Sad and this isnt a time to celebrate for max harris because this communitys sick. This communitys sick because the leadership is sick, and we need reform. And we need a change. And thats our challenge to the leaders here in this city, if you care about this city, you have pride and integrity, then do something and be honest about it. Max two and a half years behind bars. Whats next for him . How will he get his life back together after all this . Its going to start with a nice vegan meal thats not served by santa rita jail and well take it from there. Once he found out the verdict, what were his first responses and reactions . He tried to stop me from crying and he was emotional and we were all emotional and we didnt really say much. Curtis, the family first, i want to say im sorry as somebody whos lost a child, i understand the pain and i know that they likely will never be able to find peace with what happened and that i apologize if anything that we did inflamed them. I was always under the belief that max harris was innocent and i did what i had to do to get him home. And our hearts are with those families and everybody whos been victimized by this tragedy. Im going to turn this over to my cocounsel tyler smith to make a statement. You know, none of this ever would have happened in the first place if the income inequality, the injustice with respect to the income inequality and the housing crisis werent as bad, wasnt permitted to get as it has gotten in the bay area and in oakland in the last few years. These artists were living in this warehouse because they didnt have too many other options. They were going to be on the street otherwise. They were living there, in essence, out of necessity, and there were many other warehouses in oakland, very similar as the ghost ship warehouse and the reason theyre there is because of the housing crisis that were facing, so i hope that the oakland city that the leaders of the city of oakland, mayor schaaf and others take real measurable steps to address this issue first and foremost. So i echo my colleagues comments that change and reform really needs to happen. With that said, were incredibly sorrowful. We always have been very sorrowful for the families. Its an incredible loss that they suffered. This is something that, you know, weve been a little bit hamstrung from saying to the media while the trial was going on, while the jury was deliberating, but now that theyve reached a verdict, we can really let them know how truly sorry and sad for them that we are. Max is incredibly sorry and sad for them. Hes always expressed his remorse, his wish that he could have done Something Different to save someone that died that night. Were incredibly grateful to all the members of the jury, all of the alternates. Every juror that sat there through these six months was incredibly gracious to give all of their time and undivided attention and it was it took a lot of hard work for them to get to this but they listened to all of the evidence very carefully so i really commend all of them. They did a fantastic job and were very grateful that they were able to come to the not guilty verdict. What happens with max . What are the next steps . We dont have any is it the plan now, i understand yeah. Immediately in a bureaucratic sense. We dont know what that means so we dont know when hes going to be released and we dont know where hes going to be released from, so we dont want to make too many comments regarding that. Were just wed be speculating at this point. I expect hell be out today but i just dont we cant get any answers. The Sheriffs Department is inevitably responsible for releasing him so youd have to direct your questions to them. Almost two and a half years. Was it like december or january it was six months after the fire so it was about may. May or june. James is going to make a statement. Its been an honor fighting for an innocent, brilliant artist who never should have been charged in the first place who had seemingly unlimited amounts of Government Resources and a government machine geared towards proving his guilt. Despite all of the facts showing his innocence. And doing so to pursue their own political agenda, and i would also just like to echo statements of my colleagues regarding the enormous amount of support that max harris had from family and friends and people who became aware of the injustice of him being charged in the first place. And who voiced their concerns and voiced their support. They have made a concrete difference in a case by keeping max harris were listening in on max harriss defense team, thanking the jurors, expressing their sorrow for the families who lost loved ones but also putting the responsibility at the doorsteps of the city. Without question. Everything from inspections to the housing crisis. Right now, we want to take you to the defense side or i could say almenas defense, ryan is speaking. The fact that there was the most unspeaable loss of life. And so, while hes happy in a sense to be unconvicted, hes very unhappy when he thinks about what happened and the fact that that can never be repaired. And i join him in those sentiments. For me, the overwhelming aspect of this case was always the loss of life and the hard break that these families suffered and i never thought that the trial should have been held against derrick because i didnt feel in my heart that he was responsible for any more than a lot of other people were responsible for it, and there was whos responsible . Whos responsible for it are the people governing a society where we are in one of the richest areas in the nation and you step over bodies every time you across the street and people are starving and theres mentally ill everywhere and these people like derrick take a warehouse and get people out of the gutter and put a roof over their head and dont have the money to furnish it according to the laws of oakland and thats why this happened. So, in my view, there is a moral imperative here thats a reflection of society as a whole where we are turning our backs on the neediest who are all around us, particularly right here in oakland. Why do you believe that max harris was acquitted on all counts and daenl, you knerrick know, a hung jury . I dont know that the disparity of the evidence was so great between one or the other, but i can only tell you i think max harris is a well meaning, wonderful individual. I just spent the last six months with him sitting at counsel table and he is one of the most sensitive, thoughtful people i have ever met, and i dont know the answer, but i do know that he deserved what he got from this verdict. What is next for Derrick Almena . We return on october 4th for a trial date setting. When you talk about the loss of life and youre really distraught about it yourself, should Derrick Almena be held responsible for that . Many of the families believe he should. I understand that completely, and i think in a moral sense, he is responsible but whether legally he should be convicted of involuntary manslaughter, i dont know about that. Hes not a criminal. Hes not a criminal type. He never in his life has hurt anybody. Hes never done anything wrong to anyone. Hes never had a bad thought toward anyone, and he tried to put together this utopian society where people could come off the street and live among artists and he didnt have money for sprinklers. He didnt have money for fire extinguishers. He didnt have electric exit signs. He didnt have all the things that oakland code calls for, yes, thats true, so hes morally responsible, but he never meant for this to happen. He was he was thunder struck when it happened, and hes forever remorseful about the loss of life. And you talk, he has a wife and children as well. He has a wife and three children that are waiting to hear from me. Brian, you talked about october 4th for the trial date. Whats next, another trial, a different trial . When theres a mistrial as there has been here, then generally speaking the court sets a new trial date and i would anticipate that to happen. If it goes that far. Do you think it will . Well see. Youre really emotional about this, ryan. Blame the city, i hear that from you. I dont know that i blame any particular entity. I think the tragedy happened because of a combination of circumstances incompetence. I dont really think that its possible to identify one source, and i just dont know. Curtis. Someone else. So, brian gets very emotional there, Derrick Almenas attorney, and theres a lot discussed here. I mean, we have a lot of things going on. You have the ultimate sadness because of the loss of life. You have the family members who are grieving who were anticipating maybe a particular verdict and then they did not get that. We have one man who is free and thats max harris. The news that we just got on Derrick Almena is that there at least has been a date set and that is october 4th. Now, we need to get a real legal opinion on this as to whether we know for sure that theres going to be another full blown trial or whether the prosecution and the city has to decide, do we want to go through with another full trial and the other piece of information that we have is the 102 verdict. Yes. Ten of the jurors voting guilty for Derrick Almena and two saying not guilty, hence the deadlocked jury. And the hung jury. And the mistrial on his part. I just got the answer back to what you were asking about. All right. That october 4th date. From david lynn, who as you know was the prosecutor on the ghost ship case. He is now in private practice. I posed that question to him and he says that october 4th is a control date and so its a default, as we were conjecturing, its not like the d. A. Made this big announcement or anything saying were going to retry him. Its a control date. At that time, the d. A. Will announce whether or not they will retry the case or not. So they do have a little time here to decide which presumably will involve talking to the families. Sure. Who have been through so much already, right . And this d. A. Has included the family, every part of this process, including the rejection of the plea deal. So, that could be back on the table, actually. That is one option. Well, it becomes interesting when you look at a 102 decision and im sure some of the prosecution its just so sad when you look at the faces of the lives lost. I mean, thats the one thing that we we have to continue to emphasize is that no matter what happens with these two gentlemen that were tried, were never going to see those 36 people again and thats thats the ultimate sadness. Laura anthony is standing by now at the courthouse and you have been covering this case from day one, laura. Reporter yeah, hi, larry, and i was actually inside the courtroom for the reading of these verdicts, it was really quite a scene inside there. We got word just before noon that these verdicts were coming in or a verdict was coming in at 2 00. There was quite a rush to get outside the doors of the courtroom. Department nine on the fifth floor here. At 2 00, we were let in but only so many people could get in. First they let the family members, about three dozen, members of the media and a couple members, as far as i could tell, of the public. A few minutes after 2 00, the jury filed in, of course both defendants were there with their attorneys, and it was quite a strange scene when the judge asked for the verdict sheets from the foreman of the jury. He handed the clerk an envelope and it was handed to the judge and she was going through the sheets and of course theres 36 verdicts for each count for each defendant and you could tell as she was looking through those sheets that something wasnt quite right. Finally, she said, jurors, addressed them directly, and said, i have completed verdict sheets for one defendant but not for the other. To which there was a bit of a gasp in the courtroom because we were expecting to hear verdicts for both defendants. At that point, she sent the jury she accepted the verdicts for one of the defendants, didnt say who it was, sealed that envelope, and then sent the jury back into the deliberation room for a period of about 20 minutes and honestly, at that point, we didnt know what was going on, if they had a verdict on one but not the other, perhaps both, but didnt just fill the sheets out correctly, so then about 20 minutes later, about 2 20 by my count, the jury came back in with another envelope, handed it to the judge, and at that point, the clerk proceeded to read the verdicts. Max harris was the first one that was read because he is what they call the a defendant in the case. His name was first on the complaint. And of course when they read the first count, count one, not guilty, folks knew at that point that it was probably going to go that way for the remaining 35 counts and it did and it took about 12 minutes for the clerk to read all 36 pieces of paper. Theres a bit of language on there about what the charge is, not guilty, he read thedefeans that point, we saw the attorneys with max harris begin to cry. I could not see from my Vantage Point if max was crying. I could tell that some of the folks to my left who were the family members of the victims began to cry, several of them almost inconsolable as these not guilty verdicts were read one by one. Then they got to Derrick Almena, and and while they let max harris and his attorneys leave the courtroom and of course they were jubilant and of course the judge went on to Derrick Almena, we learned that the jury was deadlocked 102 in favor of guilt and the judge had a side bar with the attorneys and then declared a mistrial, saying that the jury appeared to be hopelessly deadlocked. Laura, did you see almenas family members . He lived there with his wife and three children. Were any of them there today and how did they react . Reporter kristen, no, they were not there. The only people i saw in support of the defendants were the row directly in front of me and i know from covering the trial that those are supporters of max harris, not family members. There have been family members here throughout the trial on and off, particularly an aunt and uncle who live up in the seattle area but today, we did not see them. The folks in the front row or the second row right in front of me were supporters of max harriss. To my knowledge, i did not see any family members of Derrick Almenas and we were told quite a while ago that his wife, in particular, Micah Allison was not going to come for the verdict, that it would be a bit too difficult for her and so shes choosing or she was stay away. The advice of the i think we have somebody at the podium rightno this iry. Thats Mary Alexander, the civil suit attorney. As you know, theres a civil suit that is still proceeding separate from the criminal trial in which the city is also named along with pg e and this is where max harris was talking about laying responsibility at the city. Lets go ahead and try to listen to what Mary Alexander has to say there as she appears to be getting ready. About to be paying close attention to the entire criminal trial as it will pertain to her case. Im Mary Alexander, the lead counsel in the civil case, and we want to complete the circle of justice that the families are disappointed in the verdicts today, the results of today. We look forward to proving the case against the city of oakland that failed the public, that failed the people who came into this building. The city knew, police knew, firemen knew that this place had People Living in it, that they were using it like a cabaret, that there were events that were happening, and they failed to stop it and to protect people and as a result, these 36 beautiful young people died. As well as proving our case against the inges, the owner of this building that had the duty, the nondellable duty, they didnt delegate it to harris and almena, duty to make this a Safe Building so that the people could get out in the fire and they didnt do it. They failed the public. And also against pg e who supplied electricity. There was testimony in this trial that it was electrical caused to the fire and that pg e failed to make this building safe and provide the safety that was required by law. So well have a trial in may and we look forward to proving the case. Some of the family members feel the results of today are because of the failure of the city and pg e and the inges and others to protect public and that thats where the fault lies. Thank you very much. Can i ask you a question . Do you think it hurts you at all in your civil case that the jury indicated that they we do not feel that the results of criminal case hurt our case in the civil trial at all. Because of the negligence and the uncaring and the disregard for the safety and health of the public by the city of oakland, by the building owner, by pg e. Thank you. Mary alexander and this is far from over because we still have to have a decision from the prosecution on whether theyre going to retry Derrick Almena and now theres going to be a whole other civil case in which you heard the attorney say they want the completion, the circle of justice there and theyre going to go after the city of oakland as well as pg e and the owners of the building, and no amount of money in a civil suit is going to bring back the 36 lives, but theyre going to pursue them and thats going to be another case that well be following, clearly. Yeah. Right now, lets turn things over to abc7 reporter le leah melendez. Reporter we were told that prosecutors would talk to the media after the verdict was heard and also after the jury was dismissed. Now we are being told they should be coming out shortly, that they needed time to talk to members of the jury. Now, once they come out, i will quietly step aside so we can hear what they have to say, their reaction to this verdict. Now, in the meantime, i want to recap a little bit about regarding the prosecutions state in all of this during this trial. Now, the prosecution, if you recall, in closing arguments, always mentioned that the two defendants did amount or what they did amounted to criminal negligence. They stated, if you remember, time and time again that the warehouse was converted, it was made unsafe. These Living Conditions, they reiterated were unsafe Living Conditions and that there was no regard for safety. There were a number of fire code violations. The 36 people inside, they said, inside that warehouse, the prosecution said did not have time to escape. Didnt know where the exits were. There were no sprinklers and no smoke detectors, no alarms, no si