Can, should and will AG Sessions seek a federal prosecution of Garcia Zarate after “disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case”?
A jury handed a stunning acquittal on murder and manslaughter charges to a homeless undocumented immigrant whose arrest in the killing of Kate Steinle on a San Francisco Bay pier intensified a national debate over sanctuary laws.
In returning its verdict Thursday afternoon on the sixth day of deliberations, the Superior Court jury also pronounced Jose Ines Garcia Zarate not guilty of assault with a firearm, finding credence in defense attorneys’ argument that the shot that ricocheted off the concrete ground before piercing Steinle’s heart was an accident, with the gun discharging after the defendant stumbled upon it on the waterfront on July 1, 2015.
Garcia Zarate, a 45-year-old Mexican citizen who was released from County Jail before the killing despite a federal request that he be held for his sixth deportation, was convicted of a single lesser charge of being a felon in possession of a gun. He faces a sentence of 16 months, two years or three years in state prison. Garcia Zarate, who has already served well over two years in jail and gets credit for that time, will be sentenced at a date not yet determined.
The verdict set off a flurry of reactions. Defense attorneys said the case had been overcharged, while U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions blamed the killing on San Francisco’s policy of refusing cooperation with immigration agents. Jim Steinle, who had been strolling on the pier with his daughter when she fell, told The Chronicle he was “saddened and shocked,” adding, “Justice was rendered, but it was not served.”…
President Trump, who has cited the case in his effort to build a border wall, said on Twitter, “A disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case! No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration.”
Defense attorney Francisco Ugarte suggested a different lesson, saying, “From day one, this case was used as a means to foment hate, to foment division, to foment a program of mass deportation … and I believe today is a vindication for the rights of immigrants.”…
Garcia Zarate was charged from the beginning with murder, and prosecutors gave the jury the option of convicting him of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter. Jurors rejected all three.
The defendant is not likely to be released again in the city. San Francisco officials have long said they will turn over undocumented immigrants to federal authorities if they obtain a warrant, and records show Garcia Zarate is being held on a U.S. Marshals Service warrant. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “will work to take custody of Mr. Garcia Zarate and ultimately remove him from the country,” Tom Homan, the agency’s deputy director, said in a statement.
Steinle, 32, had been walking with her arm around her father on Pier 14 when she was struck in the back by a single bullet. The round had skipped off the concrete ground after being fired from a pistol that had been stolen, four days earlier, from the nearby parked car of a federal ranger. Prosecutors told the jury that Garcia Zarate brought the gun to the pier that day to do harm, aimed it toward Steinle and pulled the trigger. Assistant District Attorney Diana Garcia spent much of the trial seeking to prove the pistol that killed Steinle couldn’t have fired without a firm pull of the trigger, while establishing that Garcia Zarate tossed the weapon into the bay before fleeing the scene.
Alex Bastian, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said Thursday that prosecutors had found sufficient evidence for the charges at every step of the case. “The verdict that came in today was not the one we were hoping for, but I think it’s unequivocal that both sides gave it their all,” Bastian said. “This really is about the Steinle family. They’ve shown incredible resolve during this whole process, and our hearts go out to them.”
Defense lawyers said the shooting was an accident that happened when Garcia Zarate, who had a history of nonviolent drug crimes, found the gun wrapped in a T-shirt or cloth under his seat on the pier just seconds before it discharged in his hands. Lead attorney Matt Gonzalez said his client had never handled a gun and was scared by the noise, prompting him to fling the weapon into the bay, where a diver fished it out a day later….
During the monthlong trial, jurors watched video from Garcia Zarate’s four-hour police interrogation, in which he offered varying statements about his actions on the pier. At one point he said he had aimed at a “sea animal,” and at another point, he said the gun had been under a rag that lay on the ground near the waterfront, and that it fired when he stepped on it. Gonzalez said it was clear in the video that Garcia Zarate — who has spent much of his adult life behind bars, was living on the street before the shooting, and has a second-grade education — did not fully understand what the officers were asking him through an officer’s Spanish translation.
What primarily prompts the question in the title of this post is the possibility that the current federal administration might view the California state court acquittal of Garcia Zarate in terms comparable to the California state court acquittal of Los Angeles police officers for their beating of motorist Rodney King. (These verdicts, as well as OJ Simpson’s acquittal, lead me to think Californians at least sometimes take “beyond a reasonable doubt” quite seriously.) The outrage over that state court acquittal surely played a significant role in the decision by federal authorities to pursue federal charges against the LA officers. Perhaps similar outrage (at least from Prez Trump) over this state court acquittal will have federal authorities thinking the same way. (And, as criminal procedure gurus know, the dual sovereignty doctrine means there is no Double Jeopardy limit on the feds pursuing parallel charges in this case.)
I highlighted the limited severity of the sentence that Garcia Zarate now faces in state court to highlight another reason why federal authorities might be inclined to take up this case. Even if the federal prosecutors were only able secure a federal conviction for felon in possession, that charge alone in federal court would carry a sentence of at least up to 10 years and might actually have a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years if Zarate’s criminal history made him subject to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). And, of course, the feds could and would get their usual two bites at the apple if they also charged various homicide offenses: a jury conviction of homicide charges would immediately raise the sentencing stakes, but even a jury acquittal would not preclude prosecutors from arguing to the judge that Steinle’s death was critical “relevant conduct” at sentencing that should drive up his guideline range.
Last but not least, as I was typing up these thoughts, I saw this new FoxNews report headlined “DOJ weighing federal charges in Kate Steinle murder case, after not guilty verdict.” Here is a snippet:
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores acknowledged Friday that the DOJ is looking at federal charges. She suggested a possible charge could be felony re-entry or a charge pertaining to a violation of supervised release. “We’re looking at every option and we will prosecute this to the fullest extent of the law because these cases are tragic and entirely preventable,” Flores said on “Fox & Friends” Friday.
If DOJ is really serious about “prosecut[ing] this to the fullest extent of the law,” it seems to me that there are many more charges available beyond just immigration offenses (although those offenses, too, could be used to imprison Zarate for decades).