At the risk of standing in a tide of righteous outrage:
Does anyone know CA law on manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter?
My understanding is that the illegal is claiming it was an ND, and he didn't intend to fire on anyone. I find that story credible based on what I've read, he doesn't seem to have had any motive for killing Ms. Steinle. The twitchy link in the OP has input from a lawyer saying CA manslaughter requires intent to harm.
Does anyone know if the jury was even allowed to consider "lesser included charges"? It would seem that involuntary manslaughter would be the best fit here, but I don't know CA's implementation of that law.
Back to your regularly scheduled lynching.
As I mentioned in the OP, I thought murder was out of reach. I was actually kind of surprised to see that added, especially by San Fran prosecutors. I don't know the CA law on manslaughter, but i just heard a liberal CA attorney on the news suggesting that if it were a simple involuntary manslaughter charge, things would likely have gone down differently, as involuntary manslaughter only requires negligence and/or recklessness, which this seems to fall under.
I don't know that I buy the guy's whole story about "finding the gun under the bench". Or that he was trying to shoot a seal. While he may not have meant to shoot a person, he was recklessly playing with a firearm that he probably got somewhere other than "under a bench" in a very high traffic area.
Obviously most of the outrage here is in the fact that a five time deported multiple felon was walking around free as a bird because San Fran set him free after his last arrest. Had they contacted the feds, None of this would have happened (at least this time). The San Francisco government should actually have been a co-defendent IMO in a fair world. I'm curious if they could be sued by the family in civil court.
Also, in CA (and San Francisco), I can't help but wonder what would have happened to the gun's owner if he were not LE. Or if the perpetrator was a white male citizen.