Larry Krasner
Lawrence Samuel Krasner is an American lawyer serving as the 26th District Attorney of Philadelphia. Elected to the position in 2017, Krasner campaigned on a platform to reform elements of the criminal justice system, including to reduce incarceration, and took office in January 2018.
During his tenure, Krasner has sought to spearhead criminal justice reform by ending bail payments for low-level offenders, reducing supervision for parolees, and seeking more lenient sentences for certain crimes. Prior to his government service, Krasner had a 30-year career as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney and public defender. He aggressively pursued police misconduct.
Early life and education
Lawrence Krasner was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1961. His father, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, wrote crime fiction, and his mother was an evangelical Christian minister. His family moved to the Philadelphia area while he was still attending public school. He graduated from Conestoga High School in 1979.Krasner graduated from the University of Chicago in 1983. He graduated from Stanford Law School, in 1987.
Career
After graduation and passing the bar, Krasner returned to Philadelphia to work for the Federal Public Defender’s Office. He opened his own law firm in 1993 and worked as a criminal defense lawyer in Philadelphia for 30 years, specializing in civil rights, and frequently representing protestors pro bono.Krasner's representation of Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia members led many to call him an "anti-establishment" candidate during his 2017 primary campaign for the Democratic nomination. He campaigned against existing policies that had resulted in disproportionately high numbers of minority males being jailed and proposed other reforms in criminal justice. Krasner was a featured speaker at the 2017 People's Summit.
Philadelphia District Attorney
Election
Philadelphia D.A. R. Seth Williams announced that he would not run for reelection in February 2017. He pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges in June 2017, resigning from office and acting D.A., Kathleen Martin, chose not to run.When Krasner announced his candidacy, the president of the Philadelphia police union described his candidacy as "hilarious". Krasner received no major newspaper endorsements. Less than three weeks before the primary, a political action committee supporting Krasner's campaign received a $1.45 million contribution from billionaire George Soros.
Krasner won a crowded, seven-way Democratic primary by more than 17% on May 16, 2017, defeating former city and federal prosecutor Joe Khan ; former Philadelphia Managing Director Rich Negrin; former First Assistant District Attorney Tariq El-Shabazz; former prosecutor Michael Untermeyer; former prosecutor Jack O'Neill; and former Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni. City officials reported voter turnout spiked nearly 50 percent compared to 2009, which was the last contested race for district attorney of Philadelphia. The primary was widely seen as the proxy election, as the winner of the primary was the presumptive victor of the general: registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans in Philadelphia by almost 7-to-1.
In the November general election, Krasner defeated Republican Beth Grossman, a former assistant district attorney, by a strong majority - nearly a 50% margin.
Tenure
In his first week in office, Krasner fired 31 prosecutors from the District Attorney's Office, including both junior and career supervisory staff. Up to one-third of the homicide prosecutors in the office were dismissed. Those fired represented nearly a 10% reduction in the number of Philadelphia assistant district attorneys.In February 2018, Krasner announced that law enforcement would no longer pursue criminal charges against those caught with marijuana possession. That same month, Krasner instructed prosecutors to stop seeking cash bail for those accused of some misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. Krasner said that it was unfair to keep people in detention simply because they could not afford bail. He also announced that the DA's office had filed a lawsuit against a number of pharmaceutical companies for their role in the city's opioid epidemic. Krasner instructed prosecutors to stop charging sex workers who had fewer than three convictions.
In March 2018, it was reported that Krasner's staffers were working on creating a sentence review unit–the first of its kind in the country–to review past cases and sentences, and seek re-sentencing in cases when individuals were given unduly harsh punishments. Also in March 2018, it was reported that Krasner instructed prosecutors to: "Offer shorter prison sentences in plea deals. Decline certain classes of criminal charges. And explain, on the record, why taxpayers should fork over thousands of dollars per year to incarcerate people." He said,
"Fiscal responsibility is a justice issue, and it is an urgent justice issue. A dollar spent on incarceration should be worth it. Otherwise, that dollar may be better spent on addiction treatment, on public education, on policing and on other types of activity that make us all safer."
In 2018, some judges rejected the reduced sentences which Krasner's prosecutors had sought for juveniles who had previously been sentenced to life in prison. Krasner had requested a comprehensive list of police officers who had lied while on duty, used excessive force, racially profiled, or violated civil rights. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, "The exercise, unprecedented in scope in recent city history, is designed to help prosecutors flag officers with credibility issues early in a case and possibly prevent their testimony".
In 2019, Krasner filed a motion in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to declare the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. Krasner cited the high turnover rates of convictions by appeals; racial disparity in those sentenced, disproportionately black and Hispanic; and the frequent ineffective counsel that contributed to numerous cases being overturned, as among reasons that capital punishment as practiced in Pennsylvania violates the state constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Following the fatal shooting of Philadelphia police officer James O'Connor IV, Krasner faced criticism from federal prosecutor William McSwain and Philadelphia police union president John McNesby. McSwain, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, blamed the shooting on a prosecutorial discretion decision by Krasner's office to drop drug charges against the suspected killer, Hassan Elliott. While on probation for a gun possession charge, Elliott was arrested again on January 29, 2019, for cocaine possession and was released on his own recognizance. Nearly a week later on February 6, Elliott took part in the fatal shooting of Tyrone Tyree after a court date. The district attorney's office approved an arrest warrant for Elliott for the murder of Tyree on March 26 and dropped the cocaine charges the next day after Elliott failed to appear in court. On March 13, 2020, as part of a SWAT unit carrying out an arrest warrant, O'Connor was fatally shot, and Elliott was charged with the shooting. Jane Roh, spokesperson for the district attorney's office, defended the decision to drop the drug charges against Elliott based on the homicide warrant being more serious. On the night of O'Connor's killing, members of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, the Philadelphia police union, formed a human chain at the Temple University Hospital entrance to prevent Krasner from entering.
In July 2020, Krasner's office charged Philadelphia SWAT officer Richard P. Nicoletti with simple assault, reckless endangerment, official oppression, and possession of an instrument of crime. Video footage taken during the George Floyd protests showed that Nicoletti pepper sprayed three kneeling protesters. He pulled down the mask of one woman before spraying her in the face, he sprayed another woman at point blank range, and sprayed a man numerous times in the face while he laid on the ground.