Chuck D of Public Enemy (hip hop group) performing on Belgrade Calling festival on June 27th 2012, in Belgrade, Serbia
Zamrznuti tonovi / Shutterstock.com

By Michael Coard, Esq.

Chuck D of Public Enemy was right on point in 1989 with his “Don’t Believe The Hype” hit in which he warned the public not to fall for the lies relentlessly told to the public by the powers that be.

What Chuck rapped about 37 years ago applies to the lies being relentlessly told to the public by the powers that be in 2026 about progressive pro-Black District Attorney Larry Krasner.

For example, despite what you’re being told, Krasner is not facing any federal criminal charges in connection with the work of his Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU). By the way, his CIU investigates cases wherein people are serving life sentences or other extremely lengthy sentences despite being completely innocent or despite having been wrongfully convicted. Since 2018, thanks to his CIU, there have been 59 exonerations (which included 58 Black inmates).

Another example of the lies-based hype is the current case involving Eric Lewis, who’s accused of killing one police officer, wounding another, and firing at nine others on October 10. The lie claims that Krasner dropped the ball by failing to convict Lewis in a 2023 murder prosecution.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner
Photo: Michael Coard

But the truth is that the fault is exclusively on the Philadelphia Police Department due to its flawed investigation, a suspicious officer, and inconsistent testimony between detectives and civilian witnesses. In fact, the department’s failure was so egregious that trial Judge J. Scott O’Keefe — who has a great reputation among prosecutors and defense attorneys for being knowledgeable, fair, and no-nonsense — had no choice other than to acquit Lewis. Judge O’Keefe was so justifiably outraged by the department’s ineptitude that filed a complaint with its Internal Affairs Bureau.

Now that I’ve hopefully persuaded you to disbelieve the hype, allow me to tell you five things you didn’t know about Krasner.

1-He’s not new to it; he’s true to it.

Prior to being elected District Attorney, Krasner spent 30 years as a civil rights attorney fighting — often pro bono — for the rights of Black, Brown, and poor people. In fact, in 2014, he represented me and approximately 100 other lawyers when I organized a “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Die-In” inside the lobby of the Stout Justice Center for attorneys to protest the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson. And he’s always supported the very same criminal justice issues that the Black community supports. Those issues include the immediate end to unconstitutional stop and frisk, mass incarceration, unfair cash bail system, racist death penalty, life sentences for juveniles, and police brutality on the streets along with police corruption in the courts.

Despite his bona fides as a former civil rights attorney, he’s no softie when it comes to fighting crime. That explains to a large extent why, for example, from October 2025 to October 2026, homicides have decreased by 23.16 percent, property crimes by 8.23 percent, and all violent crimes by 3.79 percent.

2-He celebrates Juneteenth the right way.

Three years ago on Juneteenth 2023, Krasner held a press conference at Eastern State Penitentiary to announce his office’s “Racial Injustice Report: Disparities in Philadelphia’s Criminal Courts from 2015-2022.” That report analyzed 290,000 cases and included the following two of seven “Key Takeaways:”

A. “… [R]acial disparities observed in Philadelphia’s criminal court system are rooted in severe historical injustices and wealth inequality. For over a century, Black Philadelphians have been over-represented in arrests and criminal charges …. Disparities have not been resolved and in many cases have been worsened by federal, state, and local laws and policies.”

B. In regard to certain records and charges, “Black and Latinx individuals who are convicted of aggravated assault or burglary are more likely to be sentenced to incarceration than White individuals convicted of the same crime.”

3-He protects the Voting Rights Act of 1965 Philly-style.

The Orange Guy in the White House has made veiled threats about deploying armed ICE agents to polling places all across the country, including Philly. When I asked Krasner during an October 12 interview what he plans to do about that, he responded, “If ICE wants to “FA” by criminally interfering with or criminally intimidating Philly voters in the upcoming election, it’s gonna “FO” by getting arrested, by being placed in handcuffs, and by being tried by a Philly jury on state charges, which means the Orange Guy can’t issue federal pardons for that.

4-He speaks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

When I asked Krasner what he considers to be the most serious problems in America’s criminal law system, he stated, “Number one, it’s racist as hell. Number two, it focuses on punishment [instead of restorative justice]. Number three, it does not embrace rehabilitation in sensible ways. And number four, its foundation is based on a system that is much broader than criminal justice by failing to meet people’s basic needs.”

I followed up by noting that those four points indicate an urgent need for change. And since they do, I inquired why then is there so much hyped-up opposition by the powers that be to his attempts to correct the system. He quickly replied, “It’s because I and my staff are trying to correct the system.” In other words, the powers that benefit from the system as it currently exists obviously don’t want anything corrected and will fight tirelessly against progressive change by progressive prosecutors and other progressive elected officials.

5-Who is Larry Krasner?

Finally, when I asked him who Larry Krasner the progressive really is, he said “I’m the person who hates bullies, especially bullies who victimize marginalized people. I was raised to confront bullies. My mother, a tent preacher who supported the 1960s Black civil rights activists, used to always say, ‘You know you’re doing something right when you angry up the devil.’

Mama Krasner was right. And the devil is busy. He’s also “angried up” — just like a racist, classist, and otherwise unfair criminal law system is “angried up” — at principled change, at productive change, and at progressive change.

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, The Philadelphia Sunday SUN, the author’s organization, committee or other group or individual.