Is Philly’s New Head Prosecutor Still Part of the Movement that Propelled Him to Office?
Scores of Larry Krasner fans clinked cans of non-craft beer and plastic cups of wine from a box at the DA-elect’s victory party last week, held in a LGBTQ community center. Middle-aged suits mingled with millennials dressed for a loft party, law students on their study breaks, and canvassers still soaked from the afternoon downpour. Young prison reformers chatted with men who had spent decades behind bars. Philly activists of many stripes — Black Lives Matter organizers, immigrant-rights advocates, and prison abolitionists — celebrated alongside esteemed members of the city’s legal community. Among the partiers were Krasner’s former clients — people he represented pro bono on their First Amendment cases. Hannah Jane Sassaman, policy director at the Media Mobilizing Project, recalled how Krasner defended her when she was jailed for protesting plans to build a casino in the city in 2009. Sassaman told me that if I took a poll of who in the room had been released from jail because of Krasner, about half would raise their hand. “Larry Krasner taught us our rights,” she said.
At nine PM, the election results were called in. Krasner took the stage. He wore his signature — hip glasses and fitted suit — flanked by his wife, Court of Common Pleas Judge Lisa M. Rau. “This,” he said, “is what a movement looks like.” The crowd cheered.
Krasner, a career civil rights and criminal defense attorney with no prosecutorial experience, swept the Philly election, beating his Republican opponent by 50 percentage points. He was an unusual — indeed, a one-of-a-kind — candidate. On the campaign trail he called “police and prosecution systemically racist,” and said he wanted to end the “era of mass incarceration.” Ordinarily, prospective district attorneys campaign to put more people behind bars, not fewer. When he takes office in January, he will face the challenge of turning his rhetoric of progressive prosecution into reality.
Krasner joins a small but growing cohort of so-called reform-minded prosecutors across the country who triumphed in 2016 and 2017 elections after pledging to enact smart-on-crime instead of tough-on-crime policies. But Krasner stands out from even this crowd because his platform is the most progressive — writing in The Nation, my Fair Punishment Project colleague, Daniel Denvir, labeled Krasner the “Most Radical DA in the Country.” And unlike most of the other reformers who have taken office, he is not a career prosecutor or a law enforcement agent who champions a few progressive policies. Rather, Krasner steps into office as a litigator from the movement to end mass incarceration, and his allies from within the movement propelled him to victory. Yes, last spring billionaire financier George Soros infused the primary race with $1.7 million backing Krasner’s campaign, but his core base rallied behind him long before that money came in.
Bryan Mercer is one of those allies. He is co-founder of 215 People’s Alliance, a multiracial collaborative that advocates for racial and economic justice. In partnership with other organizations, the collaborative organized over 200 canvassers, who collectively knocked on 60,000 doors during the primaries, and another 30,000 doors in the two weeks leading up to the general election. “People were signing up for two, three, four shifts. They were giving their entire weekends to go out and knock on doors. That’s because his genesis is part of broader social movement work that has existed in this city for a generation. Folks believe in that,” he said. Erika Almiron, longtime immigrant-rights activist, echoed this sentiment: “Larry comes from the same movement that we’re all a part of.”
Some activists represented Krasner even more visibly; Asa Khalif, a prominent member of Black Lives Matter Pennsylvania, often joined Krasner on the stage during the campaign trail. Khalif believes the DA will stay true to his base. “He’s going in as a politician, but it’s not going to affect his character,” Khalif said. “My role is to continue to support my friend, he’s going to have a lot of opposition going against him.”
Khalif and others can publicly defend Krasner, but the dynamic has necessarily changed. For one, they cannot give much assistance as he takes on key challenges in his new role, such as figuring out how to lead a troop of several hundred prosecutors, forge a strong relationship with the police department, and navigate the Philly political machine. As veteran Philly reporter Linn Washington told the Toronto Star recently: “Krasner has to find a way to govern. And that’s always a tough nut. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out . . . He’s the quintessential outsider and Philadelphia is the quintessentially inside-game political city.” Law enforcement already voiced their opposition on social media using the hashtag #notmyda. One officer called Krasner a “creepo scumbag,” and another wrote: “He’s got that look on his face you just wanna wipe off with a bitch slap.” Those challenges are on Krasner and the staff he hires. James Forman Jr., Yale law professor and author of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, describes Krasner as an unprecedented leader — but his ambitious agenda cannot succeed without “unprecedented momentum.” Says Forman, “All of us involved in this movement have to come together and support Philadelphia.”
Another shift is that Krasner’s allies have become his constituents. Krasner’s legions of door knockers must now push him to follow through on the very campaign promises that energized them in the first place. Two days after the election, organizers from a large coalition gathered on the steps of the DA’s office to present a lengthy list of demands for his first 100 days in office. “We’re extraordinarily excited about his victory,” said Sassaman, who is a coalition member. “But what that victory needs to mean is that we accomplish the reality of that promise: to truly implement transformational policies,” she said. Many in the coalition — which includes about 30 civil rights, immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights, and criminal justice reform organizations — were very active partners in his campaign, and some have considered Krasner an ally for decades.
Krasner can meet some of the organizers’ demands just by speaking out from his bully pulpit. The coalition asked him to publicly acknowledge that traditional prosecutorial practices contribute to racial disparities, don’t meet the needs of the community or crime survivors by prioritizing incarceration over healing, and ignore the root causes of violence, such as poverty, addiction, and trauma. If he speaks out, Krasner’s voice could reverberate into the national conversation around criminal justice reform. As Miriam Krinsky, founder of Fair and Just Prosecution, an organization that provides support and guidance to reform-minded prosecutors, put it: “An elected prosecutor has a very big megaphone.”
But Krasner’s organizers-become-constituents demand more than just revolutionary words: They demand specific changes to how the office operates. They want him to abolish civil asset forfeiture, a practice that allows police to seize cash and property from people accused of crime; do away with cash bail; lobby for a bill that would end life sentences without parole; and give the public full access to all data that the DA’s office tracks, among other seismic reforms. Krasner campaigned on many of these demands, but the list is very ambitious and would go far beyond what any other progressive prosecutor has set out to accomplish.
Coalition member Josh Glenn, co-founder of the Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project, a program for juveniles incarcerated in adult prison, expressed hope that Krasner can meet organizers’ aspirations for him. Glenn knows firsthand how devastating it is to be jailed on a bail you can’t afford. When he was 16 he was charged as an adult for aggravated assault and held on a $20,000 bond. He couldn’t afford to pay a bondsman, but he maintained his innocence and refused to take a plea deal. After Glenn had spent a year and a half in jail a judge dismissed the case against him. The stint behind bars derailed Glenn’s high school education and caused lasting trauma, he said. Glenn advocates for a no-bail system, like the one in D.C., and with Krasner in office, he thinks it is in sight. Now that there is a likeminded DA in office he’s not going to step back his advocacy, though; he plans to dial it up. “It’s time for the community to step up and hold people accountable,” he said.
Krinsky, of Fair and Just Prosecution, warns that supporters could be disappointed if they put too much weight on the first 100 days and pressure Krasner to move at an unwise clip. “I think there is often a rush to have things in place in the first 100 days, he has now a four-year term to implement. It’s important to do things right more than do them fast,” she said, and continued, “I think frankly the first 100 days needs to be about learning the office and making sure that the key personnel in place.” Even Krasner has said he’ll likely disappoint those who want swift disruption to the office’s status quo.
But Sassaman, of the Media Mobilizing Project, emphasizes that the coalition’s role is to both push and support Krasner. “It’s not: ‘We will protest around: meet this number and this data by this date.’ What we want this to be is a conversation, a really honest conversation coming from both sides,” Sassaman said. “I think what we’re talking about here is a relationship, one where communities that have been directly targeted and impacted by mass incarceration, that have been directly targeted and impacted by crime, are valorized and centralized, rather than marginalized,” she said.
A week after the election, Krasner and about 15 members of the coalition took a first step in negotiating their new relationship when they sat down in person to go over the coalition’s demands. Glenn, of the Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project, walked away thinking that Krasner and coalition members were still on the “same page.” Krasner did explain that it would take time to achieve the listed reforms; for example, doing away with cash bail would entail substantial legwork and require buy-in from more agencies than just his office. But for activists like Glenn, even the face-to-face meeting — which Krasner plans to repeat monthly — is a meaningful, albeit preliminary, change. Glenn looks forward to continuing to push Krasner toward reform while discussing the real obstacles the DA faces. “Doing this work you usually don’t have a relationship with District Attorneys, so we’re trying to see how it’s going to look,” Glenn said, and added, “It was good to be in a room and be respected, and give respect equally.”
