Based on what’s been reported, I’m surprised the jury didn’t find this Defendant (undocumented immigrant Jose Garcia Zarate) guilty of at least involuntary manslaughter in the death of Kathryn Steinke, which requires only a negligent act resulting in death. If you have a gun in your hand, and it accidentally fires, that’s arguably per se negligence (or unreasonable).
I think the prosecution may have overreached with the more serious charges of 1st and 2nd degree murder, which require an intent to kill, since the bullet hit 12 feet from where the Defendant was sitting and ricocheted 78 feet before striking Kathryn Steinle (this was undisputed). I also read of the prosecution suggesting in closing arguments that the Defendant was executing a “secret, power-tripping game of Russian roulette”, which seemed inflammatory and speculative.
Overcharging plays well politically, but juries decide cases based upon evidence. If the prosecutor has to overstate the evidence in order to justify the more serious charges, it can undermine the credibility of the prosecution as a whole and may lead the jury to question the legitimacy of the lesser charges. I also think jurors can feel manipulated by a prosecutor trying to demonize a defendant in an attempt to have them decide the case on something other than the evidence presented (fear of immigrants or sympathy for the victim, for example). I would imagine that Zarate’s defense attorney presented the jury with a viable version of events that did not amount to criminal conduct and then hammered the desperate tactics of the prosecution.
It’s easy to criticize the verdict as a “travesty of justice”, as President Trump and others have done, but, unless you were on the jury and heard the evidence, such a statement strikes me as uninformed political pandering. Jurors take an oath to decide the case on the evidence presented and to ignore external influences and this jury seems to have done just that. Despite the result, they should be commended, not derided, for remaining loyal to that oath.