No more plea talk in Ghost Ship case
D.A. plans to ask judge to schedule trial soon for defendants in deadly blaze
The Ghost Ship fire case took another turn Thursday as Alameda County prosecutors prepared to ask a judge to schedule a trial right away and said they will no longer negotiate plea agreements.
The move followed a judge’s rejection last week of a plea deal between prosecutors and the two defendants in the deadly Oakland warehouse fire case after families of victims objected, calling it too lenient.
District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and prosecutors Autrey James and David Lim gave defense lawyers a letter Wednesday outlining their new request, and said they would submit it to Alameda Superior Court Judge James Cramer during a hearing Friday.
They said in the letter, the contents of which were shared with The Chronicle, that their view of the case was strongly affected by victim-impact statements given by families last week.
“While this case may not be typical of what we see in the criminal justice system, the statements of those who spoke at the two-day hearing and the depth of their pain and loss has had a profound impact on the People’s analysis of what constitutes a just punishment in this case,” the prosecutors said. “The People will not be entering into any settlement discussions with defense counsel prior to trial.”
They requested Cramer “set this matter for jury trial forthwith.”
The district attorney’s office declined to comment before Friday's hearing.
Last Friday, Cramer tossed the plea-agreed sentence for Derick Almena, master tenant of the warehouse where 36 people died in the Dec. 2, 2016, fire, saying he wasn’t convinced of Almena’s remorse. Cramer said he thought the deal for co-defendant Max Harris, creative director of the artist collective, was appropriate, but because the plea bargains were made as a “package deal,” Harris’ was set aside, too.
But prosecutors said in their letter that they now “stand in firm opposition to any contemplated sentence for defendant Harris.”
Tony Serra, an attorney for Almena, said it was clear that families of the victims swayed prosecutors.
“They were angry. They were frustrated. One area was, ‘You gave away the case too cheap, how dare you not consult us?’ ” Serra said. Prosecutors “feel the impact of the victims’ families, and they are trying, now, to show strength and that they are with the families.”
The rejected plea bargain consisted of a sixyear county jail sentence for Harris and nine years for Almena. Each had pleaded no contest to 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for creating the dangerous conditions inside the warehouse. With time served and half-time credit for good conduct, Almena could have been released in 3½ years and Harris in less than two years.
Mary Alexander, who represents many of the victims’ families as lead attorney on the civil litigation, said they are pleased that a trial is on the horizon.
“It’s what the families want,” she said. “They want to get the facts.”
Noting that the vast majority of cases do not make it to trial, and with the time and resources a trial requires, legal experts had expected a new, harsher plea agreement to result from the deal rejection.
The timeline for reaching a trial is not dependent just on the district attorney’s wishes. Serra said it wouldn’t work for him until 2019, given his other cases.
“But this judge here will do whatever the heck he wants,” Serra said. “He can say, ‘Nope, I’m gonna set it for next month.’ ”
Serra said he plans to file a “specific performance” motion contesting Cramer’s authority to reject the plea deal, given that it was Presiding Judge Morris Jacobson who accepted the agreement and oversaw the hearings preceding it.
Serra said he will also file a change-of-venue motion, arguing that the pool of potential jurors in the county would be too versed in the facts of the case to be impartial.
“Everyone in Oakland knows that my guy pled no contest and got up on the stand and said, ‘I’m guilty,’ five times,’ ” Serra said, referring to Almena’s comments last week.
Curtis Briggs, an attorney for Harris, said he welcomes a trial.
“We are going to show the public and the jury all the institutional incompetence they can stomach, including that of O’Malley’s office, and every inept and incompetent public official who allowed this fire to happen,” he said. “I think Harris will be acquitted.”