SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday ordered a new mental evaluation of a Mexican acquitted of murder for the shooting death of a woman on a city pier in 2015, a murder that generated national controversy in around immigration.
A separate case against José Inés García Zárate on federal weapons charges has been pending since 2017. Last year, Federal District Judge Vince Chhabria said he had “serious concerns” regarding his mental capacity.
In a court order, Chhabria said the Bureau of Prisons informed him in June that it “had rehabilitated the defendant to regain competence.” But he questioned whether García Zárate really had mental competence after he refused to follow his attorney’s recommendation that he plead not guilty during a hearing Wednesday.
García Zárate had been deported five times, and was wanted for a sixth deportation proceeding when, on July 1, 2015, he shot Kate Steinle, 32, to death on a crowded San Francisco dock. He said he did not know he had a gun in his hands because it was wrapped in a T-shirt when he shot himself, and that he dropped it almost immediately after picking it up.
The death became a prominent issue of the election campaign across the country after then-presidential candidate Donald Trump began to refer to it to support his argument that stricter policies were needed to stop immigration, and also to defend his opposition to so-called sanctuary cities, which limit his cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
In late 2017, a San Francisco Superior Court jury acquitted García Zárate of various charges, including murder. But shortly after federal prosecutors charged him with two counts of illegal possession of a firearm.
Two doctors have diagnosed that García Zárate suffers from schizophrenia and lacks the capacity to stand trial because he cannot follow up on court proceedings. They said that he believes that the electronic devices transmit messages to him and other inmates, and that his lawyer is accepting bribes from the police.
Chabbria appointed Dr. Paul Elizondo, a San Francisco psychiatrist, to conduct the new evaluation, and directed the Federal Marshals Service to ensure that he receives all relevant medical records, including those showing whether García Zárate was taking his medicine. medicine when he was transferred to a jail.
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