Trial of Seller Ordered in Freak Firecracker Injury

A 22-year-old Van Nuys man has been ordered to stand trial on charges of mayhem and assault stemming from a June 29 incident in which a man’s lips were blown off when he tried to smoke a firecracker.

Van Nuys Municipal Judge Judith M. Ashmann ruled Thursday at a preliminary hearing that the district attorney’s office had presented enough evidence to hold Jay Edward Smith to answer to four felony charges in connection with the incident.

The victim, Francis Donnelly, 36, testified at the preliminary hearing that Smith sold him the firecracker for $5 and told him it was a drug that would help him sleep. Donnelly, an Irish immigrant, said that, at the time he received the device, he had just purchased half a gram of cocaine from Smith.

Donnelly alleged that Smith sold him the device and said, “Before you go to bed, light this. You get two hits off of this, and you’ll be sleepy.”

Unable to sleep, Donnelly went out to his car, retrieved the item and lighted it in bed, causing an explosion that blew off his lips and damaged several fingers.

“I didn’t know about fireworks,” Donnelly testified. “I never heard the word ‘firecracker.’ I didn’t know what it was. It looked like a candle.”

Smith’s attorney, James E. Blatt, disputed the notion that the three-inch-long device with a fuse could have been mistaken for a drug. Blatt blamed the incident on distorted thinking by Donnelly, who acknowledged in court that he had been smoking marijuana, using cocaine and drinking that night.

“Stupidity on Mr. Donnelly’s part is not an issue,” Blatt said. “Mr. Donnelly is a man of normal intelligence. Being from Northern Ireland, he has some knowledge of terrorist activities.

‘Country Bumpkin’ Comment

“That we are dealing with a country bumpkin just doesn’t hold water. Mr. Donnelly was aware of what he was doing.”

In Smith’s defense, Ernie Huerta, an acquaintance, testified that he was present when Donnelly purchased the firecracker and that Donnelly knew the device was an explosive.

Ashmann described the case as a first of its kind. Never before, she said, has a court attempted to hold one individual criminally liable for providing someone with an explosive device and instructing him to light it.

“This is a difficult case, intellectually, legally and factually,” Ashmann said. “Nothing precisely like this has ever occurred in the past.”

Ashmann ordered Smith to stand trial on charges of mayhem, assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, possession of cocaine and possession of dangerous fireworks.

One Charge Dismissed

Ashmann dismissed one additional charge against Smith--explosion causing mayhem, which carries a possible sentence of life imprisonment. That charge, Ashmann said, would require evidence that the suspect set off the firecracker himself or aided and abetted another suspect to light it, with the intention of harming Donnelly.

Blatt argued unsuccessfully that, because Smith did not light the firecracker, he could not be held responsible for the incident.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Cahill Peace asserted that Smith had criminal intentions and that his instruction to smoke the firecracker was the direct cause of Donnelly’s injury.

“Obviously, he didn’t know it was a firecracker, or he wouldn’t have put it in his mouth,” Peace said of Donnelly.

Smith remained in custody in lieu of $35,000 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Van Nuys Superior Court on Aug. 29. If convicted on the four counts, Smith could be sentenced to a maximum of seven years and four months.