SAN FRANCISCO -- Lawyers in court Thursday on the shooting death of Kate Steinle said the murder case that ignited a furious national debate over illegal immigration won't go to trial until next year, long after the presidential election.
Although a judge set Dec. 2 as the date to assign the case for trial, it could take months -- or longer -- for the trial of Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez to begin in earnest.
"I have cases that are 4 years old," prosecutor Diane Garcia said during the two-minute hearing.
Outside court, Matt Gonzalez, Lopez-Sanchez's public defender, said there have been no discussions of a plea deal in the killing of Steinle, who was shot in the back while walking with her father along San Francisco's Pier 14 on July 1, 2015.
Kathryn Steinle is seen in a 2009 photograph. Steinle died from a single gunshot wound on July 1, 2015, while walking on Pier 14 along San
Kathryn Steinle is seen in a 2009 photograph. Steinle died from a single gunshot wound on July 1, 2015, while walking on Pier 14 along San Francisco's Embarcadero with her father. (Courtesy of Nicole Ludwig)
"It is a case that is really all or nothing," Gonzalez said, repeating his position that the shooting was accidental.
Steinle was struck by a bullet fired from a gun stolen days earlier from a U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger. Lopez-Sanchez's lawyers claim he found the gun on the pier and fired it accidentally. The bullet struck the pier deck and ricocheted, hitting Steinle in the back.
Garcia claims Lopez-Sanchez intended to kill Steinle, claiming he fired what she's called "a skip shot." But a ballistics expert who testified at Lopez-Sanchez's preliminary hearing last year said such a shot would be nearly impossible because the bullet could not have followed a straight path after hitting the pier
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has held up Lopez-Sanchez -- a Mexican national who had been deported five times only to re-enter the United States -- as one of his justifications for building a wall along the Mexican border and mentioned Steinle in his acceptance speech in Cleveland last month.
Local and federal authorities came under fire in the aftermath of the killing for releasing Lopez-Sanchez back on the streets of San Francisco just weeks before Steinle's killing, in part, because of the city's refusal to hold suspects for immigration violations.