Mistrial declared after jury deadlocks in arson trial over deadly 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The man accused of sparking last year's deadly Palisades Fire will be tried again this fall after his first federal arson case ended in a mistrial Friday.

Ten of the 12 jurors insisted Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, is innocent. Judge Anne Hwang quickly set an Oct. 19 retrial date and ordered him jailed until then.

Rinderknecht has pleaded not guilty to starting one of the most destructive wildfires in California history, and feels encouraged that so many of the jurors “resoundingly found that the government’s case was not strong, and they did not have enough evidence to convict him,” defense attorney Steve Haney said.

But First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said they have strong evidence and will seek a guilty verdict in a new trial.

Prosecutors said Rinderknecht used a barbecue lighter on Jan. 1, 2025 to spark a blaze that burned undetected deep in root systems before flaring back up Jan. 7 and killing 12 people as it incinerated entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Malibu. Only 17 rebuilt homes in Pacific Palisades have been certified for occupancy since then.

Prosecutors never provided direct evidence that Rinderknecht started the earlier blaze. They showed jurors he was in the area when it began and presented a digital trail to indicate he was motivated by a desire to take revenge on society.

His defense said fireworks were the likely cause and that investigators had zeroed in too quickly on Rinderknecht without clear proof.

“This is a big victory, and it feels so unfair that, given the circumstances, the government maintains my son in jail,” said his father, Joel Rinderknecht.

The trial featured a trove of digital records and eight days of testimony from investigators, experts and witnesses.

Security camera recordings helped determine where the Jan. 1 fire is believed to have started: a mountainside spot off a trail in a neighborhood familiar to Rinderknecht. He dropped off his last Uber passenger in the same neighborhood, shortly before midnight, and later called 911 more than a dozen times. His phone’s geolocation data showed him at the clearing and walking down the trail as he reported the fire.

Jurors saw records from his phone, email, Uber, social media accounts and OpenAI. Thousands of comments showed he regularly consulted ChatGPT.

“Why am I so angry all the time?” he said in one exchange.

Rinderknecht inquired about Luigi Mangione, who was charged with the murder of United Healthcare’s CEO, and on Reddit he searched “lets kill all the billionaires.” He looked up the address of DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, asking if he had children or surveillance cameras at home.

He vented about his rejection by a woman he contacted to see if she had New Year’s Eve plans. When she turned him down, he sent her angry and vile messages from another phone.

Rinderknecht also recorded videos of firefighters battling the blaze, pausing to ask ChatGPT if someone would be responsible for a fire accidentally started by a cigarette. And he screen-recorded both the 911 calls and his ChatGPT prompt, which prosecutors said showed he was trying to mislead investigators.

On January 6, a day before powerful Santa Ana winds rekindled smoldering roots into a conflagration, he recorded a selfie video saying he was having a mental breakdown.

Rinderknecht also spoke for roughly eight hours with a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent in late January, before he was a suspect.

ATF agent Matthew Beals drove with him to the site, so that Rinderknecht could identify his movements as the fire started — an account that conflicted with the place and time of his 911 calls, the agent testified.

Rinderknecht became “agitated” when asked for details, at one point accusing Beals of interrogating him as a suspect, the agent said. He repeatedly expressed dismay about political matters, and speculated that someone frustrated by inequality might hypothetically start a fire in the wealthy neighborhood.

All such behavior is consistent with that of a “societal revenge motivated” arsonist, testified Kevin Kelm, an expert in arsonist behavior.

Haney said investigators never found any searches about arson, the best way to start a fire, or purchases of fire-starting materials. And while his DNA was found on a barbecue lighter in his car, they couldn’t prove a lighter sparked the blaze — only that it began with an “open flame,” he said.

Fireworks were the most likely cause that New Year’s Eve, the defense argued. One firefighter recalled hearing fireworks in the area shortly before and after midnight. And two residents and a security guard testified they either saw flashes of light or heard fireworks. Two saw a group of teenagers running down the trail afterward.

Former LA fire investigator Ed Nordskog accused the investigators of confirmation bias, noting that he often responded to dozens of fires on New Year’s Eve, most of them started by fireworks.

“They’re choosing to look at information in a very sinister way when they should be a little more open about it,” Nordskog said.

Defense witnesses also noted that the fire scene could have been compromised because access was not closed off until Jan. 14, nearly two weeks after the first blaze started.

“Can you convict a man based on a crime scene that was destroyed? Stripped of all evidence? Evidence that could’ve proved his innocence?” Haney asked jurors during closing arguments.

Juror No. 4, who identified herself as Syrena and wouldn’t share her last name, said she voted not-guilty.

“There’s just not enough proof,” she said. And even if he did start the Jan. 1 fire, she said he shouldn’t be considered responsible for the entire disaster given the negligence of other parties.

“Shouldn’t the firemen, shouldn’t they have known?” she said.

Rinderknecht’s attorney wanted to argue that the Los Angeles Fire Department had been negligent, but the judge ruled he couldn’t make that case in court.

Juror No. 4 said there wasn’t enough evidence to make her believe the prosecution’s assertion that Rinderknecht was alone in the area before it started.

As for his use of ChatGPT, she said he was “just being human” that that she talks to ChatGPT frequently as well.

“It made me angry that they were putting his character down,” she said.

Associated Press reporter Safiyah Riddle contributed to this report.

Steve Haney, attorney for Jonathan Rinderknecht, speaks outside federal court after a federal judge declared a mistrial in the arson case against Rinderknecht, who is accused of sparking the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire, on Friday, June 26, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/William Liang)

Syrena, a member of the jury speaks outside federal court after a federal judge declared a mistrial in the arson case against the man accused of sparking the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire, Friday June 26, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/William Liang)

Steve Haney, attorney for Jonathan Rinderknecht, leaves after speaking at a news conference outside federal court Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/William Liang)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is handing down major opinions at a rapid clip, but even with some of the biggest decisions yet to come, there are signs of tension as the justices near the end of the term.

A misunderstanding led to a highly unusual exchange for the restrained and traditional atmosphere after the nation’s highest court took the bench Thursday to hand down their decisions. Those rulings included two major immigration wins for President Donald Trump.

After conservative Justice Samuel Alito finished his reading of the majority’s ruling limiting how people can seek asylum at the southern border, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke up to read from her biting dissent.

She traced the difficult journey many asylum seekers face and outlined a painful chapter in the country’s history: When the U.S. and other countries turned back a ship full of Jewish refugees attempting to flee persecution in Nazi Germany in 1939. About 250 of those passengers later died in the Holocaust.

Sotomayor, the first Latina justice, said the majority’s opinion would allow the Trump administration to block people from applying for asylum at the border, which would result in more deaths. The decision “regrettably and tragically extinguishes the light of the torch of the Statue of Liberty.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh watched her intently as she spoke, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson looked straight ahead.

Majority opinions are always read from the bench and dissenters can speak up as well to underscore their objections, which typically happens in few cases every term. Additional rulings are expected on Monday.

Sotomayor’s spoken dissent, however, appeared to be a surprise for Alito. In a very rare move, he spoke off the cuff. He sounded surprised and frustrated, saying he would have added more detail to his summary if he'd known about plans to speak.

The confusion turned out to be a misunderstanding on Alito's part; Sotomayor's chambers had passed along word of her plan.

For the conservative majority, the case was about whether the law allows border officials can delay asylum seekers’ entry into the U.S. “until they can be processed in a safe and orderly way," not about the wisdom of the policy itself.

Out loud, Alito defended his opinion by noting that the policy at the center of the case had been used under both the Obama and Trump administrations. “I won’t add anything more to that,” he said.

The exchange comes during the court's busiest time of the year, as the justices prepare to release opinions next week on some of the biggest issues of the term, and Trump’s presidency so far. Those include his push to restrict birthright citizenship and expand the president’s power to fire board members at independent agencies.

Supreme Court justices have spoken publicly about their cordial working relationships and regular lunches as a group where they set aside cases to talk and share each other's company. And while there are ideological splits between the court's conservative majority and its liberal wing, they also decide many cases unanimously, including one this month about the Second Amendment rights of marijuana users.

Still, it isn’t the first time unusual tensions have surfaced this term. Sotomayor issued a rare public apology in April to another justice, Brett Kavanaugh, for what she termed “hurtful comments.” She had said during a law school talk that a colleague “probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”

In another public appearance in March, Kavanaugh and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sparred over the many emergency orders the court had issued allowing Trump to move ahead with key parts of his agenda.

This combination photo shows Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Sept 16, 2024, in New York, left, and Justice Samuel Alito in Rome, Sept. 20, 2025. (AP Photo)