The only conviction against a man accused of killing Kate Steinle in 2015 was overturned in the 1st District Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Friday.

Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate was accused of shooting Steinle while she was walking with her father and friend on the San Francisco waterfront. Garcia-Zarate, a Mexican national, was in the U.S. illegally at the time of the shooting. He had previously been deported five times, and it was not known when he reentered the country. Steinle was 32 at the time of her death.

Garcia-Zarate maintained that the shooting was accidental and that he did not mean to discharge the firearm he says he found wrapped in a T-shirt. The gun was stolen one week earlier from the parked car of a Bureau of Land Management ranger.

Garcia-Zarate was acquitted of all but one charge in November of 2017, more than two years after Steinle's death. The jury at the time found him "not guilty" of assault with a semi-automatic weapon, first and second-degree murder, and involuntary manslaughter. He was convicted only of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

That conviction was overturned on Friday when the California court found that a judge failed to instruct the jury on one of Garcia-Zarate's defenses. He will remain in custody while awaiting trial on federal gun charges.

The family of Steinle filed a wrongful death suit against San Francisco earlier this year alleging the city's status as an immigrant sanctuary unduly put their daughter at risk. The suit was dismissed by the lower court and that decision was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The suit also named San Francisco County Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi as responsible for the death of Steinle.

The sheriff's office had Garcia-Zarate in custody just three months prior to the shooting but released him when the drug charges against him were dropped. The office ignored a request by federal authorities to hold Garcia-Zarate until they could take him into custody, an issue that became a flashpoint in the case.

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