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Heinrich has to believe this; otherwise, some of his most important ongoing cases would collapse. Simple murder is not a federal matter, so gang-killing cases qualify for federal jurisdiction only as "conspiracy to murder in aid of racketeering." Heinrich thus claims that Green and Morris didn’t simply kill Terrell Gethers in the street during the Caribbean Festival three years ago; he charges that their gang, the Esmond Street Crew, had a Franklin Hill Giants member whacked to protect and further their criminal enterprise. That enterprise was controlling cocaine distribution in the blocks just north of Franklin Field.

Thus, Heinrich must convince his jury not only that Green and Morris killed Gethers, but that they belonged to the Esmond Street Crew, that the Crew qualified as a criminal enterprise ("a group of individuals associated in fact, which engaged in, and the activities of which affected, interstate and foreign commerce"), and that the murder was gang-related, not motivated by a dispute over a girl or some other personal reason. If the federal jury decides that the Crew was just a bunch of guys on the same block, or that the murder had nothing to do with the Crew, they must acquit — even if they believe that the defendants committed the murder.

Good luck to Heinrich. One federal judge — Mark L. Wolf — has already ruled in a companion case that the Esmond Street Crew was not a criminal enterprise. This happened when three other Esmond Street defendants, indicted in a group of 14 along with Green and Morris, went to bench trial (in which there is no jury and the judge decides the case) on drug charges before Wolf last May. Three others in the group had made plea deals in exchange for testimony — but one of them, Shawn Williams, dramatically recanted on the stand. There was no gang, he said, just a bunch of guys who lived in the same area. "When I went before the grand jury, I had lied," Williams said, according to a transcript. "I basically lied ... every time I was briefed. My daughter had just passed away, and I wasn’t really in the right state of mind. I was just trying to get home."

Wolf ultimately sentenced the three men on simple possession and distribution, for which they received prison terms ranging from four to seven years. (For recanting, Williams forfeited his prearranged deal and is serving 12 years.) Wolf also suggested that Heinrich reconsider his prosecutions of the murder-related Esmond Street cases, including Green and Morris, according to a transcript of the hearing. "[W]ho wants to conduct a death-penalty case with somebody who voluntarily tells the judge that he’s committed perjury?" Wolf said.

Others concur with Wolf’s assessment that the case’s weak criminal-enterprise link made federal prosecution inappropriate. "It was totally disorganized criminal activity," says Benjamin Entine, the attorney who represented Kevin Modlin, one of the Esmond Street defendants. "There was no indication of criminal enterprise, other than the fact that they lived in the same area." Entine knows the difference — he defended a member of the Intervale Posse. That group was completely different: "Everybody knew everybody, there was a hierarchy, they wore insignia, and so on." By contrast, Entine says, the Esmond Street "gang" had none of that — not even a gang name. "Nobody ever called them Esmond Street Crew until the federal government decided that would be a nice thing to call them." In fact, a National Institute of Justice study of Boston’s Operation Ceasefire, released in September 2001 — a month after the Gethers murder — does not include Esmond Street among a list of 60 Boston street gangs. Nor does the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC), in its current list of 75 Boston street gangs active in its prisons.

Federal prosecutions involving the Stonehurst Crew, to which Wurie and Monteiro allegedly belonged, seem equally questionable. The purported gang is also absent from the Ceasefire and DOC lists. Last fall, 13 alleged members of Stonehurst, mostly Cape Verdeans in Dorchester and Brockton, received federal indictments. Stonehurst was allegedly battling with Wendover, a Cape Verdean gang that is listed by Operation Ceasefire. According to a Ceasefire report, Wendover was in conflict with Magnolia and in "intense conflict" with Dudley Park, two other gangs.

The Stonehurst indictment accuses 13 individuals of 18 shootings, including the murder of Luis Carvalho; technically, the charges are murder, assault, and conspiracy to murder, all "in aid of racketeering." And what was that racket? According to the indictment, the main purpose of the Stonehurst "enterprise" was not economic, but "to shoot and kill members, associates, and perceived supporters of a rival gang in Boston known as Wendover."

"To use RICO laws and treat these kids in the same league as major drug-dealing groups is absurd," says Martina Jackson, executive director of the Boston-based Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. "It shows a tremendous racial and class bias."

THE BPD’S JOYCE insists that, regardless of the changing nature of gang activity, the federal courts continue to serve an important role in fighting street crime. The Esmond Street area, he says, has quieted down considerably since that group was pulled off the street. That’s true, at least for the immediate few blocks that the group purportedly controlled. But of the 120 homicides in Boston since the start of 2002, at least 15 have occurred within a half-mile of the alleged former Esmond Street headquarters.

Ultimately, however, the question is not whether a group of violent criminals should be prosecuted — obviously, they should. Rather, the question is why the federal court is needed. From a prosecutorial standpoint, federalizing a case has several benefits. For one thing, agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) often have vastly greater financial and personnel resources than any local police department; they can put somebody undercover for a year to infiltrate a gang, Doolin points out. Those agencies also operate under different, often more lenient rules. The DEA can wire up an informant without a court order, for example, which it did in the Esmond Street investigation. And, since the US sentencing guidelines were overhauled in 1987, federal sentences are often harsher — particularly for career criminals, because prior crimes can serve as sentence multipliers.