CLEVELAND -- There is a scene in "Absence of Malice," an old favorite movie I watched again the other night, that goes something like this:

A woman has committed suicide after some journalistic recklessness results in an embarrassing personal story being published in the local newspaper. Her closest friend (Paul Newman) orchestrates a complicated revenge against the people responsible, and winds up as part of a federal legal inquiry. During the inquiry, he says this:

"Everybody in this room is smart. And everybody was just doing their job. And Teresa Perrone is dead. Who do I see about that?"

"Ain't nobody to see," says the district attorney (Wilford Brimley), as he ends the proceedings. "I wish there was ...."

Those words kept ringing in my head as I read about last week's verdict in a San Francisco courtroom that resulted in a wrist-slap penalty against the illegal immigrant who shot and killed 32-year-old Kate Steinle on a San Francisco Bay pier on July 1, 2015.

Who do we see about Kate Steinle's death? Unlike in the movie, the list is long.

You'll remember the story: Steinle was walking arm in arm with her father that summer evening when a bullet from a .40-caliber Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistol held by Jose Ines Garcia Zarate hit her in the back and pierced her heart. She died in her father's arms. "Help me, Dad," were her last words.

Garcia Zarate is a seven-time felon who was in San Francisco after having been arrested six times for illegally entering this country and sent back to his home in Mexico five previous times.

Immigration agents had arrested him in April, then discovered he was wanted on a drug-related warrant. So instead of sending him directly back to Mexico they turned him over to the San Francisco police, asking that he be prosecuted or held for his sixth deportation. City prosecutors discharged the case, and, San Francisco being a "sanctuary city," the police let him go rather than returning him to federal custody.

That was how Garcia Zarate happened to be wandering around, homeless but free, on the pier that night. He told police he sat down and discovered the gun (which had been stolen four days earlier from the car of a federal ranger parked nearby) under his seat, wrapped in a cloth. At first Garcia Zarate said he stepped on the gun and it fired. Then he said he fired it at a seal. Then he said he picked it up and it went off accidentally.

Whatever version you believe, it is true that the bullet hit Steinle, Garcia Zarete threw the gun in the bay, and fled. He was arrested a short time later.



The shooting sparked outrage across the country. The fury intensified last Thursday when a San Francisco jury found Garcia Zarete guilty only of being a felon in possession of a gun - acquitting him of murder and manslaughter.



Much of the outrage has been directed at the jury. But regardless of whether the jurors believed Garcia Zarete's story, here's what they had to go on: There was no proof he stole the gun. No proof that he didn't find it as he said. No motive and no proof that he intended to shoot Steinle - the bullet that hit her ricocheted off the pavement 200 feet from where she was hit.

There was more than enough reasonable doubt to go around, and the jury did the best it could under the circumstances.

But there are plenty of others to see about Kate Steinle's death, in addition to the miscreant who pulled the trigger.

Start with the boneheaded federal ranger who left the deadly weapon unsecured in his car on a city street where it could be stolen.

Move on to the lax border enforcement that enabled Garcia Zarete to sneak into the U.S. illegally six times.

Then there is defense attorney Francisco Ugarte, who diminished Steinle's undeserved death with this outrageous victory statement: "From Day One, this case was used as a means to foment hate, to foment division, to foment a program of mass deportation ... and I believe today is a vindication for the rights of immigrants." (No. It was an attempt to seek justice for a woman who is dead, and shouldn't be.)

Focus on the legislators who formulated San Francisco's sanctuary city policy, which enabled Garcia Zarete to go free, when he should have been either prosecuted for the drug charge or returned to federal custody, nowhere near the pier on July 1.

"San Francisco's policy of refusing to honor [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] detainers is a blatant threat to public safety and undermines the rule of law," said ICE Deputy Director Tom Homan in a statement after the verdict. "This tragedy could have been prevented if San Francisco had simply turned the alien over to ICE, as we requested, instead of releasing him back onto the streets."

San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee was unmoved. "San Francisco is and will always be a sanctuary city," he said in a statement.

And in October, California Gov. Jerry Brown added insult to injury by signing the "California Values Act," which prohibits the state's law enforcement officers from even asking about a person's immigration status.

These are all smart people. And they were all just doing their jobs. And Kate Steinle is dead.

Who do we see about that?

All of the above.

Ted Diadiun is a member of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

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