EDITORIAL: DA makes costly mistake

BY RON SOBLE
Nobody’s perfect. Just ask Tom Brady. (What? You didn’t watch the Super Bowl?)
Hilary Dozer, a senior prosecutor with more than a quarter century of experience in the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office, apparently missed a technical filing date, a judge ruled yesterday. So the jurist, Superior Court Judge Frank J. Ochoa, strictly following the law, threw out another judge’s ruling in a preliminary hearing to hold the defendant for a criminal trial.
Now, Dozer said, he is refiling the case today, almost a year after the prosecutor launched it.

Why am I even telling you this? Because, arguably, it happens to be the courthouse’s hottest case.
The suspect, Ricardo “Ricky” Juarez, 14, was coping with an imminent jury trial in the gang-related fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old during an afternoon melee on State Street last March 14. Police, arriving on the scene a few minutes following the slaying, were confident that they nabbed the right suspect.
Facing trial as an adult, Juarez pleaded innocent.
Incensed over the ruling by Superior Court Judge Brian Hill to hold her client for trial, the public defender, Karen R. Atkins, following a prolonged preliminary hearing, appealed that the decision be thrown out on several points, tossing the case.
Does Atkins have enough legal foundation to raise a constitutional issue of double jeopardy -- prohibiting the trial of an individual twice for the same alleged crime -- even though the trial phase has not begun? Atkins did not return a telephone call from a Daily Sound reporter asking for comment on Ochoa’s decision.
The Wednesday killing, on Santa Barbara’s busiest street, stunned the city. A youth violence wake-up call, declared locals and lawmakers. Almost immediately, seemingly endless meetings sprouted around the city, searching for answers to why gangs were so intent on harming each other.
Even now, a high priority City Hall-backed investigation is being conducted to find a new approach to containing gang violence.
With 20-20 hindsight, why did Dozer, a veteran prosecutor, want to put some of his cards on the table and proceed with a time-consuming public hearing designed to convince a judge to hold the suspect for trial?
Instead, Dozer could have brought the case before a county grand jury, seeking a quick criminal indictment. At such a closed-door proceeding, defense counsel cannot appear to contest the decision.
“I think having a preliminary hearing is a good idea in this case...,” Dozer told me during an interview last May in his office. “I think it’s important for the word to go out...that a person who is 14 years old...is facing a certain consequence for that event that is gang related...
“That has a a direct affect on people and people’s opinion on how they will react to certain situations...And, I think that parents, when they read it, will talk about it with their kids...and when kids hear of it, they will talk among themselves.”
At the time, Dozer reflecting on his decision not to accelerate the case into the trial phase,was candid and to the point. With his long experience in gang-related cases, he was striving to make a dent in youth violence that has haunted Santa Barbara for years.
Once again, gang-related violence is on the upswing, spiking 68 percent over the past two years, according to police data. Here was an opportunity for a prosecutor to make a statement.
“Maybe I’m naive,” he told me. Still, he said, “it may have an affect on putting a damper on some of the stuff, the rumors that we hear about the violence that's contemplated in the future, and I think that’s good...It’ll get the word out.”
It certainly did that, a 14-year-old facing a murder trial for killing another kid as unbelieving folks looked on.
But does the public glare of a preliminary hearing have any impact on gang youth? Last July, yet another gang-related homicide, a fatal knifing, according to police, took place at night in a neighborhood away from the glare of State Street.
Dozer told me last May he was convinced he chose the correct path. “A grand jury?” he asked rhetorically. “What good is that?”

Ron Soble can be reached at rsoble@mac.com