A federal judge in California on Monday sentenced a Mexican man acquitted of homicide in the death of a San Francisco woman after seven years in prison, closing a case that sparked a sharp national debate on immigration. , crime and sanctuary cities.
José Inez García Zárate was in the United States illegally in 2015 when Kate Steinle was shot dead on Pier 14 in San Francisco, where she was walking with her father and a family friend. Garcia Zarate faces deportation, and District Judge Vince Chhabria told him in court to never return to the United States.
The death of the 32-year-old woman shocked a country already divided on immigration and fueled Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign. The Republican called for a crackdown on illegal immigration and on so-called sanctuary cities and states — including San Francisco and California — that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
García Zárate admitted to having fired the weapon on July 4, 2015, but assured that he had found it under a bench and did not know what it was when he picked it up because it was wrapped in a T-shirt. The gun accidentally went off after he picked it up, he claimed. Authorities said the bullet ricocheted off the ground before hitting Steinle.
A San Francisco jury acquitted him of murder charges in 2017, but he faced weapons charges in federal court. In March he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and being a person in the country unlawfully in possession of a firearm.
“If you come back to this country again and face me again, I will not forgive you. Let it be his last warning: Do not return to this country, ”Chhabria said before sentencing García Zárate to the time he has already spent in prison.
Chhabria also lashed out at the treatment García Zárate received for his schizophrenia while in detention, which he said was virtually nonexistent.
García Zárate will be sent to Texas, where he will appear before a federal judge for failing to report his location upon leaving a San Francisco jail shortly before the gun was fired. He had been deported five times and was about to be expelled from the country again when he shot Steinle.
The maximum sentence for the weapons charges was 10 years. The prosecution agreed to the sentence of time served plus three years probation. García Zárate’s lawyers wanted a shorter sentence so that any time left over would be useful to him in case the Texas judge imposes an additional prison sentence.
The gun belonged to a Bureau of Land Management agent who reported it was stolen from his parked car a week before Steinle’s death.
Before the shooting, Garcia Zarate had just completed a prison sentence for illegally re-entering the country when he was transferred to San Francisco to face a 20-year-old marijuana charge.
Prosecutors declined to intervene in the case, but San Francisco County police released him despite a request from federal immigration authorities that he be detained for at least two more days in order for him to be deported.
García Zárate “feels terrible about what happened, he is very sorry and he apologizes,” his attorney, Mike Hinckley, told the court on Monday.
The judge said he does not believe the prosecution has shown that García Zárate acted with criminal recklessness in firing the shot and that he probably did not understand what was happening that day when he killed Steinle, due to his mental illness.
Chhabria also expressed empathy for Garcia Zarate, who spent most of the seven years in the county jail without medication or significant treatment. Two doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia and determined that he was unfit to stand trial because he could not follow court procedures.
“That must have been hell,” Chhabria declared.
But the judge also said that the consequences are important and that García Zárate admitted to being a criminal in possession of a firearm.
Steinle’s relatives were not present in court for sentencing. The prosecution said that they did not want to participate in court proceedings.
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