From Crime Scene to Courtroom: Justice Through a Gang Prosecutor's Lens

Kyle McEntee:

We're joined today by Shannon Struble, a prosecutor for the fourth largest county in the U.S. Going into law school, you had a very clear sense of what you wanted to do. And that was prosecute crime. Why were you so focused on this role?

Shannon Struble:

I think just growing up in my background with my mom being a probation officer and then one of my majors was criminal justice. And so for me, that felt like how I was able to do something I'm passionate about but also help the community.

Kyle McEntee:

How did you decide which level you wanted to prosecute at after graduation?

Shannon Struble:

Well, during my law school time there, I did a number of internships from the city level to the federal level and then the state level where I'm at, the county. And I just really liked the county attorney's office that I'm at. And it just had such a wide variety of crimes you can prosecute, things you can do within this office because we also do have a civil division. Obviously, my role is in the criminal division, but there's just so much movement and growth you could do here.

Kyle McEntee:

Big picture. Is it what you expected?

Shannon Struble:

Yes and no. I would say that the day-to-day is probably not exactly what I expected. There's a lot more downtime. We are in the courtroom every day, but not for hours on end type of thing you see on TV, we're not in trial every single day. So some of that is not exactly what I expected. But as far as the variety of stuff I see, the impact that we can have, that's kind of what I expected.

Kyle McEntee:

So you apply to be a prosecutor in Arizona's largest county, Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and a bunch of other cities and unincorporated areas, and you land a job. To put our conversation in context, let's take a slight civics detour. Towns and cities like Phoenix are incorporated and have their own local governments. Unincorporated areas rely on county governments for local government functions like law enforcement. Can you talk about how prosecution responsibilities are divvied up for people who get arrested?

Shannon Struble:

Yes. So I'm at the county level, so I follow the state statute. So what we call those Arizona revised statutes. So that's where our responsibilities come from. It's prosecuting individuals for crimes related to the Arizona revised statutes. We have city jurisdictions that handle misdemeanor crimes that follow not only the Arizona revised statute, but other city ordinances and those sorts of things. And then we do have the U.S. Attorney's Office or a federal jurisdiction here that obviously handles anything federally related that happens within even in our county.

Kyle McEntee:

So while setups differ throughout the country, it's common for all new prosecutors to start in the same place, doing work that's good for learning on the job. What did that jumpstart look like for you?

Shannon Struble:

I started out in a very long training program. I think it was like six weeks, close to two months training program. Law school teaches you a lot, but not necessarily how to do the actual job. And then I started out doing misdemeanor crimes in the unincorporated areas that we had talked about. They have what we call justice courts, and we have several of them across Maricopa County. And those justice courts handle all misdemeanor related offenses that happen in those unincorporated areas because they don't have city municipal courts to handle their like DUIs, domestic violence related offenses, stuff like that. And so I started out for a year doing misdemeanor stuff while also handling some lower-level felony things in a fast-paced court system that we have here.

Kyle McEntee:

So it sounds very fast paced. Did you really feel like you were ready to go on day one when you got out of that training?

Shannon Struble:

Absolutely not. I think the start of any transition into like whether it's a different bureau or just like starting out is a little rough. There's a lot to learn. The learning curve is pretty steep to try to figure out how to do the actual work that we're doing.

Kyle McEntee:

Yeah, the mistakes can make people mad. There's lives on the line either way.

Shannon Struble:

Yes. And I think that's kind of why I started out with the lower-level offenses where the stakes aren't necessarily as high. They're high because obviously we're always talking about someone's life, liberty, all of those sorts of things. But I had mentors I had access to. There is time to read the facts of the case, work with the defense attorney, make sure that the end result is a just result and a legal result. And with cases, while it is fast paced and probably resolves within like a couple months, there is still time in there to research, ask questions of people that have been there before, which is, I think, key that there is no stupid question. Just always ask the question because everyone has been there before.

Kyle McEntee:

What are some of these, quote — unquote, stupid questions?

Shannon Struble:

I mean, just from anywhere to like, how do I announce? Because like here we announce our name and then like for the county attorney's office or for the state or just like even how to announce in court or where do I sit in the courtroom? Do I ask to approach? Like, when do I stand? Just even those little questions.

Kyle McEntee:

All right. So you're currently in the gang bureau. I called you a gang prosecutor at the top of the episode. What does that mean?

Shannon Struble:

So I prosecute all gang related or gang motivated offenses. Obviously, I'm not the only one that does it, but that's what my caseload is. I also handle violent crimes committed by what the law has deemed somebody as a gang member, which in Arizona you have to meet two out of the seven criteria under our Arizona revised statute to be documented as a gang member. So if somebody is documented and they commit a violent crime, those are the types of cases that I handle.

Kyle McEntee:

What if the original assumption is wrong, that it's not actually gang related? Do you have to hand the case off?

Shannon Struble:

Most time, no. If we have reviewed it and gone through the charging process and we've started the case already, we would just keep that case just because once you have a case, we do it from start to finish and then obviously evaluate it for the charges depending on if those charges no longer are valid and we have something else.

Kyle McEntee:

So there's a lot of gang related activity in your jurisdiction, so there's accordingly a large team needed to move from investigation to arrest the prosecution to anything post conviction. Who do you work with in your role as a prosecutor?

Shannon Struble:

Well, there are, I think nine of us in my bureau that handle those types of cases. We have obviously staff that handles like a secretary. We have our paralegals that handle the large amounts of discovery that we have. And then obviously we have close partnerships with law enforcement agencies here in Maricopa County. We have a lot of agencies that we work with that do have designated what they call gang units or gang bureaus within their jurisdictions as well. So we do work pretty closely with those bureaus or units within those agencies.

Kyle McEntee:

So the gang unit might have a detective embedded on your team, basically?

Shannon Struble:

Yes, we do have two detectives that work with us that are sworn police officers within the office. And then obviously there's police officers that we work with that are, you know, with other agencies.

Kyle McEntee:

You're in your 11th year now. You graduated in 2014. As prosecutors get more senior, the scope of work, legal and non-legal, may shift. Has that been your experience?

Shannon Struble:

Yes. You know, the more experience that I've gotten, not only does my caseload get, I guess, get more complex, I would say, you know, higher level felonies, more complex investigations, but obviously take on other roles within the office. I am what we call an assistant bureau chief. So like we have a bureau chief and then assistant bureau chief. So some of my role has also shifted to being a mentor to other prosecutors that have come into the bureau that have never prosecuted a gang related offense that are, you know, maybe only a few years into their career. So there are some roles not only, you know, still prosecuting in more complex cases, but also helping other newer attorneys through the process and learning how to become a prosecutor.

Kyle McEntee:

How many cases are you juggling at the time?

Shannon Struble:

Typically between 45 and 55 cases.

Kyle McEntee:

That's a pretty big number.

Shannon Struble:

It is. It is a lot of cases. I mean, I will say that's not the highest caseload I've ever had, but it kind of ebbs and flows depending on what's going on, obviously.

Kyle McEntee:

And not all those are in trial, right? There are different levels.

Shannon Struble:

Correct. There are different stages throughout the process. Kind of all depends. But I would say probably two to three trials a year.

Kyle McEntee:

What does it depend on?

Shannon Struble:

I would say whether we go to trial or not is typically a defendant's decision. And so it really kind of is up to that individual that we're prosecuting on whether we do go to trial when we go to trial in like that kind of stuff is up to our court system. Our court system at the moment is extremely busy. We have a lot of cases happening. So that kind of dictates when we get to go. But what trials we do is typically out of my hands and just decided by a defendant.

Kyle McEntee:

I want to talk about the process. So let's start with someone gets arrested. I know that the law enforcement agent or officer is going to submit something to your bureau and say, hey, we arrested this person. What's your next step or what's your first step?

Shannon Struble:

I guess the first step in the process is that an individual is booked and they have to be see a judge within 24 hours. And so as a prosecutor, we do handle IA's, which are initial appearances. So that is when someone's release conditions are set. That's before any charges are filed. They're simply the court finds that there's probable cause and then they have to determine release conditions. And so we are involved in that process.

We do give recommendations on what we think someone's bond should be at that process. And then after the initial appearance, we have 48 hours to make a charging decision on what was submitted by law enforcement. So we get the police report. We review a police report. We review body cam, if applicable, surveillance video, if applicable, photographs, if necessary. And then we make a charging decision on whether we are filing charges. That may be law enforcement suggested or something that we think is the appropriate charge for the situation.

Kyle McEntee:

So getting past probable cause, not easy, but also not that difficult to actually make that charging decision. You're reviewing that evidence. What does that review process look like, especially when you have to decide within 48 hours whether to charge or not?

Shannon Struble:

And most of the time it's less than 48 hours because we won't get a case until probably 24 hours into that 48 hours, maybe even less time than that. So our review process sometimes is a short window. Sometimes it's longer.

But we review all the police reports that are available to us. If there's things missing in those police reports, we're making phone calls to get the additional police reports that may have not been submitted to us, you know, asking questions. We are reviewing what we call body worn camera. If it captures the incident, we could be reviewing surveillance video, whether it's from like a Circle K, like gas stations or, you know, department stores. We could be reviewing photographs. It kind of all depends on the case.

Kyle McEntee:

What are you looking for?

Shannon Struble:

We're just making sure that while the standard for filing charges is probable cause, legally speaking, we don't file charges unless we have a reasonable likelihood of conviction. So obviously a much higher standard. So we're when we're reviewing things, we're making sure that we do have that reasonable likelihood of conviction, not just looking at like, oh, we have this good piece of evidence, but we have to look at is there a bad piece of evidence or, you know, is there information that might contradict something that we view as a good piece of evidence?

Kyle McEntee:

So let's say possession of a firearm. There are certain criteria that you have to meet to prove your case. And so are you going criteria by criteria to say we have enough evidence for this? We have enough evidence for that. And the overall picture is coherent and persuasive, or is it not that deep at this point in time?

Shannon Struble:

I would say, I mean, it is and not that deep all at the same time. Like, obviously, we are looking at every element of the crime. Some of them are easier than others for we call it misconduct involving weapons here. So somebody has to knowingly be in possession of a firearm while being what we deem as a prohibited possessor. And so there are key things that you're looking for, like the knowingly element, the possession element. We have different definitions of possession than what somebody may think of ordinarily in just everyday life. And so once you kind of learn how the law sees something, you kind of can then focus in on those aspects. And each offense usually has those key elements that you're looking for. And a lot of it is going to be the intent of the individual, whether it has to be knowingly, recklessly or intentionally. And whether there is a defense to that crime, such as like self-defense, we also are making sure we're looking at that because we kind of have to have both hats on when making a charging decision because our standard is reasonable likelihood of conviction.

Kyle McEntee:

All right, so you decide to charge in this case. What's the first step?

Shannon Struble:

The first step is what we call a not guilty arraignment. And that's just where an individual is brought to court or comes to court, whether they're in custody or out of custody, they're in court and a not guilty plea is entered on their behalf. And that kind of starts the process and the timeline of things. In Arizona, there are certain timelines that were a case has to be tried by. And that depends on if it's a complex or not complex case. And then we have certain hearings as the process moves along to like check ins with the court. And we just call them different names, basically.

Kyle McEntee:

At what point are you starting to talk to the defense, talking to either the person who's self-represented? And hopefully there's very few of those or their lawyer.

Shannon Struble:

Yeah, we have very few. We call them pro per defendants and even pro per defendants have advisory counsel. So there's still always an attorney there that we could talk to.

And so we are start talking to defense attorneys pretty early on in the process from not necessarily at the not guilty arraignment because the specific attorney for that individual may not be there. But shortly after that, we would start talking to the defense attorney between what we call the not guilty arraignment and the initial pretrial conference. We are already engaging with the defense attorney, whether it's getting them the discovery, getting them a plea offer or discussing certain facts about the case. It happens pretty early on in the case.

Kyle McEntee:

What's your relationship like with the defense bar? Is it pretty cordial or can the temperatures get raised pretty quickly?

Shannon Struble:

I would say for the most part, it is very cordial. As much as like we are a large office and have lots of attorneys and there's lots of attorneys in Maricopa County, it does feel like a small community. And so you work with these attorneys on case after case after case and you see them pretty much on a regular basis.

Of course, there are times where maybe things get a little bit heated or, you know, everyone's making trying to make their point. I don't think it's an ever personal. It's just obviously each side believes passionately in what their position is.

Kyle McEntee:

So you say that it's not personal, but do you sometimes feel like it is anyway? And do you kind of have to talk yourself out of your feelings?

Shannon Struble:

Yes. It's just kind of one of those riled up moments. You got to whether you grab a colleague, take a walk, go get some coffee or whatever it is, or just like, oh, my goodness, this just happened in the courtroom. And once you kind of talk about it, you kind of feel good about it afterwards. You're like, OK, I talked it out. I'm fine. Like it is at the end of the day. Everyone has a job to do in the system and each job is important. And so you kind of have to step back. But yes, and there are moments where you're sitting there and you're like, OK, that felt really personal. I'm really upset.

Kyle McEntee:

With trials not being that common, do you feel like a lot of what you're doing is predictable and like you're kind of doing the same thing over and over again?

Shannon Struble:

Yes and no. Like each hearing is kind of predictable because each hearing has its purpose. But every case is just so different. So I think that's kind of where you get your variety and different legal issues come into play. Each case is always different, whether it's, you know, what happened in the case or get a lot of mitigation from a defense attorney when we're discussing plea negotiations. So whether it's learning about the individual's background when deciding what a plea offer is, like all of that is just always so different.

Kyle McEntee:

And I guess that's good and bad, right? You build confidence when you're doing something over and over again. So when you're reviewing evidence, you're doing a lot of reading. When you're talking to defense lawyers, your peers or the judge, you're doing a lot of talking. You also mentioned writing motions. What's kind of the balance between reading, writing and talking?

Shannon Struble:

I would say, at least for me specifically, I don't do as much legal research and writing at times. Like there are times where I feel like I haven't written a motion in a long time because criminal law has I mean, we have the amendments, we have case law that has been there for years and years and years that like we know we have to have Miranda and those sorts of things. So a lot of that is already kind of set in stone for us.

So I feel like there's not as much maybe litigation or motion practice at certain times. So I feel like my job is a lot of reading police reports and talking with the defense attorneys or law enforcement officers, watching body cam, those sorts of things.

Kyle McEntee:

Watching body cam footage sounds potentially interesting, but potentially really boring.

Shannon Struble:

Yes, it's both. The interesting times are when you like the crime occurs on the body cam and you witness the crime yourself watching it. Other times it is officers standing around for three hours and each there's 10 officers and they're all standing there and they all have their body camera on.So it's hours of just the same thing, but different views that could get pretty boring.

Kyle McEntee:

I want to take a second to just point out we both kind of agreed that watching a crime is interesting. That seems a little screwed up, doesn't it? How do you think about that?

Shannon Struble:

It's a weird dynamic because obviously it is nice to have a crime on video because then that makes my case easier and we know exactly what happened because there are some cases where you don't know every detail because you weren't there. But also it is very weird to, especially if it's a serious incident, watch something really bad happen to somebody. You have to try to like switch that off and just kind of think about it as can I prove my case and kind of set aside the emotional feelings that you could feel?

Because there are times you see very horrible things happen and that is difficult to deal with. We call it vicarious trauma. And so we do talk about that within the office and we have peer support to kind of be able to handle those types of things because it's one of those things you have to look at it as like, this is the case. Have I met my elements? And then kind of at the end of the day, when you're done with that, you're like, wow, what I saw was terrible and kind of deal with that emotionally wise later.

Kyle McEntee:

Yeah, there's value in the dispassion, but then also there's risk in it, right? Can you talk a little bit about that risk and how that affects how you exercise your prosecutorial discretion?

Shannon Struble:

I think when you take too far a step back and just kind of like, OK, have I met the elements? Do I have a case? Then you're not kind of seeing people for who they are, whether on either side of things, to be honest with you. And my job isn't to win. My job is to do justice. And what does justice look like for each case individually?

Because justice doesn't look the same for everybody and for every case. And so if you take a too far step back and just look at it as like a case and not looking at the harm to the victim or, you know, what the defendant may have been going through at the time, then you're not really doing justice.

Kyle McEntee:

Justice is extremely complicated. I think it's pretty reasonable to say that particular communities and demographics are justice impacted disproportionately. And I think criticism can pretty fairly be leveled against law enforcement, prosecutors and judges, at least in the aggregate. But that said, like, I think it's pretty reasonable also to say that the rule of law is fundamental to a functioning society and that the rule of law requires those same people, law enforcement, prosecutors and those who are kind of meeting out sentences. How do you think about like your role in the larger community?

Shannon Struble:

In my everyday, there are people that are going to prison for a long time, so it's hard to balance certain things. But I think that like as a prosecutor, you're kind of in the best place to be able to balance that kind of stuff. You know, look at the charges, look at whatever harm has done, look at the individual. You know, are they experiencing some sort of mental health episode? Are they in their addiction? And is that's what's causing this? Are there things that structured through a plea offer that we can help address those things to help that person? But a lot of the times that an individual, even if they're incarcerated, they are going to be out in the community at some point. So are we giving them services, whether it's mental health, giving them drug counseling, getting them in rehab, those sorts of things, I think all kind of play a factor in this.

And I think as a prosecutor, you're in the best place to look at all of that, because I decide the charging decisions. I also make the plea offer. And so that determines whether this person is just going to be getting services through probation or they do they need to go to prison for some sort of time. So I think that as a prosecutor, you balance all of that.

Kyle McEntee:

And you're also able to mandate rehab, for example, right, as part of that plea.

Shannon Struble:

So we can't force somebody to go to a rehab facility. But have we been able to structure things is that, look, you can here's a plea offer. Your plea offer says you're going to do probation with some jail time. But if you go to a rehab facility, you can get out of jail earlier to do that rehab program. So kind of like it incentivizes the individual to get rehab, like you'll get out of custody faster if you get help, stuff like that.

Kyle McEntee:

Do you pay much attention to the latest and greatest research on what punishments actually work best or tactics work best, or is it just too fast all the time to really take a step back and think about some of the latest research?

Shannon Struble:

I mean, a lot of the research lately has been on juveniles and brain development and those sorts of things. Unfortunately, we see a lot of more juveniles committing violent crimes. I would say like my day to day, I'm not necessarily doing that research.

It's hard to like dive into that just with the volume that we do have. But eventually it all comes back to us to kind of get an idea of what some of the research is out there. But there are trainings that we can go to to get up to speed on some of that stuff. And then also the defense attorneys are also, if they're aware of studies, providing it to us and getting that information through them.

Kyle McEntee:

So we've kind of outlined the process a bit. So I feel like I can ask the question that I wanted to ask earlier, which is what does it actually mean to have 45 to 55 cases at a time?

Shannon Struble:

And how I structure my day is I am in court pretty much every morning handling a case. They're all different stages throughout the process, but we have morning court. So from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., we're usually in court.

They're pretty short hearings, but handling hearings, letting the court know, you know, discovery is good. We're disclosing all of the things we've made a plea offer or we're doing interviews heading towards trial, just kind of giving the court an update. And then when I get back, you kind of triage things. Are there fires that I need to put out with certain things going on in other cases? Is there a motion due in a certain case? Is there deadlines I need to meet? Am I going to be in trial next week? Do I need to get my exhibits? Do I need to send out an email to all my witnesses to make sure they're good to go during that time frame? So kind of prioritize things that way.

Kyle McEntee:

What kind of hours are you working?

Shannon Struble:

I'm usually in the office at 7 a.m. because I hate traffic. So I like getting here early and then usually end my day around 5. There are times where I go home and work late to like 8 p.m. And then on the weekends, if there is like a motion or trial, I would say when I'm in trial, my hours look like 24-7 I'm working just because trial is very fast paced. There are always things coming up. There's always things you need to do once you're outside of the courtroom. So during trial, it's obviously a lot more extensive of hours.

Kyle McEntee:

So I guess it's a good thing there's so few trials, otherwise you would never get any time to yourself.

Shannon Struble:

Yes. I mean, there are times when you do like five, six trials a year, and you're exhausted by the end of it. Even just being in the courtroom for one day gets kind of exhausting because your brain is just always working. You're listening to what the witness is saying. You're listening to the defense attorney, to the judge. So your brain is just always working.

So by the end of the day, you're kind of like, well, I'm mentally exhausted. I can go take a nap.

Kyle McEntee:

And then you're also on call, right? Like every few months. What does that mean?

Shannon Struble:

Yes, I'm actually on call right now, specifically for me and my bureau. We're on call for any gang related homicide that happened. So as a prosecutor, we would get a call from the law enforcement agency saying this incident just occurred. And we do respond to the scene to observe what is the scene like, what's there, what happened, those sorts of things. We do go in and sit on interviews, whether they're interviewing a witness or the suspect. We do that when we're on call. On call also entails taking any sort of phone call from a law enforcement agency or partner that has any questions that may arise. I would say most of the time the calls we're getting is to respond to a scene. And we are typically only responding to homicide scenes.

Kyle McEntee:

How does being on call affect your life at home?

Shannon Struble:

So for me, in my position, it's not as bad as I would say other people have it within my office. So we have a bureau that just handles homicides only. They respond to any homicide that happens within Maricopa County. I respond to just gang related or gang motivated homicides. And so for them, there could be like three in one night that they have to respond to. For me, we don't get called out as much, but you need to be able to respond within an hour. So you're kind of making sure your phone's always by you. You're not really doing anything that will take you away and that you wouldn't be able to leave immediately and respond to wherever location, because Maricopa County is actually very large. So it could take you an hour, an hour and a half to get to the other side of the county.

Obviously, you're not having a drink. Just try to make sure that you're there and responsive and alert whenever you do get that call. Half the time they happen at two in the morning when you're sleeping. So you make sure your phone's on ring.

Kyle McEntee:

All right. So you wake up at 2 a.m., you go to the scene, you see something unpleasant. How do you shake off that experience when you leave and walk back in the door at home?

Shannon Struble:

I think it's hard, especially the first time. I think it's hard because at least for me, I've never seen anything like that before. So I think it's kind of just taking a minute to process it, decompress, whether, you know, that's going for a walk, watching. I like to watch reality TV to kind of like get my mind off of that. Something that's like doesn't make me think about criminal law or like what I just saw. Kind of having those coping mechanisms to be able to decompress and not just like immediately go home and think about the person that just lost their life or the family members that just lost their loved ones. It's kind of making sure you have your outlet.

Kyle McEntee:

Despite all of the horrifying stuff you see and the negative impacts, some of the decisions you make and have on people's lives who weren't part of the crime, do you still like what you do after all these years?

Shannon Struble:

I do. I love what I do. I can't picture myself really doing anything else. While it is challenging, it is also very rewarding. You are able to be there for somebody that is it literally is their worst day of their life and you're able to at least help them through this process. I mean, justice to them might not look like what justice is in the courtroom, but at least help them through this process, because the criminal justice system, as much as it does move fast, it also moves very slow for people. Things can take years to go through the system. And then on the flip side of things, you know, there are success stories where, you know, you've helped an individual that may have made a mistake in their life, but they have now turned their life around because instead of putting them in prison, they went on probation and got resources through the adult probation department and got counseling or, you know, substance abuse treatment. I mean, there is on both sides of the spectrum, but it's a very rewarding job.