|
|
The
views expressed
on this page are soley those of the author and do not
necessarily
represent the views of County News Online
|
 |
The Daily Signal
Will Government Officials Be Held Accountable for Kate Steinle’s Death? Her Family Filed a Lawsuit.
Kelsey Harkness
September 03, 2015
In an attempt to hold government officials accountable for the shooting
death of their 32-year-old daughter Kate, the Steinle family filed a
lawsuit against three government agencies.
The suit alleges that those agencies are in part responsible for
Steinle’s death, but experts say the family has little chance at
prevailing.
“Unfortunately, prior lawsuits against cities over their sanctuary
policies that were directly responsible for the murder of American
citizens have been unsuccessful due to sovereign immunity,” Hans von
Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The
Daily Signal.
Sovereign immunity is the legal principle that governments are immune
to lawsuits except in cases where they waive their immunity and set
some amount that they will be liable for if a government employee
engages in negligent behavior.
Steinle was fatally shot in San Francisco on July 1 by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez.
Lopez-Sanchez is an illegal immigrant who had seven prior felony
convictions in the U.S. and was deported to Mexico five separate times.
He was released from a San Francisco jail in April under a city law
barring the jail’s deputies from informing U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement of his release, despite the agency’s previous notification
request.
San Francisco is one of many “sanctuary cities” throughout the country.
Sanctuary policies differ from city to city, but generally they
instruct city employees and law enforcement not to ask the immigration
status of criminal suspects or prosecute undocumented immigrants.
The Steinles filed the lawsuit in hopes that San Francisco and the
other 200-some sanctuary cities will reform their policies, which the
family claims are illegal, so that no one else will experience what
happened to their daughter.
“We feel as though we’ve exhausted avenues, we’re frustrated, and we’re
here to make sure a change is made so nobody has to endure the pain
that my mom and dad and I go through on a daily basis because the
system failed our sister,” Steinle’s brother, Brad Steinle, told
reporters during an emotional press conference on Tuesday.
Proponents of sanctuary cities say the policy is necessary in balancing
public safety with a respect for civil rights and maintaining trust in
immigrant communities so that their residents continue reporting crime.
The Steinles’ lawsuit alleges that the Bureau of Land Management and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement—and San Francisco Sheriff Ross
Mirkarimi—directly contributed to Kate’s death by neglecting to oversee
different aspects that led to her being shot.
Their claim against the Bureau of Land Management is that the agency
didn’t follow regulations in properly securing the gun Lopez-Sanchez
stole and used to kill their daughter
Mirkarimi, the sheriff implicated in the lawsuit, is accused of failing
to detain Lopez-Sanchez. In a statement, Mirkarimi voiced sympathy for
the family but says he was only following city policy.
The lawsuit accuses Immigration and Customs Enforcement of being aware
that Mirkarimi had no plans to detain Lopez-Sanchez unless they
obtained a court warrant, but the agency neglected to do so.
Jim Steinle, father of Kathryn Steinle, who was killed by an illegal
immigrant, testifies to Congress about his daughter’s death. (Photo:
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Von Spakovsky said that while the family is unlikely to win, the case still has worth.
“The lawsuit is worthwhile to make San Francisco defend itself, with
all the bad publicity that entails,” he said. “If they get embarrassed
enough, the city might agree to settle and pay off.”
In 2011, a California appeals court rejected a similar lawsuit. In that
case, the wife of Anthony Bologna alleged that San Francisco’s
sanctuary policy contributed to the shooting death of her husband and
their two sons by a Salvadoran illegal immigrant who was suspected of
being a member of a violent gang.
Like the Steinles, Bologna claimed that the city had been negligent by
failing to report her family’s murder to federal authorities despite
having been in contact with police for drug and violent crimes he
committed while a juvenile.
According to CBS, the court threw out this argument, maintaining,
“[S]tate law generally protects cities from being sued for injuries
unless a city violated a law specifically intended to protect against
the alleged injury.”
This case, the court ruled, dealt with laws that weren’t specifically
designed to protect against personal injury, so the case was thrown out.
Von Spakovsky says government officials may never be held accountable
in Steinle’s case, and that the status quo is unlikely to change under
the Obama administration.
“The Obama administration likes these sanctuary policies for political
reasons and doesn’t care about the untold suffering they cause,” he
said. “What needs to happen but won’t under the current administration
is that the federal government should sue cities like San Francisco for
their reckless, dangerous policies that violate federal immigration
law.”
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
|
|
|
|
