San Francisco's district attorney is defending the handling of a murder trial that ended with the acquittal of a Mexican man whose arrest set off a fierce national debate on immigration.
District Attorney George Gascon said Tuesday that he still believes Jose Ines Garcia Zarate should have been convicted of murder in the 2015 death of Kate Steinle.
A jury rejected that charge last week and convicted Garcia Zarate only of being a felon in possession of a gun.
Legal experts say prosecutors overreached by asking for a first-degree murder conviction because the fatal shot ricocheted off the ground, supporting Garcia Zarate's defense that the shooting was an accident.
Gascon also called President Trump a "madman" for a series of tweets deriding the verdict.
"To the President, this is a nation of law, we respect the legal process. Most immigrants are law-abiding citizens," he said. "We need to have the discipline not to allow a madman tweeting, to dictate what we do."
