On Dec. 2, 2016, the fire tore through a late night party in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood in a building that had been transformed into a ramshackle artist collective known as Ghost Ship.
Many of the residents were living there in violation of zoning laws and the tragedy highlighted the glaring failures of the city’s leaders to enforce building and fire codes. The inferno also became an emblem of the rising cost of living in the Bay Area that led so many to seek shelter in a run-down building.
The two men on trial were Derick Almena, 49, the master tenant and leaseholder, and Max Harris, 29, described by prosecutors as Almena’s right-hand in managing the warehouse, who collected rent from tenants and arranged events. They each faced a maximum of 39 years in prison.
Harris was acquitted and the jury told Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson that they could not reach a decision on Almena.
The jury’s decision comes after a tortuous deliberation process that began in July but was interrupted last month when Thompson dismissed three jurors for unspecified misconduct, replacing them with three alternates and ordering the jury to begin deliberating from scratch. The trial featured three months of testimony.
In closing arguments, the prosecutor called the warehouse a “death trap,” and dismissed the defense’s claims that arsonists might have been responsible for the blaze. Witnesses had testified that there were no smoke alarms or sprinklers.
Lawyers for Almena and Harris built a defense on the basis of casting blame for the fire on the landlord and city officials who had visited the property over the years and had never condemned it as a fire hazard. Investigators never determined the exact cause of the fire.
The families of the victims had wanted city officials and the landlords to be charged, but at the end of the investigation it was only Almena and Harris who faced criminal charges.
This article originally appeared in
.