Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez wants the murder charges against him for the fatal shooting of a woman in San Francisco to be dismissed. His lawyer, Matt Gonzales, insists the killing that renewed national debate over illegal immigration was an accident.
A scheduled hearing was cancelled last Friday because the judge wanted more time to consider the issue. Another hearing was set on March 24. Lopez-Sanchez has entered a not guilty plea to the killing of Kate Steinle, 32.
Steinle was taking an evening stroll on July 1 with her father and a family friend along San Francisco's famed waterfront when she was shot in the back. She later died in her father's armsreports ABC News.
The gun was the service firearm of a Bureau of Land Management ranger who reported it stolen from his car in downtown San Francisco in June. Lopez-Sanchez confessed that he found the gun under a bench on the pier. It was wrapped in a T-shirt and when he picked it up, it accidentally fired.
Ballistics experts testified in the preliminary hearing in September that the shot ricocheted off a concrete surface before hitting Steinle. According to Mercury News, Gonzales said, "A champion marksman could not accurately hit a target after first striking a concrete surface."
Prosecutors do not share Gonzales' view and say that a second-degree murder charge is appropriate. If the judge decides to grant the dismissal of the murder charges, the district attorney could refile lesser degree charges.
The Mexican national Lopez-Sanchez entered the US illegally and has been previously deported five times. Prior to the shooting, he was released from a San Francisco jail despite a federal immigration authorities request to the local officials to keep him in custody for possible deportation. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made reference to the Steinle killing repeatedly in his calls for a border wall and mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
According to former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, Lopez-Sanchez was released after prosecutors dropped a marijuana related charge against him. Also, Mirkarimi said that there was a city policy not to cooperate with federal immigration officials which he followed in Lopez-Sanchez' case reports Business Insider.
San Francisco is one of California municipalities that have enacted sanctuary policies by ignoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to hold inmates suspected to have entered the US illegally for deportation proceedings. Federal officials are required to first get a warrant or court notice in order for the local officials to hold an inmate facing possible deportation.
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