D.A.’s New Special Prosecution Team Plans to Fight Gangs on Its Own Turf

It was an open-and-shut case. Three Vietnamese gang members had robbed an auto repair shop, and the victim identified all of them to police. But when the case came to Orange County Superior Court, his memory failed.

He hadn’t seen any of the robbers’ faces, he insisted. The case had to be dismissed.

John D. Conley, a deputy district attorney, said a prosecutor who specialized in gangs could have made the difference.

“Clearly, the victim was too scared to testify against gang members,” Conley said. “In a gang case, you can’t meet with the victim 15 minutes before trial and then put him on the stand. He’s terrified. The prosecutor needs to gain the victim’s confidence long before the trial begins.”

In the last six weeks, Conley has assembled a team of prosecutors who will make that difference: a new gang unit of the district attorney’s office. Approved by the Board of Supervisors last month, the team will consist of six prosecutors, four investigators and other support staff, all headed by Conley. It’s expected to cost about $400,000 a year.

In a joint letter asking the supervisors to form the team, Supervisor Roger R. Stanton and Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks urged them to “act now before the problem becomes unmanageable.”

Law enforcement officials say more than 80 gangs exist in Orange County, nearly double the number of five years ago. Statistics compiled by Conley’s office show a 72% increase in gang prosecutions from fiscal 1985-86 to fiscal 1986-87.

Conley said the team’s assault on gangs should work for several reasons.

First, victims will deal with one prosecutor, instead of a different prosecutor as the case goes through each step in the system. Conley said that plan--known as vertical prosecution--might make it easier for some people to testify.

That’s an expensive process. For example, one felony prosecutor in a municipal court might handle 30 arraignments in one morning. It’s expensive to send a second prosecutor to the same court to arraign a single gang member. But it’s more effective, Conley said.

“With the constant change of personnel handling the case, there is not a prosecutor the witnesses can come to know and trust.”

But the primary reason for the unit is specialization. Prosecutors who understand the gangs’ world have a better chance of winning guilty verdicts, Conley said.

“Let’s say you need a search warrant in a case. A prosecutor trained in gang cases will know more about things to look for that might show a defendant’s gang involvement--patches or some kind of insignia,” Conley said. That information is sometimes important in seeking a search warrant from a judge, and it can make the search itself more fruitful. “A gang specialist might also know more about how to use a police officer or a probation officer as a gang expert.”

And a defendant’s gang membership can be crucial in establishing a motive for a crime with a jury.

Take, for example, a drive-by shooting. “Let’s say you’ve got four people in the car,” Conley said.

“It makes a big difference how that case is prosecuted. If you put on that case the wrong way, you might get just a manslaughter on the shooter, maybe something on the driver, but nothing on the other two. But if you can show that all of the people in the car were part of a gang that was retaliating against someone--that this was a planned gang hit--you could end up with first-degree murder convictions on all four.”

The key is aggressive prosecution, but that is just what bothers some defense attorneys. Assistant Public Defender Michael P. Giannini used the same drive-by shooting example.

“A lot of times the guys in the back seat are 14- and 15-year-old kids,” Giannini said. “Even if they know that a shooting is going to take place, you think they stand a chance with their peers if they say, ‘Stop the car, I want out?’ I hope that Mr. Conley is in his reflective-lawyer mode and not his aggressive-prosecutor mode when he gets a case like that.”

Donald G. Rubright, a Newport Beach attorney who has handled scores of gang cases, said he also worries that people only peripherally part of a gang life style will be swept up in a vigorous prosecution.

“I’m just against these broad sweeps where you get arrested if you’re standing on the street corner smoking a cigarette and talking to someone,” Rubright said.

But Rubright, like several defense lawyers, also said they can understand why law enforcement officials have said the new gang unit is long overdue.

“There are a lot of mean dudes out there on the street,” Rubright said. “It’s a problem that the district attorney’s office has every right to be concerned about.”

Conley said his people recognize that there are “different gradations of gang affiliation. We’re going to concentrate on hard-core gang leaders.”

It is true, however, that someone identified by law enforcement as a gang member may never escape that label.

Prosecutors in the new gang unit hope to computerize a list of arrested people with known gang affiliations. Newly arrested people will be checked against that list.

Turn the Case Around

“You might have a crime with very little evidence but a suspect who shows up on the computer as a known gang member,” Conley explained. “A gang unit prosecutor might have enough knowledge about (the suspect’s) background and gang affiliation to turn that case around.”

Conley and his team didn’t expect defense attorneys to be their strongest supporters. What matters to them is the community support they have received.

Gus Frias, the anti-gang coordinator for the county’s Department of Education, praised the idea.

“Gang leaders fill a hole for young people,” Frias said. “Once prosecutors eliminate the gang leaders, our job (in education) is to find a replacement to fill that hole. But we can’t do our job if the gang leaders are still on the streets.”

In requesting the gang unit, prosecutors told the Board of Supervisors that too much gang information in Orange County is fragmented--each city knows something about its gang problems, but nobody else’s. Dist. Atty. Hicks told the supervisors that the new gang unit in his office could become a clearinghouse for gang data for the county.

Natural Choice

Assistant Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi had asked Conley to help put together the proposal. From there, it was assumed that Conley would be in charge of the new unit.

He was a natural choice. The silver-haired prosecutor is a veteran from homicide cases--he won a death sentence two years ago against a man who shot two 12-year-old girls in the Cleveland National Forest--and has been in charge of the juvenile branch of the district attorney’s office for nearly two years.

Also, it was Conley who a few years ago put together the district attorney’s sexual assault unit, which concentrates on rape and child-abuse cases. That unit has won praise for its effectiveness from the supervisors, community groups and even defense attorneys.

One of Conley’s first jobs with the gang unit, once the supervisors approved it, was to put together his team. That turned out to be easy. He put out the word for volunteers from within the office--instead of hiring from the outside--and was overwhelmed with high-quality applicants.

The new team of prosecutors consists of Charles J. Middleton, who has specialized in gang cases as a homicide prosecutor; David C. Velasquez, experienced in gang cases both in Orange and Los Angeles counties, Thomas Avdeef, a former homicide prosecutor who has specialized in narcotics cases the past year; Martin G. Engquist, who has specialized in white-collar crimes; Diane Archer, a juvenile specialist, and Ravinder Mehta, a felony specialist.

Velasquez said he volunteered for the new unit because he believes Orange County still has a chance to weaken gang influence with tough prosecution.

“In Los Angeles, I think, it’s hopeless,” Velasquez said. “But we can get ahead of the problem here.”

Because the majority of cases involve juveniles, the group will work out of the juvenile court complex on The City Drive in Orange.

Conley is convinced it will succeed.

“It’s what we need if we are going to make headway against gang-related crimes in Orange County,” he said.