Appeal denied for man who blew off own fingers

A state court has upheld the maximum three-year-prison sentence given to a Linda man who was convicted of manufacturing an incendiary device after blowing off some of his fingers while making a "firecracker."

When Jeremy Cole York was arrested in March 2008, a Yuba County Sheriff's Department detective called the device "essentially a homemade grenade."

York appealed his Yuba County Superior Court conviction, saying the court did not "expressly consider" mitigating factors.

Previous probation department reports on York, who has numerous adult convictions, mentioned only one mitigating factor — that York admitted wrongdoing early in court proceedings, the 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled March 3.

York was on probation when he blew off his fingers, and his prior performance on probation was unsatisfactory, the court ruled.

The explosion occurred about 5:30 a.m. on a Sunday in a shed outside York's residence in the 700 block of Sycamore Avenue in Linda.

York's friends called 911. Deputies found parts of his left thumb and forefinger but they were too badly damaged to be reattached.

Detective Mike Williamson, now retired, called York lucky to be alive. A well-placed piece of shrapnel easily could have killed York, he said.

The device was described as a metal casing filled with gunpowder.

Deputies obtained a search warrant and found several ounces of gunpowder, a detonation cord, a timer fuse and a "shock tube" in the house. A license from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms — York didn't have one — is needed to possess shock tubing, which is placed inside a bomb to ignite gunpowder.

Deputies also found 6 grams of methamphetamine.