The Latest
The latest about Larry Krasner's campaign for progressive reform in Philadelphia
District Attorney candidate Larry Krasner "decisively" won an online poll by the civic reform group Philadelphia 3.0, the group announced today.
More than half of the participants selected Krasner out of a field of seven candidates as their top choice. Although this was not a scientific poll of voters overall, this result indicates that Krasner is performing extremely well with some of the city's most well-informed voters.
KYW NEWSRADIO 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Advocates for re-entry are getting organized around a new political action committee. This PAC for those impacted by incarceration is hoping to elect the next district attorney.
The BLOC Party was registered with the Pennsylvania Department of State in February. Now Harrell and their supporters, including rapper Freeway, are working to get funding from other PACs and from the community to send a message in May’s DA and judicial races. Their first endorsement goes to DA candidate Larry Krasner.
“He wants to end mass incarceration, stop seeking the death penalty, end stop and frisk,” says Harrell, “he’s a civil rights attorney who has always been on the side of the people.”
DAILY NEWS (COLUMN)
... Philadelphia voters are going to the polls next month in a Democratic primary that will be critical for picking Williams' successor. Almost all of the candidates want to swing the pendulum away from the "convictions at any cost" culture that permeated the Abraham years, and surely no one want to bring back such zealous pursuit of the death penalty. That's all good, but the raft of questionable convictions from the past presents a challenge for any future DA.
Last week, after I wrote about Lowenstein's Ogrod book, one of those candidates — the civil rights lawyer Lawrence Krasner — issued a statement in which he said "it is clear that for decades the practice and policy of the District Attorney’s Office has been to win convictions at any cost, too often at the cost of justice itself." He called for a number of concrete steps including the courtroom use of confessions only if they are videotaped, an end to the death penalty, and refusing to prosecute cases when the evidence developed by police is clearly lacking.
CHESTNUT HILL LOCAL
... When asked questions about how they would handle certain issues, such as prison overcrowding, gun violence, corruption and quality of life crimes, the candidates largely emphasized the need for reform in the DA’s office. Krasner, a longtime criminal defense attorney, consistently brought up reform and how, as a political outsider and the self-proclaimed most progressive candidate running, he was the best one to make the necessary changes to the DA’s office.
CITY & STATE
... Like others in the race, Krasner seems to relish the opportunity to battle the Trump administration in court on known flashpoints like sanctuary city legislation and civil asset forfeiture, as well as lesser-known challenges, like threats to the region resulting from defunding the Environmental Protection Agency — something he emphasized would be just one of the areas of concern he would be prepared to defend. “It could mean that when you have a president who guts the EPA, that you have a district attorney who will engage in pollution prosecution,” he said.
WHYY NEWSWORKS
Ask Larry Krasner, who's never worked as a prosecutor, why he's the right guy to be Philadelphia's next district attorney, and he has a ready answer.
"Because I've never been a prosecutor," he says.
There's more to it than that, but the heart of Krasner's pitch is that the ingrained culture of the district attorney's office has been so wrong-headed for so long that only someone free from its influences can bring the kind of change Philadelphia needs.
PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE
Krasner is a civil rights attorney known for doing battle with police unions and defending the First Amendment rights of protesters ... Krasner simply wouldn’t have been a viable district attorney candidate a few years ago. He threatens the status quo as much as do Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. But he has grassroots support. ... the district attorney’s race may be a referendum on whether Philadelphia wants to be a progressive city or a Democratic one.
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office was put on trial Thursday morning by the eight candidates — seven Democrats, one Republican — seeking to lead the scandal-plagued office. ...The most notable clash came between a candidate with no ties to the District Attorney’s Office, civil rights lawyer Lawrence Krasner, and the candidate with the most recent ties to the office, former First Assistant District Attorney Tariq El-Shabazz.
