The California Court of Appeal has thrown out the sole conviction against Katie Steinle’s killer, and the reaction is as outraged as one would expect. But like most things, the details are more nuanced than a headline can convey
Katie Steinle’s death while walking on a pier in San Francisco became a lightning rod in the illegal immigration debate when a five-time deportee from Mexico was charged with firing the shot which killed her. José Inez García Zárate was charged with murder and other charges, including possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, which Zárate was 7 times over. The tragedy threw fuel on the immigration debate in general and sanctuary cities in particular; the shooter had recently been released from jail when S.F. authorities refused to honor a federal request to hold him for deportation proceedings.
After trial in state court, García Zárate was acquitted of all but the weapons possession charge, prompting President Trump to call the jury’s verdict “a disgrace.” Steinle’s parents filed suit against the City of San Francisco for García Zárate’s release from custody, but the 9th Circuit dismissed their case. Now, the California Court of Appeal has reversed the firearm possession conviction, too.
It is instinctive to feel that Katie’s case cries out for justice. A photo of her smiling face has become an icon for the fight against illegal immigration, her death held up as an example of the consequences of lax border security. The dismissal of her parents’ suit was decried as judicial activism (despite the opinion having been written by a Trump-appointed judge.) But the newest ruling is from a legal standpoint, not ideological.
The defendant has said he found the gun under the chair he was sitting in at the pier, and that it was wrapped in a shirt and went off before he knew what it was. The prosecution’s theory was that the man brought the gun with him and was “playing Russian Roulette”, aiming at people and firing. Neither side presented an eye witness to the actual moment of the shooting. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete and hit Steinle in her back, and García Zarate tossed the gun into the Bay. In a fairly tortured interview with police, Garcia Zárate’s explanations are varied and confusing. What was agreed upon was that the gun was in his hands when the fatal shot was fired.
The defense argued at trial that García Zárate did not have the gun for long enough to legally constitute possession. It is an argument with precedent in California. During its deliberations the jury specifically asked if there was any time requirement to establish possession. The defense asked the Court to give the jury an instruction on “momentary possession” which, if the jury believed the defendant’s story, would allow them to acquit. But the judge at trial denied the instruction, opining that there were not enough facts to support it. It was this ruling by the trial court which the appellate court reversed.
In its written opinion, the higher court made no pronouncement as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, despite the pronouncements of the outraged Twitterverse or Buzzfeed headlines. The Court simply held that the defense presented enough supporting evidence that the jury should have been allowed to consider the issue. Had they been given the opportunity, the jury may have acquitted, which was grounds to reverse the verdict.
The prosecution argued that it was harmless error, since the evidence, in their view, showed that the defendant fired the shot. But the Court pointed to the acquittal on all charges of causing Steinle’s death as indication that they believed the defendant’s version of events: that he didn’t know it was a gun prior to it firing
The State of California is free to retry García Zárate on the possession charge if they so choose; however, federal prosecutors filed its own set of murder and weapons charges following the verdict in state court. The federal trial is scheduled for January, now that a SCOTUS has ruled that it is not a violation of double jeopardy to try a person on the same charges faced in a state court.
We can all agree that Katie should be alive right now. Most of us can agree that García Zárate should not have been there. Beyond that, the facts are for a jury to decide. And that’s all the California Court of Appeal said.
The prosecution’s theory was that the man brought the gun with him and was “playing Russian Roulette”, aiming at people and firing.
“Or possibly Halo 4. We don’t know a lot about games here. We’re busy people!” according to a prosecution source.Report
Given the the gun was a semi-automatic one, not a revolver, the “Russian roulette” theory sure asks the jusryto believe that Garcia Zarate also doesn’t know a lot about games.
The whole theory of the prosecution was really that he was just taking pot shots at strangers without any motive whatsoever? I’m not surprised a jury declined to convict.Report
“He was shooting at strangers for no reason whatsoever. Well, he only shot once. Oh, and he was such a bad shot that he hit the ground instead of the people he was aiming at.”Report
Good post and agree with it entirely. And it’s always a good thing when criminal law requires an intent element, or when the courts supply it.Report
Sounds to me like the real problem has nothing to do with anyone’s immigration status, and everything to do with the fact that we have entirely too many firearms. If there’s no gun in this story, Steinle is still alive. Of course, the right is clinically incapable of seeing that, but what else is new.Report
“everything to do with the fact that we have entirely too many firearms.”
lol
he stole the gun from a cop
private citizen ownership of firearms is completely irrelevant to this caseReport
The jury didn’t believe that. Do you know something they don’t?Report
“criminal felon in possession of a firearm” is literally the only thing they convicted him of what are you even talking about hereReport
“He stole the gun from a cop.”
There is literally zero evidence of that or he would have been charged with it. The fact that the jury asked during deliberations whether there was a minimum time required in order for it to be possession shows the jury didn’t think he had possession of the gun for any length of time prior to the incident. They clearly believed his version of the story, that he found it on the pier. The fact that the judge failed to instruct the jury on the “momentary possession” defense is literally the entire point of the appeal. And the point of this post.
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No. There’s a world of difference between believing OJ and thinking the Prosecution didn’t meet their burden of proof.Report
Yeah, I’m a lawyer. I know the difference between innocent and not guilty.
Did you read all I wrote? The jury’s question to the court about minimum time of possession is why I say they believed him. Not the verdict.Report
Great, so did they know what we know about his history?
We had people on this thread comparing him to a “priest” finding a gun up until we looked up his actual record.Report
Yes, because in order to consider the possession charge they would have had to hear evidence of his prior felony. And depending on how he was charged they would have also learned it was drug crime. Beyond that, they would be instructed not to consider it as evidence of his tendency to be guilty of anything other than the possession, because in this country we don’t use prior bad acts to prove conformity therewith in the commission of a current charge. Report
Singular tense there. “Prior felony” implies “one”, not “seven”.
Let me translate that into English for you.
“No, they were not told he had seven prior convictions of drug crimes much less his full professional-criminal history. This act needed to stand on its own with a few limited carve outs”.
To be clear I’m cool with that. However we shouldn’t overstate the jury’s information or wisdom.Report
IANAL. However my expectation is we all know stuff the jury didn’t. Him being a 7x convicted drug dealer would have been highly prejudicial to his defense, presumably the jury wasn’t told the specifics. Similarly we hear “fellon” rather than a more detailed and accurate past. So we end up with a highly experienced criminal who we’re pretending is a normal civilian, and we’re also pretending he’s not lying about everything else that was happening that day.
Since he can’t explain what was going on, he was almost certainly there professionally. His profession is drug dealing.
It’s farcical to pretend he is a normal civilian and the gun fairy left him a present and he has no clue how his hands ended up on it or where it came from (just like every armed drug dealer). It’s reasonably clear what happened, we just can’t prove it legally.
And btw yes, the gun was stolen from a cop 5 days earlier (wiki) so it’s totally outside the scope of gun control unless we’re planning on disarming the police. Whether he stole it, or purchased it from someone who did, or was doing a favor for a friend by retrieving it is irrelevant. Everything that happened was already seriously illegal and the law-ignoring criminals involved wouldn’t care if we made it super-duper illegal.Report
“It’s reasonably clear what happened, we just can’t prove it legally.”
As Attorney General Bill Barr would put it, “Completely Exonerated!”Report
“It’s farcical to pretend he is a normal civilian and the gun fairy left him a present ”
and that this gun–this gun which was a professional’s service weapon and, presumably, maintained per schedule and in-spec–would be stolen by some random person and left under a park bench in a crowded tourist area for five days with nobody noticing it, and that in that time it would degrade to the point where it would fire a shot just from being picked up.Report
Thank you. That elegantly sums up in one paragraph something I was struggling to fit into a page.Report
However preposterous, it is less so than any other theories for how the gun was fired.
A 7x felon just whipped out a gun and decided to shoot into a crowd for no reason? And somehow managed only to shoot the ground?
What would be a non-preposterous theory that is supported by factual evidence?
And how was this theory overlooked by the professional prosecutors?Report
Unfortunately we’re dealing with a sub-culture where “because I was/have-been high on drugs” is, if not a “reasonable explanation”, sometimes the actual one.
And note the gun being his would eliminate the need for a 2nd person also doing stupid-crazy things. We need a screw up and pro-criminal/junky to break into a cop’s car and steal his gun… so he can plant it in the open where only screw-up #2 will randomly find it?Report
Occam’s razor holds that the State didn’t present any evidence on how the gun got there, who stole it, when it got there, etc., because the evidence doesn’t exist. And if had existed, its exclusion would have been raised in the appeal.Report
It was stolen five days prior. That doesn’t mean it laid there five days.
You don’t have to sell me on the fallibility of juried. But there is zero actual evidence to support your or the prosecution theories. Even if he stole/brought the gun, there’s still no proof the shooting was an intentional act. And none of his prior felonies were violent crimes.
If he had been pointing a gun at people on the Embarcadero in San Francisco in broad daylight, someone would have seen that.Report
It was at no point under dispute–by ANYONE, including García Zárate–that he was holding the gun when it went off. The claim is that it went off all on its own, merely from him picking it up–and, moreover, that it went off the instant he touched it, not enough “taking possession” of it.
“Even if he stole/brought the gun, there’s still no proof the shooting was an intentional act.”
I’d think a lawyer would know that you can criminally possess a firearm and commit assault with a deadly weapon unintentionally. But then, I don’t have an ideological reason to find a particular outcome in this case.Report
You are ridiculous and I could not be more done engaging with you. Report
Also, no, you cannot unintentionally commit assault.Report
The fact that the defendant is a prior convicted felon and an undocumented immigrant seems entirely incidental to this tragedy. It could have been anybody — a kid, a priest, a cop, literally anyone — finding the wrapped gun, picking it up, and accidentally discharging it. And I think the fact of the victim being atruck by a ricochet lends a lot of support to the defense theory.Report
All of his previous felonies have been for drug dealing. His inability to describe what he was doing there or why suggests he’s still at it. The odds of that gun either being his or related to his profession are pretty high.
This was an accidental shooting, by someone who seriously can’t legally have a weapon. We can’t prove it was his… by some definition of “prove”.
In order to believe a “priest” could have done this we need to believe that priests “find” guns just as often as drug dealers.Report
I think the outcome here was probably right given the evidence but I also suspect you’re right. I’d be curious how the prosecutor got to that theory when negligent discharge seems more likely. I’d be shocked if there aren’t negligent homicide crimes in CA that apply.
Either way even if they don’t have the evidence to convict him of a crime but can prove he isn’t here legally he ought to be turned over to ICE and deported as quickly as possible.Report
Agreed with all of that… but it’s worth mentioning that this case was selected by Trump as an outrageous miscarriage of justice that he could present as “normal”. It’s like the lottery commission showcasing a winner.
It’s possible the prosecutor/police/judge/jury dropped the ball and/or the defense got really lucky.Report
haw
this is so cool to see people so terrified of being thought racist that suddenly a dude who shot a pistol at a crowd and fucking killed someone is not a dangerously irresponsible shithead who ought to be under the jail but rather some poor misunderstood brother who just needs an eighth chance
like you’d actually accept “he didn’t MEAN to shoot someone when he pointed the gun at a crowd and pulled the trigger” if this were Jackson Beauregarde Pickett-Burnside III in ChattanoogaReport
The jury didn’t believe that was what happened, either.Report
you’re posting that like it’s a rebuttal to my post but it’s actually not, so…?Report
You seem to believe you know more about what happened than the jury who sat through the trial and heard all the evidence.
No, we don’t generally put people “under the jail” for an accidental discharge, which the jury quite obviously believed to be the case.
Is he a criminal? Yep. But criminal history is not what we base convictions on in this country, except in the court of public opinion. Evidence of prior bad acts is generally not admissible to prove the guilt of a defendant for a different crime. There are exceptions, but I don’t have the time or inclination to explain them to you. Suffice to say that these circumstances are not one of the exceptions.
He should not have been here in this country. I won’t disagree with that.Report
“He should not have been here in this country.”
So you agree with me that Road Scholar is wrong, and that Garcia-Zarate being a convicted felon and undocumented immigrant is not incidental to this tragedy?
Cool!
And you rolled in and argued with me anyway!
And you act like you can’t imagine a reason why I blocked you!Report
It’s relevant that if he had not been here the incident would not have occurred. It’s equally relevant that had his mama never met his daddy and he’d never been born this wouldn’t have happened.
If you somehow think his illegal status is a contributory factor to his tendency to shoot people randomly then no, I do not agree.
Sure, difference of opinions is not an all a ridiculous and immature reason to block someone. To be clear I had no idea that was you on Twitter, we’d had pleasant interaction there and so yes I was confused by your block. Once I learned you were one and the same it made perfect sense. Of all the many people on here of opposing views, you’re the only one with whom I who can’t have a discussion without you being sarcastic and hostile. If you don’t want me to come in and rebut your comments on my posts, don’t comment.Report
This ain’t the court, sister, we can talk about whatever we like.
“If you somehow think his illegal status is a contributory factor to his tendency to shoot people randomly”
It’s a contributory factor to arguments contra the notion that illegal immigrants aren’t a danger to anyone and shouldn’t be deported and it’s only racism making anyone think differently and that’s why we need Sanctuary Cities, because here’s an illegal immigrant who was in fact a dangerous felon that did in fact shoot and kill someone. And here you are going to the mattresses for this poor, poor dude who just was hard done by in this white man’s world and needs justice done for him, and well yeah maybe it sucks that girl got shot but that was just like a random tragedy, you know, the SF Embarcadero is practically a war zone these days with bullets flying all over the place, right? After all, it’s not like a white guy shot her.Report