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Transient gets prison for detonating explosive Justin William Keaton Friday Dec 29, 2017 at 3:21 PM Dec 29, 2017 at 3:21 PM Nick Morgan Mail Tribune @mtcrimebeat A man with a lengthy criminal history was sentenced to five years in prison Friday after admitting he made and detonated an explosive near a popular Medford shopping area. Justin William Keaton, 35, was sentenced to prison in Jackson County Circuit Court after pleading guilty to a felony count of unlawfully manufacturing a destructive device, admitting he made an explosive by filling a pipe with smokeless powder and sealing it with mud before detonating it in a field near the North Medford Fred Meyer midday Nov. 7. Citing 138 prior arrests and 37 arrests since 2014 for violating his parole on a prior attempted arson conviction, Deputy District Attorney Nick Geil sought an enhanced 60-month prison sentence. "I believe it's important to keep him incarcerated as long as possible," Geil said. Paul Moser, Keaton's court-appointed defense lawyer, sought leniency and opportunities for his client to address mental health issues, arguing that his client was in a "bad state mentally" and wasn't near other people or property when he detonated the explosive. Moser also argued that the explosive wasn't used in a larger crime and "isn't a malicious act." Because the metal pipe was sealed with dirt and rocks, risks of shrapnel were lower than more typical pipe bombs. He called the explosive an "ill-conceived device." "This is something between a firecracker and an M-80," Moser said. "This would have to be very close to people or property to cause any damage." Medford police arrested Keaton within minutes after a large explosion was reported at 12:44 p.m. Nov. 7, according to previous news reports. A witness spotted Keaton packing the pipe near the Fred Meyer parking lot and fleeing on a bicycle. When police found him near the Ramada Inn, a search of his backpack yielded several feet of fuse and two more canisters of smokeless gunpowder. Keaton previously spent 50½ months for attempted first-degree arson for starting the fire that destroyed a historic Eagle Point building in 2009, according to court records and previous news reports. The building, which housed the original Ed's Oasis tavern, had been in the Dahack family for 90 years. Moser said that after Keaton was released from prison, his client stopped taking his mental health medication "with predictable results." Moser said he'd seen a "marked improvement" in his client in the two months since Keaton has been taking prescribed lithium. Circuit Judge Tim Barnack sided with Geil at sentencing, saying Keaton's criminal history spanning nearly three decades was too long to ignore. Barnack said leniency would be unfair to the community after spending about half a minute reading off cases from Keaton's past beginning in 1990 to the early 2000s. "It's not that I personally don't care for you. It's that you're way too dangerous," Barnack said. Outside the courtroom, Geil said that Keaton was at the very highest sentencing category, gridblock A, meaning his criminal history has the equivalent of three felony "person crimes" such as assault. People with no criminal history start at gridblock I, and Geil said it's rare to see criminals above the "E" level. "He's pretty prolific," Geil said. "That's why we have prisons to protect us." — Reach reporter Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MTCrimeBeat.