Jury reaches verdict in killing of Kate Steinle on Pier 14 in San Francisco

[gerrycaruso]

Divide the state into north and south. Keep North California and give South California and all it's looney inhabitants to Mexico.

 

[wahsben]

Politicians and other govt. officials that support sanctuary cities and illegal immigration should be charged as accessories to the crime.

 

[kevin9]

The perp's immigration status should have had nothing to do with the decision either way. Legal or illegal immigrant, the only question is whether he deliberately shot at the victim (1st deg. murder), deliberately fired the gun though not knowingly at the victim (2nd or 3rd deg. murder), or was negligent in handling the gun such that it discharged (4th deg. murder). I could see 3rd degree, maybe even 4th, but I have no idea how a jury could let him go entirely WRT manslaughter charges. I wonder if the DA's office felt pushed into prosecuting the perp, and deliberately pursued an all or nothing strategy, knowing it would likely fail.

 

[GM-GUY]

That wouldn’t surprise me at all - focus on 1st and brush off the rest. Liberals would rather you be killed than offend a minority or immigrant.

 

[rsj]

The perp's immigration status should have had nothing to do with the decision either way. Legal or illegal immigrant, the only question is whether he deliberately shot at the victim (1st deg. murder), deliberately fired the gun though not knowingly at the victim (2nd or 3rd deg. murder), or was negligent in handling the gun such that it discharged (4th deg. murder). I could see 3rd degree, maybe even 4th, but I have no idea how a jury could let him go entirely WRT manslaughter charges. I wonder if the DA's office felt pushed into prosecuting the perp, and deliberately pursued an all or nothing strategy, knowing it would likely fail.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Kate-Steinle-murder-trial-How-the-12399543.php
Kate Steinle murder trial: How the prosecution’s case fell apart

The prosecutor was [San Francisco Deputy District Attorney] Diana Garcia. To put the defendant in prison she only had to charge him with involuntary manslaughter.

They could convict on first-degree or premeditated murder. They could opt for second-degree murder, requiring a finding that Garcia Zarate either intended to kill Steinle or intentionally committed a dangerous act with conscious disregard for human life. Or they could choose involuntary manslaughter, which would require a finding that Garcia Zarate caused Steinle’s death with an unlawful, negligent act.

Obviously proving he intended to kill Kate would be impossible. The defense counsel argued he did not know what he was doing when he picked up the gun and fired it, which is admitting to involuntary manslaughter.

Throughout the trial, attorney Matt Gonzalez of the public defender’s office sought to characterize the ricochet as proof that Steinle’s death had been a tragic accident that befell a hapless man.

The law on circumstantial evidence further down the article would only be relevant if he had intended to murder someone (see how the article is written to confuse the readers?). Again, he was not charged with involuntary manslaughter- the charge that would have put him in prison given the evidence presented to the jury.

Garcia spent most of the trial laying the groundwork for a second-degree murder charge, but in her closing remarks, she introduced a possible motive in a bid for first-degree murder, saying Garcia Zarate ...

So there you have it. The SF DDA never charged him with involuntary manslaughter. You can give her (and SF, and California whom she works for directly) the benefit of the doubt, but it is obvious the prosecutor purposely fumbled the case so as to let the 5x illegal immigrant walk on a negligent homicide. Don't look at the prosecutor- look at her employers: the Sanctuary City in the Sanctuary State.

Case closed.

 

[kmanick]

isn't there any way Steinles parents could bring charges against the mayor of San Fran as an accessory?
there has to be something they can do to that mayor and Jerry Brown, their policies enabled the
situation that caused their daughters death.
these Sanctuary city Mayors need to start being held responsible for offences against US citizens by the illegals they are sheltering, there's got to be some legal precedent that can be invoked.

 

[kevin9]

From what I read in the article, the jury had the option of convicting on involuntary manslaughter, which is as expected. given it is a lesser included offense for murder, but the prosecutor apparently did not pursue that option as a fall-back during the trial or closing arguments, instead choosing to push murder or nothing. Poor prosecutor, stupid jury.

 

[SpaceCritter]

Diana Garcia. Well hoochie and possibly even coochie.

 

[wahsben]

From what I read in the article, the jury had the option of convicting on involuntary manslaughter, which is as expected. given it is a lesser included offense for murder, but the prosecutor apparently did not pursue that option as a fall-back during the trial or closing arguments, instead choosing to push murder or nothing. Poor prosecutor, stupid jury.

Being that this was in SF it's possible that the prosecutor was just doing what they were told or expected to do.

 

[drgrant]

Well, to start, you had a jury that was composed of 12 people who were too stupid to get out of jury dity.

Add to that gross overreach (the DA went hard for premeditated murder in a case where the victim was hit by a ricochet at a fair distance from the shooter) which likely meant that the prosecution only stressed the premeditation point in the summation, and the jury may never have even considered what comprised involuntary manslaughter. There was also much fog about the "4.4 lb hair trigger" on the gun, which could also skew the thought processes of a jury unfamiliar with firearms.

When I read up on this that's the first thing I thought- "They tried to "overprosecute" this guy, had they gone for manslaughter or something like that, it would have been an easier sell.

ETA: It's not that I don't think the guy is a large type piece of shit, but there's a judicial reality in play here, and usually when prosecutors try to go full retard without having their ducks in a row, stuff like this happens...

-Mike

 

[gamma19]

I'm of the opinion that the DA overcharged on purpose knowing full well what the end result would be. I don't believe for a second that an experienced prosecutor would believe the circumstances of this case fit the requirements for a murder charge. Very likely one of the liberal looney higher ups told her, "if you want to keep your job..."

 

[ISOTOX]

One can only hope that when he tries to come back over the boarder for the tenth time he is shot in the back of the head....Oh ya right the moon bats already have him in a safe house hiding him from ICE.

 

[Mark L]

My wife has been looking at a February conference in SF as part of her Continuing Ed for her license. Not anymore ...

 

[BBQ.Uncle]

Being that this was in SF it's possible that the prosecutor was just doing what they were told or expected to do.

Ding. Winner. This was freaking cooked from the start. Corrupt & sympathetic prosecutor, ditto for the defense. Jury with an IQ of a potato and equally as open to the idea of disregarding our laws as the mouthpieces & pols. Screw them all. SF deserves whatever happens to it. God help the Steinle family and may that girl rest in peace, if possible.

 

[Picton]

isn't there any way Steinles parents could bring charges against the mayor of San Fran as an accessory?
there has to be something they can do to that mayor and Jerry Brown, their policies enabled the
situation that caused their daughters death.
these Sanctuary city Mayors need to start being held responsible for offences against US citizens by the illegals they are sheltering, there's got to be some legal precedent that can be invoked.

That’s just not how the law works. You don’t get to prosecute public officials just because you disagree with their decisions. You can sue them, but good luck with that.

Remember, too, that the perp’s immigration status wasn’t an issue at trial. The prosecutor lost that battle before the trial even began. So none of your ideas matter.

Sometimes, the system just doesn’t work. It probably beats any other nations’ criminal justice system, but that’s not saying much.

 

[SpaceCritter]

"Sometimes, the system just doesn’t work. It probably beats any other nations’ criminal justice system, but that’s not saying much."

Yes, the CORRECT solution is coming up with a way of ejecting states like California (or Massachusetts or Connecticut) from the union. A divorce is in order. Ideally without violence.[/QUOTE]

 

[Individualist]

I'm of the opinion that the DA overcharged on purpose knowing full well what the end result would be. I don't believe for a second that an experienced prosecutor would believe the circumstances of this case fit the requirements for a murder charge. Very likely one of the liberal looney higher ups told her, "if you want to keep your job..."

Exactly

 

[wahsben]

That’s just not how the law works. You don’t get to prosecute public officials just because you disagree with their decisions. You can sue them, but good luck with that.

Remember, too, that the perp’s immigration status wasn’t an issue at trial. The prosecutor lost that battle before the trial even began. So none of your ideas matter.

Sometimes, the system just doesn’t work. It probably beats any other nations’ criminal justice system, but that’s not saying much.

Aren't the public officials in violation of immigration law by supporting sanctuary cities? If so they should be held accountable and prosecuted since their decisions are in violation of the law.

 

[Picton]

Aren't the public officials in violation of immigration law by supporting sanctuary cities? If so they should be held accountable and prosecuted since their decisions are in violation of the law.

If it was that simple, then surely the Trump Justice Department would have put them in jail by now.

No? Thought not.

 

[wahsben]

If it was that simple, then surely the Trump Justice Department would have put them in jail by now.

No? Thought not.

I'm pretty sure the Trump justice dept. still is saddled with leftovers from BO's administration. When Trump does try to enforce immigration laws there are judges that block him. The corruption in govt. runs very deep.

 

[Roy Rogers]

Analysis by Heather Mac Donald in Manhattan Institute's City Journal, https://www.city-journal.org/html/san-francisco’s-shame-15590.html.

eye on the news
San Francisco’s Shame
An illegal-alien killer is set free in a mockery of the rule of law.
Heather Mac Donald
December 1, 2017
Politics and law

Advocates for illegal immigrants are unrepentant after yesterday’s shocking acquittal on all homicide charges of an illegal-alien confessed killer. The advocates are defending the sanctuary policies that had set in motion the 2015 killing in San Francisco; they have also doubled down on their opposition to any deportation of illegal aliens, criminal or otherwise. If ever there were a clarifying moment regarding what is at stake in the battle for the immigration rule of law, this is it.

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was a poster boy not just for the folly of sanctuary policies but also for the mass low-skilled Hispanic immigration that has transformed California. A barely literate drug dealer from Mexico with a second-grade education, no English, and a penchant for criminal aliases, Garcia Zarate had been deported five times by federal immigration authorities following convictions for various crimes.

Despite his record, Garcia Zarate was the sort of immigrant that the San Francisco authorities apparently believed that this country needs. Having completed a federal sentence in March 2015 for his sixth felonious reentry into the country, Garcia Zarate had been sent to the San Francisco County Jail to serve time for a marijuana charge from which he had absconded two decades ago. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested that when the San Francisco sheriff released Garcia Zarate after his drug sentence, the sheriff would notify ICE so that the federal agents could pick him up for his sixth deportation. The sheriff, Ross Mirkarimi, ignored the marijuana charge and, most crucially, the ICE detainer request as well, instead freeing Garcia Zarate back into San Francisco’s streets before ICE could pick him up. This release followed the city’s sanctuary policy, which forbade local law enforcement authorities from cooperating with their federal counterparts in ICE: local authorities may not notify ICE of a criminal illegal alien’s release date or hold that criminal alien for ICE to pick-up.

Four months after Mirkarimi sent Garcia Zarate back into San Francisco’s illegal alien subculture, the felon picked up a gun on the Embarcadero and fatally shot Kate Steinle, 32, in the heart. He then tossed the gun into the San Francisco Bay and ran off. The drug dealer changed his story several times during police interrogation, first saying that he had been aiming at a sea lion, then claiming that he didn’t even know that he was handling a gun. The gun had been stolen from the parked car of a federal law enforcement agent four days earlier; Garcia Zarate’s story at trial was that he had picked up a rag with the gun hidden within it and that the gun had accidentally discharged. To no avail, the prosecutor contested Garcia Zarate’s claim that the pistol used in the crime, a Sig Sauer P239, could be fired without the trigger being deliberately pulled.

Donald Trump turned the Steinle case into a powerful rallying cry for immigration enforcement during his presidential run. The illegal-alien lobby, by contrast, denied that San Francisco’s sanctuary policy had anything to do with the killing. California even strengthened its status as an immigration scofflaw after the Steinle homicide. This October, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 54, the California Values Act, which turns the entire state into an immigration-enforcement-free haven for all but the most heinous illegal-alien criminals. (Brown has been assiduously silent on the Garcia Zarate acquittal.) San Francisco imperceptibly tweaked its local sanctuary policy following the killing; today, it would again release Garcia Zarate if asked under the same conditions to hold him for ICE custody.

According to Garcia Zarate’s attorneys and other illegal-alien advocates, the only blame in this case belongs to Donald Trump and anyone who wants to enforce the immigration laws. “From day one, this case was used as a means to foment hate, to foment division and to foment a program of mass deportation,” public defender Francisco Ugarte said. Ugarte manages the immigration unit at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, where he advises criminal illegal aliens on how to avoid deportation for their crimes. “Nothing about Mr. Garcia Zarate’s ethnicity, nothing about his immigration status, nothing about the fact that he is born in Mexico had any relevance as to what happened on July 1, 2015,” Ugarte said. Actually, the case is almost exclusively about immigration policy; had this country had the ability to protect its borders and deport illegal alien criminals, Garcia Zarate would not have been sunning himself on the Embarcadero on July 1, 2015, but would have been back in Mexico.

But just because Garcia Zarate was acquitted on all homicide and assault charges (the jury, which contained three immigrants, found him guilty only of illegal gun possession) doesn’t mean that all is well for illegal alien criminals in the Golden Sanctuary State. The people we should really be concerned for now, according to former San Francisco Supervisor David Campos, are illegal aliens themselves. “I’m afraid the immigrant community is going to be made to pay for something that the jury decided appears to be a very tragic accident,” said Campos, now chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party. Trump and pro-enforcement forces would react to the verdict by “ramping up their rhetoric.”True to form, a sitting San Francisco supervisor turned the case into a gun control matter. “I always thought this is not an immigration issue, as Trump made it out to be— this is a gun management issue,” said Sandra Lee Fewer. “A car is not a safe and secure place to keep a gun, knowing the amount of car break-ins we have in San Francisco.” Now why might San Francisco have so many car break-ins? Because of California’s Proposition 47, which forbids prison sentences for most thefts, and which has led to a sharp increase in property crimes. But Supervisor Fewer treats car thefts as a fact of nature—like illegal immigration—that society has no power to quell.

California’s once-unrivalled status as the country’s most educated state has long since disintegrated under the waves of low-skilled, low-social-capital Mexican and Central American immigrants. Now, California's K-12 system rivals Mississippi and Alabama as an education backwater. The state’s school-age population, now majority Hispanic, lacks competitive linguistic and math skills. (Of course, defense counsel conducted part of their post-verdict press conference in Spanish, oblivious to the symbolism.) California is becoming another Brazil, divided between fabulously wealthy elites hunkered down in their own coastal sanctuaries, and a poor, Third World population. Before the rest of the country ends up in the same situation, the immigration policies that gave rise to the Steinle homicide must change. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been conducting a largely unheralded effort to end sanctuary jurisdictions, but the illegal-alien lawyer’s lobby has fought him at every turn.

Sessions’s efforts would be immensely aided if Congress finally passed the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act sponsored by Virginia congressman Bob Goodlatte. That bill would clarify ICE’s authority to enforce federal detainer requests and would confirm the attorney general’s authority to withhold federal funding from scofflaw jurisdictions. Most importantly, it would allow both the federal government and victims of sanctuary policies to sue sanctuary governments. The Steinle family had sued San Francisco and former sheriff Ross Mirkarimi in 2016 for their failure to notify ICE of Garcia Zarate’s release, but a federal judge threw out the case earlier this year. The Goodlatte bill would have allowed their suit to proceed. The passage of “Kate’s Law,” which lengthens the federal sentences for felonious reentry following deportation, is less urgent.

While building a border wall is an important part of a sound immigration policy, preserving the rule of law inside the country is even more important. The advocates’ agenda is clear: they want to stop all deportations and in so doing eviscerate our sovereignty once and for all. Their ultimate aim is to transform the country culturally and demographically. Sanctuary policies are one of their most powerful weapons in that crusade.

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of the New York Times bestseller The War on Cops.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

 

[Picton]

I'm pretty sure the Trump justice dept. still is saddled with leftovers from BO's administration. When Trump does try to enforce immigration laws there are judges that block him. The corruption in govt. runs very deep.

Exactly.

In other words, that’s not the way the law works. And it’s not as simple as you’d like it to be.

I still blame the prosecutor.

 

[wahsben]

Exactly.

In other words, that’s not the way the law works. And it’s not as simple as you’d like it to be.

I still blame the prosecutor.

I don't want it to be simple, I want it to be enforced fairly and evenly and yes I agree the prosecutor is at least partly if not mostly to blame but they were probably doing what they felt they had to or what they were directed to do.

 

[nstassel]

I have heard reports that the defendant fired one shot that hit the pier and then traveled 100 feet to hit the victim. If that's true it does suggest that it was purely an accident. If he fired three shots, then his intention would be more clear.

 

[drgrant]

I have heard reports that the defendant fired one shot that hit the pier and then traveled 100 feet to hit the victim. If that's true it does suggest that it was purely an accident. If he fired three shots, then his intention would be more clear.

I'm of the opinion that the DA overcharged on purpose knowing full well what the end result would be. I don't believe for a second that an experienced prosecutor would believe the circumstances of this case fit the requirements for a murder charge. Very likely one of the liberal looney higher ups told her, "if you want to keep your job..."

Reading into this more, this looks more and more like an "intentionally engineered failure" by the prosecution. They could have
wrote this guy up on involuntary manslaughter and a laundry list of other garbage that would have been an easier sell.

Of course the happy fun ball about the whole immigration thing is, this guy is a multiple border hopper type... so what the f**k good is
deporting someone like that going to do? Isn't he just going to come back?

This raises another problem, even if you stiffen up the policy, "deporting" them seems to do very little good.

-Mike

 

[MachineHead]

Separate the wheat from the chaff. This would show you who patriots are and who the globalists in America are.

After Steinle verdict, rep unveils bill to imprison officials who shelter illegal immigrants

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...officials-who-shelter-illegal-immigrants.html

 

[StevieP]

A white cop (anyone, really) shoots or harms a black person, and there are riots. Shit changes. Black folks turn out in numbers, block traffic, set cars on fire, etc.

This piece of shit shoots and kills an innocent woman, and we just sit here on-line and complain to each other.

Why aren't there protests/riots in San Francisco and other places to affect change? Is Trump the only one trying anything? WTF?

 

[Dadstoys]

A white cop (anyone, really) shoots or harms a black person, and there are riots. Shit changes. Black folks turn out in numbers, block traffic, set cars on fire, etc.

This piece of shit shoots and kills an innocent woman, and we just sit here on-line and complain to each other.

Why aren't there protests/riots in San Francisco and other places to affect change? Is Trump the only one trying anything? WTF?

People working two jobs just to trying and pay for health insurance for their families don't have a lot of spare time.
Protests don't do shit.
Finding this POS filleted like a cod would send a message.

 

[Bonesinium]

Someone mentioned this case in another thread and it got me curious. After doing some reading about it, the trial indeed was a shitshow. But in the opposite manner I (and many others) thought.

The fact he was acquitted is actually very surprising, because it was the prosecution who was allowed to do whatever they wanted and the defense that was hamstrung.

There were so many violations and errors in law by the judge and prosecution that all charges should have been dismissed on those grounds. Blatant due process violations. Definitely not a fair trial.

The fact the prosecution mostly failed despite their efforts is quite surprising.

What most were correct about, is that he was definitely overcharged.

Whole system is corrupt. I think at a legit fair trial they’d probably have gotten a manslaughter conviction. But they chose to try and lie and cheat their way to a murder conviction. That rightly failed.

 

[teaser452]

Someone mentioned this case in another thread and it got me curious. After doing some reading about it, the trial indeed was a shitshow. But in the opposite manner I (and many others) thought.

The fact he was acquitted is actually very surprising, because it was the prosecution who was allowed to do whatever they wanted and the defense that was hamstrung.

There were so many violations and errors in law by the judge and prosecution that all charges should have been dismissed on those grounds. Blatant due process violations. Definitely not a fair trial.

The fact the prosecution mostly failed despite their efforts is quite surprising.

What most were correct about, is that he was definitely overcharged.

Whole system is corrupt. I think at a legit fair trial they’d probably have gotten a manslaughter conviction. But they chose to try and lie and cheat their way to a murder conviction. That rightly failed.

Yeah. Reminds me of the OJ case in some ways.

Everyone knew he did it. By between police incompetence with the chain of custody of evidence, to the prosecutors and judge Ito preening for the cameras, to the circus it turned into.

If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.

I was glad OJ got off. And was glad he was bankrupted in civil court.

And then outraged when they banged him
Up pretty good with the crap Florida case. Or Nevada case. Whoever it happened. Over punished to get even for the case they lost in LA. There is no justice in the system. Not for criminals and not for victims.