On Thursday, the jury in the trial of Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of setting the Palisades Fire, told the judge that they were deadlocked.
This came on the second day of deliberations. KNX News’ Craig Fiegener reported that the judge sent a note to the jurors asking if there was anything that the court could do to help them respond, and the jury said “no.”
Former federal prosecutor Manny Medrano told KNX News he was shocked by how this played out.
“The first note had the box checked off. ‘We have a unanimous verdict,’ ok?” Medrano said. “ So everyone's thinking, OK, case is over. Next thing you know, there's a second note that says they're at a standstill. They can't convince people to change their minds. ‘Judge, we don't know what to do.’ So, my reading of the tea leaves suggests that it's, unequivocally, as we speak, a hung jury. So now the judge has to decide what he's going to do.”
But L.A. criminal defense attorney Rachel Fiset said she wasn’t surprised at all.
“I would have been a bit surprised at a conviction,” she said. “The evidence is all circumstantial. I think it would be hard for an entire jury to get to conviction with no reasonable doubt. So I'm not surprised, though, given the emotions that there is part of that jury, particularly that does want to find somebody at fault, even on this kind of evidence, and then others on the jury looking at the evidence and saying they couldn't convict.”
Rinderknecht faces up to 45 years in prison on federal arson charges.
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