Palisades Fire arson retrial opens Monday in federal court Play

The disorganized U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors in Los Angeles are going back to court Monday to try to get a conviction against the accused Palisades Fire arsonist.

Federal prosecutors will try a second time to convince a jury that Jonathan Rinderknecht set a New Year's Eve fire 21 months ago. That fire was supposedly put out by the L.A. City Fire Department, but there is evidence that the fire re-ignited into the disastrous Palisades Fire during hurricane-force winds. The eastern one-tenth of Malibu burned down.

Last summer, the jury did not buy the prosecutor's argument that Rinderknecht was responsible for the second fire because he set the first one.

Now the judge has indicated in the new trial she may not allow the new jurors to consider the evidence of whether the city of L.A. adequately put out the first fire. The trial judge did not allow that evidence to come in in the first trial. The judge says she will make a final decision on that key issue after the trial starts Monday.