{"id":221844,"date":"2026-06-18T01:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/221844\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T01:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:20:18","slug":"pennsylvania-supreme-court-slams-philadelphia-district-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/221844\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Supreme Court slams Philadelphia district attorney"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pennsylvania<\/a> Supreme Court slapped down Philadelphia<\/a> District Attorney Larry Krasner for repeatedly misleading state courts and withholding evidence in various cases in which his office tried to toss out murder convictions, ordering the state attorney general to review any future convictions he seeks to reverse.<\/p>\n

The high court in the Keystone State, which features a heavily Democratic bench, issued a forceful opinion<\/a> Tuesday reversing a lower court\u2019s decision to give convicted murderer Lavar Brown a new trial, finding Krasner\u2019s office\u2019s concession that a new trial was needed was \u201cnot reliable.\u201d The state Supreme Court found that Krasner\u2019s office lied to the lower court about facts and previous pleadings, withheld material evidence, opposed efforts by the families of the victims to include the withheld evidence, \u201cfailed to conduct a reasonable investigation\u201d of the case, and violated its duty of candor, which requires lawyers to be truthful to courts, when seeking to toss the conviction. The panel also found these infractions were part of a pattern from the progressive Philadelphia district attorney in other bids to toss convictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen relief is not dictated by the record and law but merely advocated for personal, political, ideological, policy, or other non-legal reasons, a prosecutor\u2019s concession does not minister justice; it facilitates injustice,\u201d the ruling reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2018, the [district attorney\u2019s office] has conceded relief well over 100 times, mostly in murder cases like this one,\u201d the ruling continues. \u201cThere have been numerous instances of untrustworthy concessions, lack of candor, misrepresentations of fact, lack of adequate investigation, and avoidance of hearings. And the problems are poised to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panel excoriated the conduct of Krasner\u2019s office in the 109-page ruling, not just in the Brown case but also in eight similar cases. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reminded Krasner\u2019s office that \u201cas a minister of justice and not simply an advocate, the DAO must concede relief when the facts and law call for it.\u201d The ruling then took aim at Krasner\u2019s office for apparently not seeing any problems with its conduct in these cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DAO does not acknowledge any problem or need to reform its practices. As it has in the past when its concessions have been called into question by state and federal courts alike, the DAO has simply \u2018doubled down,\u2019 insisting, despite considerable evidence and myriad court findings to the contrary, that there is nothing wrong,\u201d the ruling reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn reality, there have been serious problems with the DAO\u2019s concessions and its conduct, both in this case and a number of others, and the DAO\u2019s steadfast refusal to recognize as much contributes to the likelihood they will continue,\u201d the ruling continues.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered state Attorney General Dave Sunday, a Republican, to review future cases where Krasner, a liberal Democrat, seeks to toss out a conviction and, if necessary, intervene in the case. The ruling said allowing the state attorney general the chance to intervene will \u201cenhance the reliability of the proceedings and the [lower] court\u2019s ultimate decision\u201d on whether to toss out a conviction.<\/p>\n

Sunday responded to the ruling on Tuesday by expressing gratitude to the state high court for allowing his office to \u201cserve as a check on this process for the citizens of Philadelphia and ensure that the interests of victims\u2019 families are represented.\u201d<\/p>\n

The forceful rebuke of Krasner from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is an unusual move by a state high court toward a local prosecutor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unprecedented for a court to say a prosecutor\u2019s office repeatedly misled them, especially in the context of trying to let murderers out of jail,\u201d Abhishek Kambli, a former career federal prosecutor and recently departed Trump Justice Department official, told the Washington Examiner.<\/p>\n

ATLANTA JUDGE RECUSES HERSELF FROM DOJ VOTER ROLL LAWSUIT IN GEORGIA<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAlso noteworthy is that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is mostly Democrat appointees, so it cannot be characterized as political,\u201d Kambli added. \u201cIt also shows the court sees serious problems with that office\u2019s candor and drafted the AG\u2019s office to fix the issue because it no longer trusts the DA\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krasner, who was first elected in 2017 and subsequently reelected in 2021 and 2025, is one of the most infamous district attorneys backed by liberal megadonor George Soros. Despite facing widespread criticism of his soft-on-crime policies and an impeachment from the GOP-led state House in 2022, Kranser has remained in office as Philadelphia\u2019s district attorney.<\/p>\n

Kaelan Deese contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court slapped down Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for repeatedly misleading state courts and withholding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[46,31,96597,624,28,30,29,69,5086],"class_list":["post-221844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-crime-in-cities","tag-district-attorney","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-state-courts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}