Posted on 12/06/2017 10:35:57 PM PST by KJC1
An alternate juror in the Kate Steinle case said the jury made the right decision in acquitting the defendant of murder, manslaughter and assault charges after San Francisco prosecutors failed to prove he had intended to shoot anyone.
Phil Van Stockum, a 33-year-old San Francisco resident who is co-founder of a technology company in San Mateo, did not take part in deliberations as the jury weighed charges against Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a homeless undocumented immigrant whose attorneys argued an accident was behind the killing on Pier 14 on July 1, 2015.
(snip) Van Stockum said prosecutors presented no motive for a murder by a man with no record of violence. He noted that the fatal shot had bounced off the concrete ground, and that the gun, which had been stolen four days earlier from the nearby parked car of a federal ranger, could have been in a mode requiring a lighter pull of the trigger.
“The jury members asked to feel the trigger pull of the gun during deliberation, but the judge wouldn’t allow it, for reasons that aren’t clear to us,” Van Stockum said in his Politico article.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I guess the jury never understood what involuntary manslaughter means. My understanding is that the jury was not allowed to hear about the perp’s previous crimes or that he was illegal.
Didn’t know it was unlocked. That’s amazing.
I tell family and friends “ Don’t leave a gun in the car”.
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