After the surprise acquittal on Thursday of Jose Inez Garcia Zarate in the murder of Kate Steinle, the outrage from the right was overwhelming.
That sent President Trump to Twitter with a clear indication of his position on the result.
And not much later the DOJ responded in kind with hints that it considered the issue not yet settled.
Then yesterday, the agency made good on those hints by issuing an arrest warrant for Zarate. The constitutional protection against ‘double jeopardy’ applies only to American citizens.
What’s more, the federal government can throw the book at Zarate for multiple violations of law, not the least of which are his five instances of illegal immigration including multiple criminal convictions.
Just when you thought the sanctuary city debate was dying down, it’s raging once again.
State legislatures around the country are already gearing up for local fights.
Here’s more from Redstate…
The Department of Justice has reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Jose Inez Garcia Zarate. The illegal immigrant was acquitted of murdering Kate Steinle in 2015 after he fired a gun he had found and the ricochet lodged in Steinle’s back, leaving her to die in her father’s arms.
A huge wave of controversy followed the verdict, with many claiming San Fransisco’s ultra-progressive sanctuary city policies led to the death of Steinle. Zarate had been deported five times and had up to seven criminal convictions and yet the city refused to hand him over to ICE authorities.
This story is breaking minute to minute and at the time of publication no mention of the charges has been published. However, Redstate legal blogger Sarah Rumpf explained that Zarate was not necessarily free and clear and there were other pending charges in his future.
[One quick but important note: Garcia Zarate is not going free. The jury did convict him of a lesser charge of being a felon in possession of a gun, and he now awaits sentencing, which will be 16 months, two years, or three years in state prison. He has already served two years and will get credit for that time, but even if he is not given the maximum sentence, there is an outstanding U.S. Marshals Service warrant against him, and despite the sanctuary cities policy, San Francisco apparently does turn over undocumented immigrants to the feds when they have a warrant. So he is either getting deported, or spending more time in prison first, and then getting deported.]
