In Mexico many of the people being killed are their street guys like corner OR retail drug dealers, street informants, and the guys on "guard" most of which are usually unarmed except the "guards"; the cartel members in Mexico have grenades, are riding in bullet proof trucks and are well armed they are called "estacas" in Mexico. But so far as the being charged with organized crime in Mexico it's a bit tricky because the Mexican authorities are known to beat up criminals until they confess of the crimes they allegedly did whether they did it or not. It seems like the lower level commadantes, the plaza bosses or cell leaders, regional commanders and the Los Zetas leaders are the ones that get fucked up in the ass in terms of prison sentencing.

A question about the law in the USA in the 80s: I remember watching a documentary about Felix "the cat" Mitchell, a gangster from Oakland who got a life sentence for murder and was later killed in prison. Some time after his death, his conviction was overturned on legal technicalities. Even if we don't consider how strange the fact is that they bothered to posthumously acquit a well-known gangster, what's the point of posthumously acquitting FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN LEGAL TECHNICALITIES? It's not like they found proof he was innocent and wanted to clear his name because he didn't commit the crime, but just some bureaucratic stupidity, why waste time of acquitting someone already dead just because of this?