FILE - In this July 7, 2015 file photo, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, right, is led into the courtroom by San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, left, and Assistant District Attorney Diana Garciaor, center, for his arraignment at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, defended the handling of the murder trial that ended with the acquittal of Garcia Zarate, whose arrest set off a fierce national debate on immigration. (Michael Macor/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, Pool, File)
December 05, 2017 - 6:04 PM
SAN FRANCISCO - The Latest on San Francisco pier shooting charges (all times local):
5:45 p.m.
Federal authorities have charged a Mexican man with new immigration and gun violations less than a week after a San Francisco jury acquitted him of murder for the shooting death of Kate Steinle.
Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was indicted Tuesday with two gun charges. A San Francisco jury convicted him of a state charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm after acquitting him of murder and assault for the July 1, 2015 shooting.
The state conviction carries a maximum sentence of three years in jail. He has been in jail since the day of the shooting.
His public defender Matt Gonzalez said Garcia Zarate will ask a judge to toss out the state conviction.
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3:45 p.m.
San Francisco's district attorney is defending the handling of a murder trial that ended with the acquittal of a Mexican man whose arrest set off a fierce national debate on immigration.
District Attorney George Gascon said Tuesday that he still believes Jose Ines Garcia Zarate should have been convicted of murder in the 2015 death of Kate Steinle.
A jury rejected that charge last week and convicted Garcia Zarate only of being a felon in possession of a gun.
Legal experts say prosecutors overreached by asking for a first-degree murder conviction because the fatal shot ricocheted off the ground, supporting Garcia Zarate's defence that the shooting was an accident.
Gascon also called President Trump a "madman" for a series of tweets deriding the verdict.
News from © The Associated Press, 2017