On July 1, 2025, an illegal fireworks warehouse just south of Esparto, in rural Yolo County, exploded. The shaking could be felt as far as Davis, 20 miles away. The smoke plume could be seen for miles across the valley.  

The blast flattened or nearly destroyed roughly a dozen buildings, bending the warehouse’s steel frame nearly flat and leaving only the brick fireplace of a house on the property. It also ignited a 78-acre fire. But the most severe consequence was the death of seven employees, including two teenage boys, of the San Francisco-based company that ran the site.

The explosion involved approximately 1 million pounds of illegal fireworks stored in the warehouse and shipping containers.

In April, a grand jury indicted (opens in new tab) five people linked to the San Francisco company, Devastating Pyrotechnics, on seven counts of murder and felony conspiracy charges. Although the defendants were not on the property when the explosion happened and had not intended to kill anyone, prosecutors argued that they were criminally responsible for the deaths. 

But the prosecutors’ case could be thwarted by a recent state Supreme Court decision that clarified (opens in new tab) how local courts must interpret a 2018 law governing who can be found responsible for a murder they didn’t directly commit, according to attorneys for two defendants. The May 4 ruling (opens in new tab) in the People v. Richard Curtis Morris Jr. found that defendants accused of aiding or abetting murder must take part in the killing directly or exhibit a reckless disregard for life in order to be convicted of murder. 

“Morris is an earth-shattering case,” said Robert Gorman, who is representing one defendant. The opinion could represent a shift that will reverberate through courtrooms across California.

“The only way our guys can be convicted of murder, in my analysis of [the court’s decision in] Morris, is if my client is in that yard helping put together fireworks when the explosion occurred, and my guy survived,” said Gorman, whose client, Jack Lee, was 2,500 miles away when the explosion took place.

Before the 2018 state law changed the rules, it was possible to be charged with murder if you took part in an underlying violent felony that resulted in a death, even if you had no direct involvement in the killing.

San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Alex Lilien said charges under this theory of involvement were far too common. “In the past, they almost always throw in a felony murder case, because it’s easy,” he said. “They charge everyone who is involved. People were getting convicted as if they put a plastic bag over someone’s head and killed them.”

The law, SB 1437, narrowed who could be charged with murder as an aider or abettor. It required that a defendant who was not the killer could face murder charges only if they participated in the killing and acted with reckless disregard for human life.  

Since the law took effect in 2019, courts have been split on how to interpret it. Some judges have ruled that to be convicted of felony murder, a defendant has to merely help the killer commit the violent crime that led to murder. Others have determined that if you did not willfully help to commit the killing, you could not face murder charges.  

The state Supreme Court’s ruling should clarify that no one can be convicted of murder unless prosecutors can prove they directly helped in the killing or took part in an underlying felony, knowing that it could result in death.  

“In cases not tried yet, people are gonna be coming in saying unless you have evidence that I was directly involved in bombing this, I can’t be held responsible for the murder or whatever happened there,” said San Francisco defense attorney Michael Burt, who is representing the man who allegedly killed Charlie Kirk.

San Mateo County Assistant District Attorney Morris Maya, who cautioned that he is not familiar with the specifics of the Yolo case, concurred, saying that the ruling “could create a real obstacle, depending on their theory of the case.” Still, Maya said that if prosecutors can prove that the defendants were warned that their facility presented a danger to life and did nothing, they could argue that the men acted in reckless disregard for life and should be charged with murder.

“That would seemingly be the theory here,” Michael Vitello, a law professor at McGeorge School of Law, told Capital Public Radio (opens in new tab). “A million pounds of explosives. … [In] the indictment there will be allegations that it was improperly maintained.”

But another defense attorney in the case, Douglas Horngrad, who is representing the facility’s owner, Kenneth Chee (opens in new tab), argued that the state Supreme Court’s decision has cut off that avenue for the prosecution. 

“This ruling supports the defense’s position, in Mr. Chee’s case, that there is an insufficient showing to support a felony murder charge,” Horngrad said in a statement. 

The Yolo County district attorney’s office declined to comment. Attorneys for the remaining defendants did not respond to requests for comment. 

In a similar case, in which a woman was killed in a narcotics explosion in San Francisco, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins charged Darron Price (opens in new tab), who was alleged to be operating an illegal drug lab, with involuntary manslaughter, not murder. 

If any of the defense attorneys file a motion requesting that the most serious charges be dismissed, the DA could file involuntary manslaughter charges, as the case is within the statute of limitations, according to Maya. If so, the defendants would face far less prison time. 

“There’s no denying that the severity of the penalty would go down significantly,” he said.