California court won’t even convict illegal alien who killed Kate Steinle on gun charges

House Democrats plan to mark up legislation next week to confiscate “high-capacity” magazines from law-abiding Americans. Yet their liberal allies in the California courts won’t even convict Kate Steinle’s killer, who had seven felony convictions and five deportations, of a gun felony charge, much less second-degree murder. While the House Judiciary Committee goes after constitutional rights, why won’t the Senate Judiciary Committee hold hearings on how people like Steinle’s killer get back into the country, how to deter sanctuaries that ignore ICE detainers and cause violent deaths, and how to ensure violent gun felons are held accountable?

In 2017, a San Francisco jury acquitted Jose Garcia Zarate — an illegal alien from Mexico — of all murder charges, including involuntary manslaughter, for the death of Kate Steinle on July 1, 2015. The 32-year-old woman was killed when Zarate decided to pick up a 40-caliber SIG Sauer P239 he claims to have found on a pier bench and randomly fired it before discarding it into the bay.

However, the jury still convicted him of the no-brainer charge of felony possession of a firearm. Zarate was deported five times and was released from San Francisco jail two and a half months before without notification to ICE. He remained in the country despite seven felony convictions. It was illegal for him to possess a gun. Don’t we all want bad guys to be deterred from possessing firearms? Well, evidently, not illegal aliens.

On Friday, California’s First District Court of Appeal tossed out the felony possession conviction as well. “It is undisputed that defendant was holding the gun when it fired. But that fact alone does not establish he possessed the gun for more than a moment. To possess the gun, defendant had to know he was holding it,” wrote judge Sandra Margulies for the three-judge panel ruling that the trial judge erred in his instructions to the jury.

So, Zarate admitted to firing the gun, but somehow it doesn’t count as possession because the jury could not have known that the defendant knew he was holding it? Wrap your brain around that display of judicial gymnastics for a moment.

This case should be the poster child for Senate Republicans to push my seven-point criminal control agenda. This case contains all of the key elements.

• A repeat offender constantly being released from jail only to re-offend;
• A weak justice system that fails to land convictions of violent gun offenders;
• A sanctuary city that not only serves as a magnet for foreign national criminals, but won’t turn over these criminals to ICE even after they are arrested for other crimes.

Where is the Republican agenda to use as much focus, passion, and determination in addressing the loopholes that allow criminals with long criminal records to remain on the streets and avoid justice? Where is the effort to keep other countries’ criminals out of this country and remove the ones who remain in this country thanks to sanctuary cities?

Moreover, as illegal aliens sue American taxpayers for endless phantom rights after breaking into this country, where is the effort to give Kate Steinle’s family a private right of action to sue San Francisco? In March, the Ninth Circuit, the same court that grants endless standing for illegal aliens to sue law enforcement, ruled that Steinle’s family had no cause of action to sue San Francisco law enforcement for releasing Zarate in defiance of an ICE detainer.

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