Agreed. Which is why is would be difficult for the prosecution for prove murder. They have no idea what he was thinking. But they do know the bullet wasn't a direct hit
So if someone shoots at you and misses but the bullet ricochets and kills you the shooter gets off Scott free? Because he is a bad shot? What kind of idiocy has rotted your brain?
Dear
Fang and
Rambunctious
If the circumstances were purely accidental and legal for him to be there, yes this could be argued as an accidental shooting death. That is not murder, but could be negligent homicide if negligence is involved.
Even Zimmerman didn't get negligent homicide as many including me thought would better describe what went wrong when he killed Trayvon Martin.
In this case, "felony murder" comes the closest to the circumstances around the death. It still isn't exactly what happened to the "letter of the law."
But it matches closely "in spirit."
Basically the man has a felony record, and the ACT of re-entry into the country after deportation CAN be punished as a felony.
But being present in the country isn't a felony, not even in his case. He just has a felony background, and RE-ENTRY can be a felony.
Then any death that occurs, even unintentional or accidental, during the COMMISSION of a felony CAN be charged as "felony murder" IN SOME STATES.
So the two reasons this doesn't apply here directly, is the state has different laws and interpretations of felony murder. And the man's presence at that location when the death occurred because he had committed a felony "in the past" doesn't necessarily count as felony in the PRESENT when the death occurred. It wasn't "during the commission" of his PAST felonies.
So it is stretch, and other people who DO CALL HIS PRESENCE to be a felony DO count this as murder.
What they could do is consider everyone in SF who ENABLED this man to be there could count as an ACCESSORY to felony, and thus contributed to felony murder by letting him here where a DEATH occurred, accidental or unintentional or not.
That's a HUGE stretch. But it could be argued IN SPIRIT, just the letter of the law can contradict that and get them off the hook which is what they use, the letter of the law to violate the SPIRIT of the law.