For millions of earnest and frustrated Americans, there is no justice today. Not in California, at least.
On Thursday night, a San Francisco jury failed to find Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a 45-year-old illegal migrant from Mexico, guilty of the murder of Kate Steinle. Steinle was shot in the back and killed during a botched robbery on a San Francisco pier in 2015, and her killer, Zarate, had been deported no fewer than five times before the deadly encounter.
For many, the killing of Kate Steinle exemplified the hazards associated with an elite liberal view of illegal immigrants. Not all are the hard-working salt-of-the-earth whose only desire is to make a better life for themselves and their families in America. Moreover, Steinle’s death compelled many to take a critical look at “sanctuary city” policies that allow municipalities to shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration enforcement efforts. In the summer of 2016, Senate Democrats blocked legislation in Steinle’s name that would have prevented “sanctuary cities” from receiving federal funding, as well as legislation that would have imposed stricter mandatory minimums on illegal immigrants caught crossing the border multiple times.
Separate from the policy questions, of course, is the grief endured by the family that had their daughter stolen from them by a man who should never have been here in the first place. The Steinle family may yet see their daughter’s killer jailed, not just for crossing the border but for the .40-caliber SIG Sauer handgun illegally in his possession at the time of her death. That’s cold comfort for the Steinle family. “Justice was rendered, but it was not served,” Steinle’s father said of the verdict.
It’s hard to argue not just with the grieving father’s anguish but his logic. Justice was rendered, and it may not be the miscarriage that irate anti-illegal immigration activists insist. A compelling bit of analysis by Sarah Rumpf suggests that, contrary to San Francisco’s critics, this tragedy may not be attributable to a nefarious conspiracy of politically correct equivocators dedicated to sheltering illegal immigrants from the consequences of their actions but simple prosecutorial error.
Rumpf noted that the defense had claimed that the bullet that ricocheted off the pier and fatally struck Steinle in the back was accidentally discharged from a weapon that has a reputation for its hair trigger. What’s more, since the gun was stolen from a federal officer and was only found by Zarate just prior to the incident with Steinle, the defense could credibly argue that their client was not familiar with the weapon. In sum, prosecutors might have been able to demonstrate that Zarate was guilty of a lesser charge, but they apparently failed to show that he was guilty of first-degree murder.
“The prosecutors were under tremendous political pressure,” Rumpf observed. “People wanted Kate Steinle’s killer’s head on a platter, even before Donald Trump ever tweeted her name.” As such, prosecutors might have felt compelled to go for broke in this case or risk a political backlash. “This seems to be a classic example of prosecutorial overreach,” she added.
This analysis has a precedent. If Rumpf is correct, what happened to the family and supporters of Kate Steinle is strikingly similar to the trial endured by those who grieved for Trayvon Martin.
Martin’s death at the hands of George Zimmerman was a national scandal well before it was a criminal case. Weeks of public outcry by prominent members of the political establishment followed the teenager’s death. President Barack Obama urged investigators to “take this with the seriousness it deserves” and “get to the bottom of exactly what happened.” Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called Florida’s failure to immediately “prosecute this case” a “chilling example of horrible decisions made by people in this process.” Commentators and activists on the right and the left heaped scorn not just on Florida’s law enforcement but the state’s “stand your ground” law. Following weeks of immense political pressure, Florida State Attorney Angela Corey announced her intention to forego a grand jury and, days later, charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder.
Legal analysts ranging from Alan Dershowitz to Lisa Bloom followed the proceedings closely, from arrest to prosecution, and warned liberals invested in a conviction to prepare for the worst. Their advice went unheeded. Some speculated that prosecutors did not carefully instruct jurors in the trial of George Zimmerman to consider lesser charges in deliberation (which might have also been a factor in the failure to convict Jose Zarate of manslaughter).
Zimmerman’s acquittal was met with hyperbolic displays of antipathy toward a system and a society that was, according to some, so corrupt that it could not be counted on to administer impartial justice. Similarly, the response from some activists to last night’s decision in San Francisco has been apoplexy over a system that failed them. Some have even gone so far as to entertain the prospect of vigilante justice. But the system did not fail them, in either case. Prosecutors did. The system functioned as it was designed.
The policy issues raised by the deaths of Kate Steinle and Trayvon Martin are distinct from the conduct of the justice system. “Sanctuary cities” and “stand your ground” laws are political matters that should be contested in the public square and decided by public officials. But at issue in these cases are prosecutorial overreach and the public outcry that inspires it. Next time a politically charged homicide case captures the nation’s attention, maybe it would be best for politicians to keep their thoughts to themselves.
