Undocumented man acquitted in Kate's Law case

happen when POTUS politicize it over and over and continue to... fair game

or do we need safe spaces for Trump and his minions?

 

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LOL. So you literally just made up the idea that the attorney said the verdict was a message to Trump and vindication for illegal immigrants to further your own bigoted agenda.

 

Unbelievable. If this is what San Francisco thinks is justice, remind me to never go there again.

 

Sugrlandkid:
Big Nationalist, Loves America.

Disrespects the will of the American people and their judgement because they found a man not guilty.

PICK ONE BRO.

 

not sure i understand you, but not a big deal

I do wonder what the jurors deliberated on.

Seems like a clear case. How did it not get a guilty verdict? Something we don't know or the prosecutor was a joke? Yes, I'm leaving the jurors out - they were selected by both sides.

 

Your comments weren't a "bit brash". They were an outright lie. You literally just made them up.

 

I respect the jury and their verdict, even if it looks like a head-scratcher. They have thought hard about the facts presented and the instructions of the court and I have not. And remember that sometimes it's not on the jury, but the prosecutor failed in making their case. We punish bad prosecutions with not guilty verdicts (keeps those prosecutors on their toes! )

 

The president immediately tweets a strong criticism of the outcome and you blame the the defendant's lawyer of politicizing the verdict???

 

Securing our borders is racist I think so we can't do that. Most countries don't secure their borders so it's useless. We have to care and teach these criminal immigrants how to be good people and not kill other people.

 

I think it's amusing that you think a wall is going to stop people from sneaking into a country and "secures the border". Especially in the case of someone who's found his way in 5 times - pretty sure a wall's not going to stop him from a 6th time.

 

Kate and her family agree that we should focus on and punish undermanned, poorly staffed, and apparently STUPID state and local prosecutors instead of focusing on how this guy should never have been if not for crazy, illegal, sanctuary city.

and yes i said STUPID because going for murder charge with evidence of a bullet richocet off the ground is facking STUPID. got greedy (looking for promotion from their **** job?) and paid the price.

 

I haven't followed this case very closely but I'm not surprised that Zarate was found not guilty of murder, note he wasn't totally acquited as he was still guilty of illegal possesion of a firearm. Given that the bullet ricocheted it seemed to me like murder was an overreach on the part of the prosecution and I'm wondering if politics had something to play with it. I think manslaughter or reckless endangerment would've been the proper charge. That he wasn't found guilty on either of those I would be curious to hear more.

I agree completely though that the national debate on sanctuary cities should've played no role in this trial. Zarate's immigration status has no bearing and to claim so would be to bias trial. I don't know if that had anything to do with the jury decision.

 

Who is celebrating the decision?

I appreciate (or am grateful) that political pressure cannot influence our judicial system to the extent it does in other countries but that is the only possible positive. If you really think many people are celebrating the jury verdict, you are mistaken.

As a trial lawyer, I will tell you this though (and this applies to many verdicts), juries often times are lambasted by the media or the losing side. The reality is that usually the issue resides with one of the attorneys or the pre-trial rulings of the Court.

 

I don't think anyone is celebrating the decision. I think everyone agrees it was a tragedy what happened Kate Steinle and upset with the jury's decision. They are responding to you efforts to mis-portray the lawyers comment and further politicize the young woman's death.

 

@Nook Any insight on why these weren't the charges? Could the prosecutor have charged both murder and involuntary manslaughter or is it either/or? Can incompetent/corrupt prosecutors and DAs be rectified by citizens, and if so, how quickly or easily can that be accomplished?

 

Do you really believe the majority of wall opponents think like this? Most wall opponents are against the wall because 1) they doubt the effectiveness of such a wall and 2) they think the costs for building the wall, maintaining the wall and patrolling the wall outweighs the costs of illegal immigration.

People love to use the Israeli west bank barrier as some of successful example, but 1) tens of thousands of Palestanians still manage to make it across and work illegally in Israel (the Israeli & West Bank population is only a tiny fraction of that of US & Mexico+Guatemala+etc, so when you normalize the population suddenly the Israeli wall is not looking all that effective) 2) the Israeli wall have several important advantages that US-Mexico wall will never have, so the US wall's effectiveness will be even lower (for example the Israeli military operate and patrols both the Israeli & Palestinian side of the wall)

 

I suspect Trump has ducked out of serving on a jury, so he probably does not know that prosecutors are not allowed to bring up a defendant's past crimes during the guilt portion of a trial. I sat on a capital murder trial involving the murder of an infant, and the prosecution was not able to testify that the defendant was actually serving time for a past sex crime when he killed the little girl. That was not provided to us until after we found him guilty and as we began the sentencing part of the trial.

 

Sorry for Kate, but not really any more sorry for her than the thousands of other people who also get killed with guns every year. The courts aren't really there at the service of Kate and her family, to get them justice; they exist for society through the organs of the state, for us to get justice. And I don't think we get justice if you punish people without being able to clear the prosecutorial duties we set for ourselves. They couldn't do it for George Zimmerman, nor for Jason Stockley, nor for Jeronimo Yanez. I hear about how these perpetrators got their due process and we need to respect the court verdicts (which I do). But, why should I cry about justice denied for Kate Steinle and not for Trayvon Martin, Anthony Lamar Smith, and Philando Castile? This trial of Garcia Zarate is like any of these others in which the burden of proof was not met. The end.

Sanctuary city policies are good for public safety. That's why so many cities have them. Environments where a population of illegal immigrants cannot access the justice system are made more dangerous because those people are vulnerable to crimes themselves, have good reason to not cooperate with police to solve crimes, and built in motivations for solving their own conflicts with criminal activity. The tea party attacks on sanctuary cities are stupid and foolish and reckless. They are so bent on satiating their xenophobia that they would rather increase the violent criminality in our communities than let a guy walk around without his papers in order. Maybe Zarate would not have been here if ICE confronted him every time he took a dump, but there are costs borne by both immigrant and citizen that come from willfully persecuting a minority group with the organs of the state. They want to pretend the cost doesn't exist, and probably figure it won't affect them in their white Woodlands subdivision, but it will.