Larry Krasner

Lawrence Samuel Krasner (born March 30, 1961) is an American lawyer who is the 26th District Attorney of Philadelphia.

Krasner was born in St. Louis in 1961.

His father, William Krasner, was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, an author of crime fiction, and his mother, Juanita Frazier, was an evangelical Christian minister.

His family moved to the Philadelphia area while he was still attending public school.

He graduated from Conestoga High School in 1979.

Krasner graduated from the University of Chicago in 1983.

He graduated from Stanford Law School in 1987.

After graduation and passing the bar, Krasner returned to Philadelphia to work for the Federal Public Defender's Office.

He opened his own law firm in 1993 and worked as a criminal defense lawyer in Philadelphia for 30 years, specializing in civil rights, and frequently representing protestors pro bono.

City officials reported voter turnout spiked nearly 50 percent compared to 2009, which was the last contested race for district attorney of Philadelphia.

The primary was widely seen as a proxy election; the winner of the Democratic primary election is the presumptive victor of the general election since Philadelphia has almost seven times as many registered Democrats as registered Republicans.

As expected, the November general election was not competitive, with Krasner winning almost three times as many votes as his Republican opponent, former assistant district attorney Beth Grossman.

In his first week in office, Krasner fired 31 prosecutors from the District Attorney's Office, including both junior and career supervisory staff.

Those fired represented nearly a 10% reduction in the number of Philadelphia assistant district attorneys.

Elected to the position in 2017, Krasner was one of the first in the United States to run as a self-described "progressive prosecutor".

He campaigned on a platform to reform elements of the criminal justice system, including reduced incarceration.

During his tenure as DA, Krasner has sought to spearhead criminal justice reform.

His policies include ending criminal charges against those caught with marijuana possession, ending cash bail for those accused of some misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, reducing supervision for parolees, and seeking more lenient sentences for certain crimes.

During his time in office, he has advocated for greater police accountability and pursued police misconduct.

Penguin Random House published Krasner's memoir, For the People: A Story of Justice and Power, in 2021.

In 2022, Krasner was impeached by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on multiple counts; several were for various alleged "dereliction[s] of duty" and "misbehavior[s] in office", and another was for attempting to obstruct the legislative probe that sought to impeach him.

An impeachment trial was scheduled to take place in the Pennsylvania Senate, but was indefinitely postponed.

The following day, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania opined that none of the alleged derelictions or misbehaviors were impeachable offenses.

Krasner's representation of Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia members led many to call him an "anti-establishment" candidate during his 2017 primary campaign for the Democratic nomination.

He campaigned against existing policies that had resulted in disproportionately high numbers of minority males being jailed and proposed other reforms in criminal justice.

Krasner was a featured speaker at the 2017 People's Summit.

Philadelphia district attorney R. Seth Williams announced in February 2017 that he would not run for reelection.

Williams resigned from office and pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges in June 2017; his interim replacement, Kathleen Martin, chose not to run.

Shortly before Krasner announced his candidacy, John McNesby, president of Lodge 5 of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, derided Krasner's intention to enter the race as "hilarious."

McNesby opposed Krasner's promise to refuse to prosecute defendants whose detainments were illegally performed so arresting officers could earn overtime pay as well as his history of suing police officers who perpetrated corruption and brutality.

Less than three weeks before the primary, a political action committee supporting Krasner's campaign received a $1.45 million contribution from billionaire George Soros.

Krasner won the May 16, 2017 Democratic primary with 38% of the vote, defeating former city and federal prosecutor Joe Khan, former Philadelphia Managing Director Rich Negrin, former First Assistant District Attorney Tariq El-Shabazz, former prosecutor Michael Untermeyer, former prosecutor Jack O'Neill, and former Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni.

In February 2018, Krasner announced that law enforcement would no longer pursue criminal charges against those caught with marijuana possession.

That same month, Krasner instructed prosecutors to stop seeking cash bail for those accused of some misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.

Krasner said that it was unfair to keep people in detention simply because they could not afford bail.

Krasner also announced that the DA's office had filed a lawsuit against a number of pharmaceutical companies for their role in the city's opioid epidemic.

Krasner instructed prosecutors to stop charging sex workers who had fewer than three convictions.

In March 2018, it was reported that Krasner's staffers were working on creating a sentence review unit to review past cases and sentences and to seek resentencing in cases when individuals were given unduly harsh punishments.

That same month, Krasner instructed prosecutors to reduce sentence lengths to defendants making pleas, refuse to bring certain low-level charges, and publicly explain their reasoning for pursuing expensive incarcerations to taxpayers footing the bills.

He said,