Attorneys: Drop the gun charge
Lawyers for Zarate call the charges on two counts ‘unduly prejudicial’ as the Steinle trial continues
SAN FRANCISCO >> Attorneys for an undocumented immigrant acquitted of fatally shooting Pleasanton native Kate Steinle have filed a motion asking for one of two gun charges to be dropped in federal court.
Tony Serra, the San Francisco attorney representing Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, and co-counsel Maria Belyi filed the motion last week in the northern district of U.S. District Court.
The motion asks to compel the prosecution to dismiss either the first count, being a felon in possession of a firearm, or the second, being an alien illegally in the United States in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Belyi told this newspaper Monday that charging on both counts is “unduly prejudicial.”
The conduct alleged is the same, but the only difference between the two counts is one alleges that he is an illegal alien, the other that he is a felon, she said. Zarate’s attorneys argue in the motion that this would violate the prohibition against double jeopardy — the prosecution of a person twice for the same crime.
After a four-week trial that drew national attention, a jury in November acquitted the Mexican national of murder, involuntary manslaughter and assault with a semiautomatic firearm in the July 1, 2015, shooting of Steinle on San Francisco’s Pier 14. Jurors convicted him of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Zarate was sentenced to three years in prison on the gun possession charge in San Francisco Superior Court but he did not have
to spend any more time in state custody because of credit for time already served.
He was then turned over to federal authorities for the two similar gun possession charges. Serra said in January that he planned to take a different approach to the case.
Both Serra and Belyi called the case a “vindictive prosecution” by the Trump administration.
“A vote for guilty in the federal case is a vote for Trump,” Serra said, adding that Garcia Zarate is “being made a martyr to the racist perspective of Trump.”
Defense attorneys for Zarate had argued that the shooting was an accident, suggesting that he found the gun on the pier and that it accidentally discharged when he touched it, with the bullet ricocheting 78 feet before hitting the 32-yearold Steinle. He threw the gun into the water after it fired.
He is expected to enter a plea Tuesday in federal court where the defense expects a date to be heard on this motion.
Abraham Simmons, spokesman for the northern district of the US Attorney’s Office, declined to comment on the case.