Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate (pictured) could be placed in a mental health facility if he’s found incompetent to stand in a second psychiatric evaluation
An illegal immigrant who was acquitted of murdering a woman on a California pier may be placed in a mental health facility after he took a mental health evaluation and was found unfit to stand trial.
Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate, 48, has been ordered to undergo a second mental evaluation to officially determine the next course of action.
Last week, a U.S. District judge said Garcia-Zarate, 48, was not fit to stand trial for illegally possessing a firearm ‘because of mental illness that is not presently being treated.’
The decision came after a mental evaluation was previously conducted and concluded on Garcia-Zarate.
Garcia-Zarate was accused of fatally shooting 32-year-old Kate Steinle in the back as she walked along Pier 40 with her father and a family friend in San Francisco in 2015.
He was convicted of a single charge of being a felon in possession of a gun in 2017, but the ruling was overturned in August 2019 by a California state appeals court.
The 1st District Court of Appeal argued that the presiding judge failed to give the jury the option of acquitting Garcia-Zarate on the theory he only possessed the weapon for a moment.
On Thursday, it was announced that Garcia-Zarate would undergo another mental evaluation and that he was ‘likely to be restored to competency’ if he resumed taking his medication.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said he does not believe he can force Garcia-Zarate, who remains in federal custody after a three year prison stay, to take his medication.
Kate Steinle (pictured) was fatally shot in the back while walking with her father and family friend along Pier 40 in July 2015 in San Francisco, California
Chhabria also said Garcia-Zarate apparently does not believe he had been previously medicated, despite being treated with psychiatric during a former criminal case and during his recently behind bars.
Garcia-Zarate’s lawyers believe he is already fit to stand trial, but say that if medical professionals ‘determined that medication is what he needs, we’re all for that.’
The new evaluation is scheduled to happen in the next 30 to 45 days.
If Garcia-Zarate is found no competent to stand trial, he could potentially be held permanently in a mental institution run by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
The death of Steinle, which embroiled the nation in a contested immigration debate that evoked a strong response from President Donald Trump, happened in July 2015.
At that time, Garcia-Zarate had already been deported from the U.S. five times to Mexico and had just finished serving a nearly four-year federal prison sentence for illegal re-entry.
Immigration officials sent him to San Francisco to face a marijuana charge, but it was dropped by local prosecutors and he was released from custody due to the city’s sanctuary policy.
Garcia- Zarate (right), pictured with his public defender, was convicted of illegally possessing a weapon as a felon
The policy limits local authorities cooperation with federal immigration agents.
According to Garcia-Zarate, he unintentionally picked up a gun wrapped in a t-shirt and accidentally fired the weapon.
The bullet ricocheted off a concrete walkway and struck Steinle, who was with her dad and a family friend.
His lawyers say that the gun was actually stolen from a federal agent’s car by an unidentified person and did not belong to Garcia-Zarate.
Two years later, a Superior Court jury would acquit him of murder and manslaughter charges, but hold him accountable for the weapon charge.
In January 2019, Chhabria said Garcia-Zatara had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia during a 2009 criminal proceeding in Texas and was prosecuted only after receiving medical treatment.
He also said Garcia-Zarate was given medication while he was held at the Glenn Dyer Jail in Oakland, but the treatment was ‘inexplicably terminated’ when he was transfered to the Santa Rita Jail.
Public outraged sparked when a California jury acquitted Garcia-Zarate of both murder and manslaughter in Steinle’s death
The California court’s handling of the high-profile case enraged several politicians and supporters of restricted immigration supporters.
Trump shared a series of tweets after Garcia-Zarate’s verdict was announced, calling it ‘a complete travesty of justice.’
In his tweets he drew a direct correlation to Steinle’s death and Garcia-Zarate’s appearance in the U.S. to a ‘weakly protected Obama border.’
‘The Kate Steinle killer came back and back over the weakly protected Obama border, always committing crimes and being violent, and yet this info was not used in court. His exoneration is a complete travesty of justice. BUILD THE WALL,’ he wrote.
‘The jury was not told the killer of Kate was a 7 time felon. The Schumer/Pelosi Democrats are so weak on Crime that they will pay a big price in the 2018 and 2020 Elections.
‘A disgraceful verdict on the Kate Steinle case! No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration.’
President Trump tweeted that the verdict was ‘a complete travesty of justice’ and linked the result to what he called America’s ”weakly protected Obama border’
President Donald Trump joined a group of politicians and right-wing commentators outraged after the Mexican illegal immigrant who admitted to shooting Kate Steinle in the back while she was walking with her father on a San Francisco pier was found not guilty of second-degree murder
Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., also weighed in on the verdict and echoed his father’s sentiments.
He wrote: ‘What a disgrace. Don’t let the rest of the country become California. If this isn’t a wake call up (sic) to reasonable and law abiding people I don’t know what is.’
‘Liberals…and the general lack of common sense so prevalent amongst them.’
‘What a disgrace,’ the president’s oldest son tweeted late Thursday night after attending the White House tree lighting ceremony
Donald Trump Jr. also blamed the verdict on democrats. Responding to a question Charlie Kirk posed in a tweet about how ‘an illegal alien can kill someone and walk away,’ Don Jr responded ‘Liberals… and the general lack of common sense so prevalent amongst them’
However, public defender Matt Gonzalez said the jury’s verdict should hold.
‘This jury’s verdict should be respected,’ Gonzalez said.
‘They heard the evidence, they deliberated as a group, they heard read-back testimony, they looked at the physical evidence, and they rendered a verdict to the best of their abilities in accordance with the law.’
Gonzalez took aim at Trump during his remarks, reminding the president that he was also under federal investigation and deserves the same due process.