Judge bats aside Steinle shooter’s defense motions

The U.S. Department of Justice's gun possession case against the man who shot Kate Steinle appears to be on a fast track to trial after a federal judge denied both of his defense motions.

Jose Ines Garcia-Zarate, a felon facing deportation for multiple violations of entering the country illegally, was acquitted in December by a San Francisco County Superior Court jury of murder charges stemming from Steinle's 2015 killing. The jury found Zarate guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The U.S. Department of Justice then brought its own federal gun charges against Zarate.

J. Tony Serra, the defense attorney representing Zarate in the federal case, moved to dismiss one of the charges as being duplicative and accused the government of engaging in vindictive prosecution to get around double jeopardy laws. U.S. v. Garcia-Zarate 17-CR609 (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 5, 2017).

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria struck down the motion to dismiss one of the charges at a hearing last week and set an Oct. 1 trial date. He followed that up with a written order Thursday denying Serra's request to compel discovery from the Justice Department related to his claim of vindictive prosecution.

The judge said he was presented with two theories of vindictive prosecution and found both of them severely lacking.

Chhabria wrote that he would not weigh in on the question of whether "political factors" contributed to the decision to bring federal charges, and it wouldn't matter either way because it still wouldn't constitute vindictive prosecution.

"There is no indication that the charging decision was motivated by a desire to punish Garcia-Zarate specifically for exercising any constitutional or procedural right in the state court case," he wrote.

Chhabria added that Serra's second theory was even more dubious.

"There is no basis for suspecting that the federal government controlled the district attorney's efforts during the state prosecution, and thus no basis for a double jeopardy claim under current law," he wrote.

Chhabria wrote that the question was not a close enough call for him to justify forcing the government to conduct additional discovery and show it to him in camera, as Serra had suggested at the hearing.