Pledging No Death Penalty, Larry Krasner Sworn In As Philadelphia’s District Attorney

Saying “[a] move­ment was sworn in today,” long-time civ­il-rights lawyer Larry Krasner (pic­tured) — who pledged to end Philadelphia’s use of the death penal­ty — took the oath of office on January 2 as dis­trict attor­ney in a coun­ty that only five years ago had the third largest death row of any coun­ty in the country. 

Krasner’s inau­gur­al address put a face on the “[t]ransformational change in crim­i­nal jus­tice” he had called for dur­ing the elec­tion, say­ing it was time to begin ​“trad­ing jails — and death row — for schools,” ​“jail cells occu­pied by peo­ple suf­fer­ing from addic­tion for treat­ment and harm reduc­tion,” and ​“divi­sion between police and the com­mu­ni­ties they serve for uni­ty and reconciliation.” 

Krasner’s elec­tion has drawn nation­al atten­tion, as social-jus­tice activists focus on new strate­gies to bring about social change. The Los Angeles Times placed Krasner among ​“a grow­ing list of dis­trict attor­neys around the coun­try … who have declared that their role isn’t sim­ply to pros­e­cute, but to pro­tect defen­dants from the excess­es of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.” The American Prospect described “[t]he rel­a­tive­ly quick swing from a death penal­ty devo­tee to a cru­sad­ing reformer at the helm of a major American city’s DA office [as] both a dis­til­la­tion of a long-brew­ing shift in the pol­i­tics of crime — away from the stan­dard tough-on-crime bro­mides and toward a smarter approach to jus­tice — and emblem­at­ic of a new recog­ni­tion from pro­gres­sives that elect­ing allies into DA offices could be one of the most effec­tive ways to reform the sys­tem from the inside.” 

Since 2015, ​“reform” pros­e­cu­tors have been elect­ed to replace pros­e­cu­tors in coun­ties his­tor­i­cal­ly known for their aggres­sive use of the death penal­ty, includ­ing Harris (Houston), Texas; Duval (Jacksonville), Orange (Orlando), and Hillsborough (Tampa), Florida; Caddo Parish (Shreveport), Louisiana; and Jefferson (Birmingham), Alabama. But Clarise McCants, cam­paign direc­tor for the racial-jus­tice orga­ni­za­tion, Color of Change, is eye­ing upcom­ing dis­trict attor­ney races in 2018, say­ing “[t]he small num­ber of [reform-mind­ed] pros­e­cu­tors we have elect­ed so far is noth­ing com­pared to the kind of impact we could have.” 

Krasner takes the reins of an office most recent­ly head­ed by Ronald Castille, Lynne Abraham, and Seth Williams. Castille served as dis­trict attor­ney from 1986 – 1991, obtain­ing 45 death sen­tences and then par­tic­i­pat­ing in appeals in those cas­es after being elect­ed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Abraham was dubbed ​“America’s Deadliest DA,” obtain­ing 108 death sen­tences in her 19 years as dis­trict attor­ney between 1991 and 2009. She was replaced by Williams, who resigned after being con­vict­ed in 2017 of corruption charges. 

Krasner’s elec­tion cul­mi­nates two decades of dra­mat­i­cal­ly declin­ing death penal­ty use in Philadelphia. Death sen­tences, which aver­aged 9.9 per year in the 1990s, have fall­en to an aver­age of few­er than one per year this decade.