisted that he was not trying to be “clever” and was, instead, “trying to tell them the truth.”
The court noted that Jamison told Cripps what happened when they first met, and Cripps vaguely responded: “[A]ll right. I agree. We need to… to figure out what we're doing here in terms of the next moves that are made.”
The court said, “It is clear from this conversation that defendant told defense counsel something about the shooting, and that whatever defendant said was inconsistent with defense counsel's strategy of arguing that defendant was not the shooter.”
The appeals court said that Jamison had established a “reasonable probability” of a different outcome at a retrial if he presented a case of self-defense.
On June 12, 2023, Jamison was released on bond. In August 2024, Jamison went to trial a second time, defended by attorney Wade Fink. Jamison told the jury that he had been awakened from a nap by Fort pounding on the front door and his bedroom window and that Fort then broke a different window. Jamison said Fort entered the mobile home, found Jamison hiding in his bedroom closet, and held a gun to his face. He said that as Fort backed up from the bedroom into the living room, Jamison rushed and bear-hugged Fort, stripping the gun away from him as they fell to the floor.
Jamison said they both went for the gun, but Jamison got it first and fired seven shots, six of them hitting Fort, including two in the head, as Fort was charging him. Jamison said he had feared Fort after he threatened him and his brother in text messages the day before the incident and in a 16-minute phone call hours before the confrontation. The defense presented evidence of the text messages and also evidence that Fort’s blood alcohol content was .185 percent, more than double the legal limit for drivers.
On September 6, 2024, after more than 25 hours of deliberation, the jury reported that it was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. So a mistrial was declared.
Jamison went to trial a third time in December 2025. On December 12, 2025, after two hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Jamison of all charges.
In February 2026, Jamison filed a claim for compensation from the state of Michigan.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 01-28-2026
Last Update Date: 04-05-2026
