Swift Injustice: The Kate Steinle Verdict

In the greatest miscarriage of justice since the OJ Simpson verdict, a San Francisco jury chose not to convict Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, the illegal immigrant who killed Kate Steinle in broad daylight on San Francisco’s Pier 14 in 2015, for murder.  Zarate, who has used the alias Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, had been deported five times yet thanks to our porous borders kept finding his way back in.  He told authorities that he specifically chose to go to San Francisco because of its insane sanctuary city policy.  One could make a very strong argument that the Kate Steinle tragedy and the debate about illegal immigration and sanctuary cities that resulted from it catapulted Donald Trump to the top of the polls in the Republican Primary, since it took place just 15 days after he launched his unexpected Presidential Campaign.

 

To no one’s surprise, President Trump weighed in on the verdict on Twitter, calling the verdict “disgraceful” and pointing out that “The jury was not told the killer of Kate was a 7 time felon.”  Had the jury had the opportunity to examine the gun, they would have discovered that it does not go off that easily.  The jurors did not have that opportunity because the judge, Samuel Feng, denied their request to take a closer look at the weapon. The jury bought the idea promoted by Zarate’s hippie lawyer, who served as the Green Party’s Vice Presidential Nominee in 2008, that he accidentally fired the gun which just happened to hit Kate Steinle.  Even if Kate Steinle’s death actually was a tragic accident, the jury still should have convicted him with involuntary manslaughter.  But they only managed to convict him for felony possession of a firearm.  While the people of San Francisco failed to deliver justice to Mr. Zarate, The Department of Justice has indicated that it may bring Federal charges against him, such as felony re-entry.   

 

San Francisco apparently has a long history of gullible juries.  When Dan White murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk back in 1978, the jury bought the argument that White’s bad diet caused him to lash out and commit the murders.  The jury’s ridiculous verdict became known as the “twinkie verdict.”  Instead of going to jail for murder, White instead served a five-year sentence for a voluntary manslaughter conviction and committed suicide shortly after his release from prison.   

 

Launched into prosperity by the Gold Rush of 1849, San Francisco has become well-known for its permissive culture, which first developed during the post-World War II economic boom.  Ann Coulter described San Francisco as “a city where intoxicated gay men dressed as nuns performing sex acts on city streets is not considered unusual.”  Today’s San Francisco has adopted diversity and multiculturalism as its official religion.  The city’s elected officials refused to even consider changing the sanctuary city policy in the wake of Kate Steinle’s death because it contradicted their religious dogma, which tells them that “diversity is a strength” all of the time.  When Jesse Watters travelled to the City by the Bay shortly after Kate Steinle’s untimely death, many on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors refused to even look him in the eye when he held up a picture of Steinle.

 

The Kate Steinle verdict will certainly reignite the immigration debate, which the Democrats hope will end later this week if/when Republicans decide to agree to a DACA fix with little in return except for a vague and meaningless pledge for “border security.”  The government will run out of money later this week and will “shut down” if Congress does not pass a spending bill.  The Democrats, who chastised Republicans four years ago for threatening to shut down the government over Obamacare, have threatened to shut down the government if the bill to fund the government does not include a DACA fix.  Knowing how our government works, the geniuses in Congress will probably agree to a short-term deal that will fund the government for two more weeks so they can kick the can down the road even further.  Fortunately, it looks like Congressional leaders may have finally realized that Americans want to try a different approach when it comes to our immigration system.  In an interview with Laura Ingraham last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seemed open to the RAISE Act, which seeks to make our immigration system more merit-based.  The passage of the RAISE Act would probably not make the special interest groups that fund the campaigns of politicians in both political parties very happy but it may allow working Americans to get a RAISE (pun intended) as their wages have largely remained flat for the past four decades.  I can’t help but notice that the wage stagnation began less than a decade after the dramatic overhaul of our immigration system.  I have a hard time believing it’s just a coincidence.       

 

The Democrats love to use emotional arguments when justifying their open borders immigration policy.  Earlier this year, ICE deported an illegal immigrant who had committed the felony of using a fake social security number.  The illegal immigrant, a woman, married a fellow illegal immigrant with whom she had two “anchor babies”, who automatically become American citizens because of our insane immigration policies.   During an interview with Sean Hannity shortly after her deportation, Jorge Ramos ripped up a picture of the woman and her family, trying to make the point that the Trump administration’s decision to deport her tore the family apart.  I find it quite strange that liberals, who have done so much to undermine the nuclear family, all of a sudden care about keeping families together.  I wish liberals showed the same passion for families who have been “torn apart” by illegal alien crimes.  Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden and Steve Ronnebeck will never get to see their children again because all of them lost their lives at the hands of illegal immigrants who only made it here because our elected officials have done such a crappy job of securing the southern border.  Fortunately, ICE has set up the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office, or VOICE, which seeks to “acknowledge and serve the needs of crime victims and their families who have been affected by crimes committed by individuals with a nexus to immigration.”  President Trump called for the creation of VOICE in an executive order titled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States”, which he signed just five days after taking the oath of office.            

 

Soon after Kate Steinle’s death, Bill O’Reilly called on Congress to pass “Kate’s Law”, which would ensure that deported illegal alien felons caught re-entering the country would receive a mandatory minimum sentence of five years.  It passed the House earlier this year with 24 Democrats voting for it but it still awaits a vote in the Senate, which I described as the graveyard of conservatism earlier this year.  Ted Cruz had introduced a Senate version last year but the Democrats used the filibuster to prevent an up or down vote from taking place.  The House also passed a bill to cut off funding to sanctuary cities but that would face an even steeper battle in the Senate than Kate’s Law. The Senate Democrats have made it quite clear that they have no intention of helping President Trump fulfill his campaign promises on immigration, especially the wall.  Keep in mind that they don’t oppose the wall because they think it will not work; they oppose it precisely because they know it will work.  Just look at Israel.

 

Many patriotic Americans do not agree with the verdict in the Kate Steinle case.  Hopefully, Congress will get to work on implementing President Trump’s immigration priorities to ensure that tragedies like the death of Kate Steinle do not continue to plague our great country.