Reform Candidate Who Opposes Death Penalty Wins Democratic Nomination for Philadelphia District Attorney

In a repudiation of the city’s past history as one of the nation’s leading producers of death sentences, Philadelphia has joined the trend of major national jurisdictions to select reform candidates who have pledged to limit or eliminate use of the death penalty. On May 16, primary voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic city selected long-time civil rights lawyer Lawrence Krasner (pictured) as the Democratic nominee for District Attorney. Krasner, a defense attorney who entered the public’s eye representing protesters from Occupy Philadelphia and Black Lives Matter, ran on a platform of sweeping criminal justice reform, including a vow never to seek the death penalty. His campaign website states, “He knows that capital punishment is expensive, ineffective, and racially biased. Since its reinstatement by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, it has cost Pennsylvania taxpayers over $1 billion, yet no one on Pennsylvania’s death row has been put to death involuntarily since 1962. Meanwhile six people on death row have been exonerated.” Because Democrats hold a 7-1 registration edge over Republicans, Krasner is considered a prohibitive favorite to defeat Republican nominee Beth Grossman, a former assistant district attorney, in November’s general election. Philadelphia is among the 2% of U.S. counties responsible for 56% of the nation’s death row population, and its former longtime District Attorney Lynne Abraham was named one of “America’s Five Deadliest Prosecutors” for overseeing the imposition of 108 death sentences. Krasner’s nomination continues a trend among voters in major cities replacing prosecutorial regimes perceived as overaggressively pursuing the death penalty. In November 2015 runoff election, voters in Caddo Parish (Shreveport), Louisiana elected their first African American District Attorney, James Stewart, after acting District Attorney Dale Cox said the state should use “kill more people” with the death penalty. Last August, in a landslide election described as reshaping the political landscape of Northeast Florida, Republican primary voters in Duval County (Jacksonville) replaced controversial State Attorney Angela Corey with reform candidate Melissa Nelson. Then, in the November general election, voters in three more counties known for their outlier practices on the death penalty—Harris County (Houston), Texas, Hillsborough County (Tampa), Florida; and Jefferson County (Birmingham), Alabama—replaced incumbents with challengers running on reform platforms. Among Krasner’s other reform proposals are reviewing past convictions for accuracy and ensuring that potentially exculpatory evidence is never withheld from defendants, taking a stronger stance against police misconduct, and ending stop-and-frisk.

(A. Orso, “Reformer Larry Krasner wins Philly DA primary: What it means,” BillyPenn, May 16, 2017; W. Bunch, “This wasn’t just a primary victory. This was a revolution,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 17, 2017; “On the Issues,” Krasner for District Attorney.) See The 2% Death Penalty.