“A jury on Thursday found Jose Ines Garcia Zarate not guilty in the death of Kate Steinle, a case that sparked a nationwide debate on immigration. Garcia Zarate, a Mexican man who was in the United States illegally, shot Steinle on a San Francisco pier in 2015.” Jurors could have found Zarate guilty of first degree murder, second degree murder or manslaughter.
A jury of six men and six women started deliberations last Tuesday and considered dueling arguments that Garcia Zarate was either a hapless, homeless man who killed Steinle in a freak accident or a calculated murderer intent on playing a sick game.
They apparently went with the former argument, though how that doesn’t constitute manslaughter is for more educated legal minds to divine than ours.
Zarate was convicted of illegal possession of a firearm, a felony. He shot Steinle with a pistol that had been stolen from the vehicle of a Bureau of Land Management ranger.