A jury worked Thursday to determine today if a German national convicted of setting more than 40 fires in less than a week in Hollywood, West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley was sane when he committed the crimes.
The Los Angeles Superior Court jury, which was handed the case Wednesday in the sanity phase of the trial, is being asked to determine whether Harry Burkhart, 29, was sane or insane at the time of the crimes in late December 2011 and early 2012. The jurors are due back in court this morning to continue their deliberations. An attorney for Burkhart urged the jurors Wednesday to consider his client’s medical records showing a lengthy history of mental illness, while a prosecutor countered that the defendant knew what he was doing was legally and morally wrong.
On Sept. 1, the six-man, six-woman panel convicted Burkhart of 25 counts of arson of property, 18 counts of arson of an inhabited dwelling and two counts each of possession of an incendiary device, attempted arson and arson of a structure.
Most of the blazes were started under vehicles parked in carports or near homes, but one vehicle was set on fire Dec. 30 in the parking lot of a shopping center in Hollywood and another at a complex nearby on New Year’s Eve.
In his closing argument in the latest phase of the trial, defense attorney Steve Schoenfield told jurors that Burkhart is “profoundly mentally impaired,” “seriously mentally ill” and has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
“I ask you to find him legally insane at the time he committed these arsons,” Burkhart’s attorney said, telling the panel that medical records gathered from doctors from as far away as Germany demonstrate “symptoms of mental illness Harry exhibited over many years.”
The defense attorney said the medical records are “proof of a serious mental disease…” He said his client believed his separation from his mother following her arrest in the United States in connection with a criminal case in Germany meant the world was coming to an end.
In his closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Sean Carney said, “Harry Burkhart came like a thief in the night. He came 51 times … He came to burn … He wanted the effect of terrorizing the city.”
Carney told jurors repeatedly that the evidence shows that Burkhart knew what he was doing was legally and morally wrong, and that he had taken “extensive steps to avoid being caught by the police.”
He planned to “inflict fear and fire on Los Angeles” and was “able to start and stop at times of his choosing” after becoming angry that his mother had been arrested, Carney said.
The prosecutor said it was fair to question the medical records, including a set in which Burkhart reported delusional symptoms three days after he was kicked out of Canada, where his mother had been seeking asylum for them.
The defense has the burden of proof in the sanity phase of trial, with jurors being asked to determine if there is a preponderance of the evidence — rather than the greater standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt required in the guilt phase of the trial — to show that he was legally insane when he committed the crimes.
Burkhart, who has been listening to the proceedings through a German- language interpreter, has repeatedly objected outside the jury’s presence to how his trial is progressing. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli has told him on several occasions that he will have the right to appeal his conviction.
Burkhart, who has remained jailed since his arrest, could face nearly 89 years in state prison if jurors find that he was sane at the time of the crimes, or to a state mental hospital if he is found to have been insane.
—City News Service