SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California federal decide on Monday sentenced the Mexican man acquitted of murder in the 2015 shooting demise of a girl on a San Francisco pier to the 7 decades he’s currently spent in jail — bringing to a authorized shut the scenario that ignited a countrywide firestorm above immigration, criminal offense and sanctuary metropolitan areas.

Jose Inez Garcia Zarate was in the U.S. illegally when Kate Steinle, 32, was fatally shot together a crowded Pier 14 in which she was strolling with her father and a relatives friend. He faces deportation and U.S. District Decide Vince Chhabria instructed him in court docket to hardly ever return to the U.S.

The capturing stunned a place already divided above immigration and fueled Donald Trump’s successful marketing campaign for president. Trump referred to as for a crackdown on unlawful immigration and the sanctuary towns and states — which include San Francisco and California — that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Garcia Zarate admitted firing the gun on July 4, 2015, but stated he located it below a bench and did not know what it was when he picked it up because it was wrapped in a T-shirt. The gun fired unintentionally just after he picked it up, he stated. Officers stated the bullet ricocheted off the ground and strike Steinle.

He was acquitted of murder prices by a San Francisco jury in 2017 but faced firearms expenses in federal court. In March, he pleaded responsible to remaining a felon in possession of a firearm and a person illegally in the state in possession of a firearm.

“If you return to this place yet again and you are back again in front of me, I will not spare you. Permit this be your past warning: do not return to this place,” Chhabria reported prior to sentencing Garcia Zarate to the time he has currently served.

Chhabria also shipped a harsh rebuke of the psychological wellbeing therapy obtained by Garcia Zarate for his schizophrenia whilst in custody, which the decide claimed was pretty much nonexistent.

Garcia Zarate will be despatched to Texas, exactly where he faces a federal choose for failing to report his location when he was introduced from a San Francisco jail soon ahead of the shooting. He had been deported five instances and was on monitor to be removed from the U.S. once more when he shot Steinle.

Tale proceeds

The optimum sentence on the firearms charges was 10 many years. Prosecutors agreed to the sentence of time served plus 3 years of probation. Garcia Zarate’s attorneys required a shorter sentence so he could implement any time remaining more than in situation the judge in Texas imposes further prison time.

The handgun belonged to a U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger who described it stolen from his parked auto a week just before Steinle was killed.

Just before the killing, Garcia Zarate had just lately completed a prison sentence for unlawful re-entry to the U.S. when he was transferred to San Francisco to experience a 20-12 months-aged marijuana cost.

Prosecutors declined the situation, but the San Francisco sheriff introduced him from jail irrespective of a federal immigration request to detain him for at the very least two more times for deportation.

Garcia Zarate “feels terrible about what happened, and that he’s very sorry and apologizes,” his law firm, Mike Hinckley, explained in court docket Monday.

The decide said he does not believe that that prosecutors proved that Garcia Zarate had acted with felony recklessness in the shooting and that he most likely did not fully grasp what was taking place that working day when he killed Steinle, mainly because of his psychological health ailment.

Chhabria also expressed sympathy for Garcia Zarate, who spent most of his 7 a long time in county jail without having treatment or meaningful therapy.

Two medical doctors diagnosed Garcia Zarate with schizophrenia and identified him unfit to stand demo since he could not stick to the court proceedings.

“That must have been hell,” Chhabria mentioned.

But the judge also mentioned that implications issue and that Garcia Zarate admitted becoming a felon in possession of a firearm.

Steinle’s family ended up not existing in courtroom for the sentencing and prosecutors claimed her household did not want to participate in the proceedings.