When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out. The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises, and then all goodness is in jeopardy.
One day my log will have something to say about this.
According to news reports, Derick Almena and Max Harris are on the verge of accepting a plea bargain that would result in eight-year sentences for both of them. The details are here. If either defendant rejects the deal the case will go to trial.
In this interview Almena apologizes for the whole thing. It’s not clear to me that he really understands what he did wrong, but at least he’s making some of the right noises.
I did not mean that “the right” was to blame. I meant that it is par for the course in the Trumpian world to not take responsibility for your own actions. It is always somebody else at fault. Always.
I don’t think the right has a monopoly on that.
Before Trump there was the vast rightwing conspiracy of the Clinton era. Its human nature.
The plea deal has been accepted. Story here.
Dude, take your blinders off, people have been not taking responsibility for their actions under every administration since Washington’s. Why make a partisan argument over the lives of these people that died in this tragic accident.
Here’s the latest. Derick Almena and Max Harris are poised to accept plea deals for nine and six years, respectively, less time served.
One thing I would like to come out of this is for Almena to understand his contribution to this tragedy. Although he’s apologized, none of his public statements show that really he knows what he did wrong. It’s possible that he’s not capable of this: to me he seems flighty and narcissistic. He seems to believe that he was creating some little utopia in the Ghost Ship, and that this absolves him from having to provide for people’s safety.
Out of curiosity, I tried to look at the old web site for the Ghost Ship. It now fowards to a web site for California Haunted Houses.
I didn’t expect this: the judge has thrown out the plea deals. According to the article, the Judge Cramer rejected the deals because they were made as a package. The judge said Almena had not expressed true remorse, although I don’t know whether that had anything to do with his decision.
Several of the victims’ families had criticized the deals because they felt the sentences were too short, and also because they wanted the full truth to come out in court. The cases will now go to trial, so these family members will get at least part of what they want.
During the sentencing hearing, Almena offered to have his body tattooed with flames and with the faces of the victims. Not surprisingly, this did not go over well with the victims’ families.
Almena’s lawyer Tony Serra called the Ghost Ship “something that everyone described as beautiful and awesome” and said the defendants were also victims of the fire. I don’t know why he thought this would help his client during the sentencing hearing. Serra may have once been a good lawyer, but he now impresses me as a narcissistic jackass.
I just heard more on the local TV news. The judge believed that one defendant, Max Harris, did show remorse, but that Derek Almena didn’t. He based this on a written statement by Almena, in which the judge said Almena blamed everyone but himself. Since the plea deals were reached jointly, the judge couldn’t accept Harris’s plea while rejecting Almena’s so he threw the whole thing out.
I can’t help but wonder whether Tony Serra tried to get Almena to change his written statement. I would expect any competent defense lawyer to discourage a client from doing something so self-destructive.
Updating this thread:
While they can’t retry Harris I think they can retry Almena so I don’t agree with the last statement.
That summary from the LA Times seems to miss something. Only one of the defendants avoided criminal punishment. Max Harris was acquitted, but in Almena’s case there was a hung jury, which means he can be retried. According to the East Bay Times, the jury was stuck at a 10 to 2 vote in favor of Almena’s conviction. He will very likely be retried, and to me the chances of conviction seem high.
I assume by “two trials” they mean cases against two defendants, which were heard at a single trial. “Near-mistrial” might refer to the three jurors who were removed, although I wouldn’t call it that. Almena’s case definitely was a mistrial.
I think the chances of a plea deal are high: Almena realizes that he was just two votes away from a very long prison sentence while the prosecution doesn’t want to lose at trial again.
UPDATE:
‘Ghost Ship’ leaseholder is sentenced to 12 years for warehouse fire that killed 36 people.
Derick Almena, the leaseholder of a dilapidated Oakland warehouse – dubbed the “Ghost Ship” – that went up in flames, killing 36 people, was sentenced to 12 years in a plea deal that was accepted by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson on Monday.
All things considered that is a pretty light punishment.
Fires scare me. I would not be a good judge in a case like this.
VERY light…