Pennsylvania state lawmakers are moving to impeach Philadelphia’s far-left District Attorney Larry Krasner as the crime surge continues to plague city streets due in part to the lack of prosecution against people arrested.
DA Larry Krasner All Dressed Up!
Republican State Representatives Tim O’Neal, Josh Kail, and Torren Ecker detailed the effort to oust Krasner, and why they are confident the move will garner bipartisan support.
“We want to highlight the dereliction of duty that we’ve seen from this district attorney,” Kail told “Fox & Friends First” co-host Todd Piro. “Lives have been lost, property has been destroyed, and really families have been crushed. Enough is enough. And we need to do something, and we need to get back to the basics in this commonwealth and in this nation.”
Krasner has been a complete disaster for Philadelphia.
Philadelphia saw 562 homicides in 2021 – which is the most ever.
From Breitbart:
At the time of the interview, Philadelphia had already surpassed 100 murders this year. Notably, Philadelphia saw 562 homicides in 2021 — “the most in the city’s history” — NBC reported. Breitbart News noted on December 27, 2021, that the overall number of shooting victims in Philadelphia — fatal and non-fatal combined — was approximately 2,200.
**********************************
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.
Krasner 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 to review past cases and sentences and to seek resentencing in cases when individuals were given unduly harsh punishments. That same month, Krasner instructed prosecutors to reduce sentence lengths to defendants making pleas, refuse to bring certain low-level charges, and publicly explain their reasoning for pursuing expensive incarcerations to taxpayers footing the bills.[31] 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.
In 2019, Krasner filed a motion in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to declare capital punishment in Pennsylvania unconstitutional. He claimed the death penalty was illegal in the state because of the ban on cruel and unusual punishment in the Pennsylvania Constitution, citing the high turnover rates of convictions by appeals, the racially biased number of sentences given to black and Hispanic defendants, and the large number of convictions overturned due to ineffective counsel. Following the fatal shooting of Philadelphia police officer James O’Connor IV, Krasner faced criticism from William McSwain, a federal prosecutor appointed by Donald Trump. McSwain, 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 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. Krasner’s office dropped drug charges after Elliott failed to appear in court, choosing to approve an arrest warrant for Tyree’s murder instead. On March 13, as part of a SWAT unit carrying out an arrest warrant, O’Connor was fatally shot and Elliott was charged. Prosecutor spokeswoman Jane Roh responded to criticism by stating that the office believed murder to be a more serious crime than drug possession and charged Elliott accordingly. On the night of O’Connor’s death, Philadelphia police officers formed a human chain at Temple University Hospital entrance to prevent Krasner from entering.
As of April 2022, Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit had exonerated 25 people convicted under previous DAs.
He was featured in the 2021 documentary series Philly D.A. which won a prestigious Peabody Award in June 2022 for “crafting a thrilling series that’s both broad and intimate about a man and a movement, capturing what happens when incrementalists meet their match in Big Idea thinkers who want to be doers.”
Views: 1
