Women’s History Month Profile Series: Miriam Krinsky, Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution

This month, DPIC celebrates Women’s History Month with weekly profiles of notable women whose work has been significant in the modern death penalty era. The fourth and final entry in this series is Miriam Krinsky, a former federal prosecutor and the Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution. Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP) is an organization of elected prosecutors “committed to promoting a justice system grounded in fairness, equity, compassion, and fiscal responsibility.” 

Ms. Krinsky’s work has intersected with various facets of the legal system. During her 15 years as a federal prosecutor, she worked on organized crime and narcotics cases, served as Chief of the Criminal Appellate Section in the Central District of California, and served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on Sentencing. As Executive Director of Los Angeles County’s Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence, she investigated and made reform recommendations related to excessive use of force in Los Angeles County jails. She then worked on implementing those reforms as Special Advisor to the Sheriff. She has also worked in several roles related to child welfare and foster care. 

Among the many reforms promoted by Fair and Just Prosecution is the elimination of the death penalty. In a 2021 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Ms. Krinsky said, “In my mind, eliminating capital punishment improves public safety.” Connecting that theme to FJP’s broader mission, she said, “If we are doing things in the name of public safety that are failed, that don’t work, and that aren’t morally sound, then we’ve lost the trust of our community, and we’ve lost our moral compass.” 

In 2022, FJP released a letter signed by more than 50 prosecutors from across the country pledging to work toward abolition of the death penalty. It said, “Although we hold varied opinions surrounding the death penalty and hail from jurisdictions with different starting points on the propriety of this sentence, we have all now arrived at the same inexorable conclusion: our country’s system of capital punishment is broken. It is time to work together toward systemic changes that will bring about the elimination of the death penalty nationwide.” 

In a March 22, 2024 op-ed for The Oklahoman, Ms. Krinsky urges the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of Brenda Andrew, a woman on Oklahoma’s death row whose “trial was marred by gender bias and prosecutorial overreach.” Prosecutors called Ms. Andrew’s former boyfriends to testify about their sexual encounters with her, read Ms. Andrew’s journal entries regarding a sexual relationship she had 20 years before the alleged crime, and showed the jury her undergarments during closing arguments. Ms. Krinsky’s op-ed explains that these kind of sexist tactics have been used against women since the 1600s, and notes that gender bias is widespread in the legal system. “Women’s incarceration has grown twice as quickly as men’s incarceration in recent decades,” she writes. “Issues like poverty, mental illness, trauma and gender violence are often root causes of women’s involvement in the criminal legal system.”