In July, a Santa Barbara County criminal grand jury indicted 17 suspected members of the notoriously violent MS-13 gang on more than 50 felony counts, including murder, witness intimidation, and conspiracy to commit murder.
However, on Oct. 19 in New Jersey, six members of MS-13 received federal prison sentences for crimes ranging from extortion to conspiracy to commit murder, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in an Oct. 18 press release.
Both cases featured similar charges against members of the same international gang yet one was prosecuted by the county and the other federally. It turns out that there are variety of factors that go into the decision to prosecute in a certain way.
For Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley, it’s a matter of choice.
“We felt that we would do the best job prosecuting our case,” Dudley told the Sun, adding that the county loses control of the case if they turn it over to the federal authorities. “I feel like it’s our job to protect Santa Barbara County.”
In general, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, if the federal authorities were not involved in the investigation, then they most certainly wouldn’t be involved in the prosecution. However, in the Santa Maria MS-13 case, federal authorities were involved.
The arrests came in March after the Santa Maria Police Department led Operation Matador in response to a violent 2015, which saw more than a dozen homicides in the city.
Even though Operation Matador involved federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, ATF, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and reached all the way to Columbus, Ohio, the case is being prosecuted at a local level.
In this instance, Mrozek said it’s a matter of resources. In a district that serves seven counties—including Santa Barbara County—with a population of roughly 20 million people, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has only 180 prosecutors. He draws a comparison to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, which has roughly 1,000 prosecutors who file tens of thousands of cases each year.
Also, Mrozek said there are certain guidelines his office considers before bringing on a case. Many times, when federal authorities investigate gang enterprises, the investigations are long-term and typically result in racketeering charges—laws that don’t have parallels in state law, Mrozek said.
Federal authorities are also obligated to prosecute cases exclusively within federal jurisdiction, he added.
“At the end of the day, the case is being prosecuted,” Mrozek told the Sun. “Criminals are being brought to justice and being incarcerated and off the streets, reducing the threat to law-abiding citizens.”
The Santa Maria case is being handled by Senior Deputy District Attorney Ann Bramsen, who Dudley said she believes is the right person for the job.
If convicted, some of the 17 defendants in Santa Barbara County’s MS-13 case face a jail sentence of life without parole. Dudley decided not to pursue the death penalty, explaining that she believes that the state’s capital punishment system is dysfunctional.
Staff Writer David Minsky can be reached at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 3, 2016.