吃瓜大本营

The 2021 Democratic primary for district attorney in Philadelphia had all of the elements of a political drama: a reformer incumbent who spent his career challenging the criminal legal system versus a career prosecutor whom the current DA fired at the start of his tenure. A powerful police officers鈥� union trying to hold onto political power by boosting the challenger with a series of theatrical stunts. The old guard of the city鈥檚 Democratic party committee refusing to endorse the incumbent while progressive elected officials supported him.

In the end, Larry Krasner dusted Carlos Vega; Krasner earned more than double Vega鈥檚 vote total. And while the Republicans have nominated a candidate for November鈥檚 general election, Krasner will almost certainly earn himself a second four-year term in a city in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans seven-to-one.

The ACLU is famously and stridently nonpartisan. We do not endorse candidates for office. But we鈥檙e also not naive to the impact that election campaigns and the candidates who run in them have on civil liberties. An electoral campaign can set the tone 鈥� for better or for worse 鈥� for how the prevailing candidate will govern. That is why the ACLU launched a voter education campaign in this primary to make sure that voters understood that the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police was continuing its long record of trying to confuse and scare the public.

What does Krasner鈥檚 victory mean for civil liberties? Krasner has tackled some of the great injustices that his predecessors carried out. He also has more work to do to effectively improve the criminal legal system in Philadelphia.

Conviction integrity unit successes

Previous district attorneys engaged in behavior that directly led to innocent people being convicted of crimes and spending years in prison. And even when evidence of a person鈥檚 innocence came to light, the DAs who came before Krasner would continue to fight their appeals, most famously in the case of, who was retried by DA Seth Williams, with Carlos Vega as co-lead prosecutor, despite DNA evidence proving his innocence.

Krasner changed that. Although the conviction integrity unit was started by Williams, it鈥檚 been Krasner who has given the unit鈥檚 work real meaning. The result? Twenty innocent people, who combined lost hundreds of years of their lives in prison, have been exonerated in the three-plus years that Krasner has been DA.

Through the conviction integrity unit, Krasner has made clear that the old way of doing business in the DA鈥檚 office is over.

A halt to the death penalty

Historically, Philadelphia has been responsible for populating much of Pennsylvania鈥檚 death row. When Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf implemented a moratorium on executions in 2015, it was Williams who sued to overturn Wolf鈥檚 order. (.)

Now, Krasner has brought de facto death penalty abolition to Philadelphia. During his tenure, the DA鈥檚 office has yet to prosecute a capital case and has stopped pursuing appeals in some death penalty cases.

Slowing the war on drugs

Philly鈥檚 marijuana decriminalization ordinance, which gives police a non-criminal, civil mechanism for addressing marijuana possession and public consumption, was passed and implemented before Krasner became DA. That ordinance led to thousands of cannabis consumers staying out of the criminal legal system. But marijuana possession is still a misdemeanor crime under state law, and Philadelphia police still arrest hundreds of people under that law every year, disproportionately Black people.

Krasner. By doing so, he kept those arrested from becoming entangled in the criminal legal system and, just as importantly, kept them out of mandatory treatment programs, which are typically unnecessary for cannabis consumers, saving space in those programs for people with severe substance use disorders.

Holding abusive cops accountable

Larry Krasner is not the first district attorney in Philadelphia to prosecute abusive or corrupt police officers. But none of his predecessors have been to as Krasner. And now the DA鈥檚 office is before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a case stemming from the prosecution of officer Ryan Pownall, who shot and killed David Jones as he fled from the officer.

Krasner鈥檚 first term has not been without mistakes and challenges, though. In a second term, he and his team will have more to do to reform the criminal legal system.

Misuse of cash bail

Krasner when he announced that the DA鈥檚 office would stop asking judges to issue cash bail orders for people charged with a long list of low-level offenses. At the time, Krasner promised this was the first part of a multi-part bail reform. That was notable and worthy of applause. However, Krasner has not gone further and continues to misuse cash bail. His prosecutors routinely seek to detain people and against certain defendants.

There are only two reasons to detain people before trial 鈥� because they are a flight risk or because they are a threat to public safety. Some of the people who have been issued $1 million bail orders may very well be threats to public safety. But if a person is a threat, there is a judicial process for making that determination. Instead of adhering to the value of due process, Krasner and his team are using cash bail as a workaround to avoid making the case that a person is a public safety threat. The DA鈥檚 office is using cash bail as a weapon for pretrial detention, and that must stop.

Treating kids as kids?

In 2017, Krasner ran on the idea that children should be treated as children, that youth who get mixed up in the criminal legal system should not be in adult jails or adult court. During the campaign, he claimed that this was a promise that he kept.

The reality is more complicated. Virtually the same number of youth are being charged as adults as before Krasner became district attorney, due in large part to Pennsylvania鈥檚 鈥渄irect file鈥� law, which requires that young people accused of certain crimes start in adult court. During Krasner鈥檚 first three years in office, more of those cases have been moved to the juvenile system than in the past, through a process known as 鈥渄ecertification鈥� or 鈥渞eslate鈥� agreements. This has largely happened with agreement from the district attorney鈥檚 office.

But Krasner鈥檚 team has also imposed coercive conditions on many of those agreements, despite Krasner鈥檚 recent promises to end that practice. If Krasner is serious about treating kids as kids, in the upcoming term he needs to allow kids to be addressed by the juvenile system free and clear, across the board.

There鈥檚 an old saying that good policy makes good politics. Carlos Vega and his pals at the Fraternal Order of Police had a clean, one-on-one chance to end Larry Krasner鈥檚 tenure in the DA鈥檚 office. But Philadelphians showed that they are ready 鈥� and hungry 鈥� for a different approach to criminal law, and that the old way championed by the likes of Lynne Abraham and Frank Rizzo will no longer be tolerated. The ACLU of Pennsylvania looks forward to working with the DA when we agree. And we will hold him to account when he fails.