Below is my column in The Hill on the scathing rebuke of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner by the state Supreme Court. Krasner ran for reelection on the slogan “F–k Around and Find Out.” He just found out…
Here is the column:
District Attorney Larry Krasner is something of a bargain for Philadelphia. According to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he has not only been serving as the city’s prosecutor but effectively as its top public defender.
Krasner’s record is the subject of a scathing new opinion, which accuses him of leading a dishonest effort to undermine major criminal cases to engineer new trials for defendants.
Krasner has long cultivated a reputation as the champion of the left. We were both liberal students in the same class at the University of Chicago. While I moved to the political center, Krasner moved even more dramatically to the far left. Funded by George Soros as part of his campaign to elect social justice warriors as prosecutors, Krasner has used his office to threaten to arrest FBI agents and to “hunt down” ICE officers, to the delight of the far left.
The chest-pounding has not resulted in any such roundups, but the press remains good for Krasner in cultivating his image as the avenging angel of the perpetually enraged.
That is why the recent opinion from Pennsylvania’s Democratic-controlled Supreme Court was so surprising. It appears that even these liberal justices have had enough.
In Commonwealth v. Brown, Justice Kevin Dougherty (joined by Justices Sallie Updyke Mundy, Kevin Brobson, and Daniel McCaffery) denounced Krasner and his office for a pattern of misleading and mendacious filings to undermine the criminal cases of murderers and other convicts.
These defendants filed for relief under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act. The Act allowed for an adversarial process to determine whether defendants should receive new trials. However, the district attorney’s office routinely abandoned the field, leaving defendants essentially unopposed in their demands.
The Supreme Court wrote that such concessions robbed the public of “the benefits of opposing advocacy.”
It went even further in alluding to Krasner’s possible political and ideological motivations in pandering to the far left. “When relief is not dictated by the record and law but merely advocated for personal, political, ideological, policy, or other non-legal reasons, a prosecutor’s concession does not minister justice,” the opinion states. “It facilitates injustice.”
Then came the haymaker — a finding that Krasner’s concession was “not reliable” and that Krasner’s office had “violated its duty of candor,” “withheld material evidence from the court, opposed efforts by amici to gain access to this evidence, submitted a false stipulation of fact, misstated facts in its pleadings, failed to conduct a reasonable investigation, and opposed a required evidentiary hearing.” In this case, the justices wrote, the “predictable result was the erroneous grant of a new trial.”
The justices cited a pattern by which, since 2018, his office has conceded relief in roughly 100 murder cases like the one at issue. It found that his office engaged in “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.”
The justices were clearly alarmed because there are more than a thousand cases still in the pipeline, and Krasner’s office is expected to continue what they called “its checkered concession program.”
To give you an idea of the cases where Krasner’s office struggled to undo the conviction of murderers, consider the facts of the 1984 case of Robert Wharton. Wharton was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the 1984 strangulation and drowning deaths of Bradley and Ferne Hart. Wharton was upset about a debt, so he broke into their home, killed the Harts, and then turned off the heat, leaving their seven-month-old baby, Lisa, to freeze to death. The baby miraculously survived.
The court expressly cited Krasner’s prosecutors for making misrepresentations to the court. That included the claim by Krasner’s office that the family of the victims had bizarrely favored undoing the conviction. It was later discovered that Krasner’s staff had consulted only one relative, who was not the couple’s surviving daughter. The daughter, in fact, vehemently and understandably opposed the move. Krasner was ordered to write apology letters to the family.
Ultimately, the actions of Krasner’s office were so outrageous in this case that a panel of judges disbarred his supervisor for repeatedly lying in an effort to overturn the conviction. Krasner’s subordinate, Nancy Winkelman, was also barred from handling cases before the court for three years.
In response, Krasner did what he always does: He suggested that the criticism furthered racism and threatened democracy. He declared that the criticism of his office “undermines the value of a vote in Philadelphia” and defended his staff as merely furthering the work of racial justice: “On the eve of Juneteenth, we should all remember that reform is necessary in every era. And that those who bring needed reform sometimes are made to pay a price.”
This is vintage Krasner. His office was found to be both dishonest and negligent, but the district attorney cites his own misconduct as proof that his office is fighting hard for racial justice.
It did not matter that in 2021 a court admonished Krasner for creating what amounted to an unconstitutional blacklist of police officers whom he would not call as witnesses, even if their testimony was required to convict a criminal.
It did not matter that Krasner was admonished by a state Supreme Court justice in 2022 for abusing the grand jury process in an unhinged effort to charge a police officer with a crime.
Krasner feeds a rage addiction with uncut, pure criminal justice crack. It is a formula that has served him well with the media and the voters. Like Atlanta’s Fani Willis, he actually turns court sanctions into a badge of honor with voters who distrust the police and the criminal justice system.
In fact, the more the courts condemn him, the more he suggests that the criticism is just evidence of a prejudiced, unjust legal system.
None of this comes as a surprise for a candidate who expressly adopted “F— around and find out:” as his 2025 reelection slogan. But courts are finding out a bit too much about how Krasner himself has been … well … messing around with the legal system.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.“
Good on the state of PA’s SC for smacking this guy down.
We hear about the far leftists Democrats making claims to pack the court, add states for more seats in the Senate, passing laws to make sure no one but them will win an election again and we think that is just crazy talk.
Then we see this guy, basically ignoring law and order for social justice for . . . murderers.
Nope. It is not crazy talk. What did Carville say? “Just do it!”
This one is near to my neck of the woods. I’m more than happy to see this rebuke of Krasner by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. However, I must ask, where and what are the practical effects? When will Krasner be removed from office for cause? When will he be disbarred? When will he be indicted and tried for what must constitute numerous violations of his oath of office? The true answers are almost certainly: None; Never; Never; and Never. Nothing about the egregious abuses of our system(s) and culture by radical marxists/collectivists/wokists like Krasner will ever change merely as the result of electoral politics: that will require serious negative consequences to be visited on the perpetrators. That is an issue that Turley appears to be entirely unwilling to confront in cases such as this. Why?
Exactly right in every particular, except that we should laud Prof. Turley for shedding light on this sort of malfeasance. Which is, sadly, rapidly becoming the norm in American jurisprudence — especially in our large cities. Most of the MSM simply ignore stories like this, because it’s not furthering the Narrative.
May I remind everyone that even Mike Nifong served a grand total of 24 hours in jail.
” except that we should laud Prof. Turley for shedding light on this sort of malfeasance.”
I do give Turley credit for exposing this sort of thing. However, like a great many, probably the vast majority, of lawyers, he seems to be largely oblivious to the idea of applying the kind of severe punishment to fellow members of his profession that likely would be meted out to an ordinary citizen who was guilty of most any infraction that had the same magnitude of destructive effect on our society. I have seldom seen him call for prosecution and imprisonment for such behavior by a bar member. Outing clowns like Krasner after they have reaped the benefit of clear misconduct for many, many years is woefully insufficient. YMMV
True. But at least NC had the decency to remove him as DA and to disbar him.
What the Pennsylvania Supreme Court just did is the legal equivalent of putting warning labels on bleach. “Do not drink this” should be common sense. “A prosecutor’s office is not a public defender shop for convicted murderers” should also be common sense.
But when voters keep re‑electing a DA who treats convictions like ideological bargaining chips, and that DA’s staff starts filing “not reliable” concessions riddled with misstatements and withheld facts, the court steps in and slaps on a giant institutional warning: from now on, the AG has to look over your shoulder before you undo what juries and prior prosecutors lawfully did.
Here’s the structural problem. In a healthy republic, the first line of oversight is the people who hire and fire their local prosecutor. Philly voters bought Krasner’s sales pitch and then refused to fire him when his office started violating the duty of candor and walking away from its role in the adversarial system.
So the Supreme Court added a second line: AG review. It probably had to, to protect the integrity of murder convictions. But every time we need a higher layer of government to save us from our own “common sense” failures as citizens, we train people to expect warning labels and guardians instead of exercising judgment and virtue. At some point, if we don’t want bigger government and permanent “adult supervision” from the top, we have to stop electing officials who make “do your job” such a controversial ask.
Krasner, Philadelphia, P.A. Supreme Court. This is the perfect bullseye for the core values of the Culture War. This is where the Constitution was built. Now, that supreme court will not stomach Krasner’s (and George Soros’s) insinuation of social justice. Meanwhile, the DOJ Second Amendment Section of the Civil Rights División is all over the Philadelphia Police Department for revocation of gun permits. You may remember Barry Scheck from O.J.Simpson’s Dream Team. He co- founded the Innocence Project. That’s the right way to get social justice. Use the science of DNA to demolish a conviction. The social justice warriors do not like that science. It tells us genetically we are but one race. The human race. That feeds ineluctably into Chief Justice Robert’s idea that the way to end discrimination on the basis of race is stop discriminating on the basis of race.
WOW!!! You certainly ate your Maypo this morning.
When government fails the People….and continues to do so….at some point the People shall have to attend to business and take the corrective acton that is required. The Left really don’t want us to do that.
When that Black Flag is raised….the Left shall become a very endangered species.
Have they failed to consider the fact that if pushed hard enough all those of us that do not wish to be involved….shall do so? Do they not understand what that truly means?
At some point all of these outside financiers of the Left shall be considered National Security Threats….then what?
When we grow weary of political violence such as favored by Antifa and other radical groups and we see the Government failing to deal with the problems…what then?
More and more we are seeing pushback by ordinary folks to the radical Leftist antics.
There is a tipping point at which time the violence shall prompt a return in kind.
We have seen it happen before.
No doubt we shall see it again unless and until the Government puts a stop to the growing violence and rejection of legal and just standards of Justice. When we finally lose all faith in Government there shall be a response that shall put an end to it and force a return to practices that confirm the legitimacy of the governing principles this nation was founded upon.
For you geopolitically challenged folks…it is not Red State/Blue State….it transcends State boundaries and is more “Big City values v Rural Values”. Look at Washington, Oregon, California, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and you will see the divide within those States fall directly within that notion.
Classic case is Oregon today with the attempt to end all hunting and fishing, raising of livestock. All driven by a very small group of people living inside the big Cities who are pushing an ultra-Leftist agenda.
Anyone with a grain of commonsense understands where all of this is headed.
It is not a philosophical debate….sadly we are long past that and are now being confronted on a daily basis the fact that we are headed to the need to put an end to the foolishness being pursued by the Left.
The Professor says he moved center left and his pal went further left…..I disagree.
The Professor has shifted right….and to the Right and we are blessed to have him willing to share his views with us.
Great, he got judicial probation instead of removal. Sooper.
How many more Krasners are there across this beseiged nation?
You know what’s even more frightening than Krasner corrupting the criminal justice system in Philly?
If a D becomes president, guess who’s on the short list for AG.
3 men exonerated for 1997 North Philadelphia murder
Mark Brittingham, Jermel Shuler and Rasheed Smith have been exonerated for the 1997 murder of an elderly woman in her North Philadelphia home, District Attorney Larry Krasner said Tuesday.
This is why people love him 75% of the vote. FAFO Krasner for Pres
The old and helpless in these pus pockets should be rescued.
Good point!
Why has this man not been disbarred?
I just sent Professor Turley’s column to a colleague who is a member of the bar in PA. I am asking her that very question.
and she eyed rolled your idiocy
Big events over Sunday and Today:
Fathers Day
Summer Solstice ☀️
and Turley’s Debate
The 2026 summer solstice occurred on June 21, 2026. In the Northern Hemisphere, this marked the official beginning of astronomical summer and the longest day of the year, with the Earth’s axis tilted closest to the sun.
The solstice occurs when the sun reaches its northernmost point in the sky directly over the Tropic of Cancer. For the Northern Hemisphere, this means maximum daylight hours, while the Southern Hemisphere experiences its winter solstice (the shortest day of the year).
Exact Time: The astronomical event occurred at 1:24 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)
Happy Solstice ☀️
Re. Tickler: June 23rd 2026 (Today)
Turley vs. Wolfson Debate
“Is institutional neutrality necessary to preserve the university as a forum for open inquiry rather than an actor in political disputes?”
Ref.: “Knock Them Out”: AAUP and Mellon Foundation Accused of Targeting Civics Centers
[Link] jonathanturley.org/2026/06/12/knock-them-out-aaup-and-mellon-foundation-accused-of-targeting-civics-centers/
—
A.I.:
Turley vs. Wolfson On the value of institutional neutrality
Jonathan Turley and AAUP President Todd Wolfson debate whether universities should remain neutral on political issues or actively advocate for social and political causes.
The core of their debate centers on two competing philosophies regarding the purpose of higher education:
Pro-Neutrality: Jonathan Turley
The Argument: Universities must strictly refrain from taking political stances.
Core Purpose: The primary mission of a university is to foster open inquiry and the search for truth, not to act as a political or social-justice actor.
The Risk: When institutions take official positions, they chill dissenting viewpoints, encourage ideological conformity, and alienate students and faculty who disagree.
Pro-Advocacy: Todd Wolfson
The Argument: Total neutrality is impossible, and institutions have a moral imperative to speak out on systemic issues.
Core Purpose: Universities do not exist in a vacuum; they have an obligation to be active participants in democracy, social justice, and the defense of academic freedom.
The Risk: Remaining silent on major political disputes can signal complicity with injustice and fails to protect vulnerable students and faculty.
The Current Landscape
The value of institutional neutrality is a central point of contention in 2026. This debate is highly relevant as many elite institutions—such as Dartmouth, Stanford, and Vanderbilt—have officially adopted neutrality frameworks in recent years, while faculty organizations like the AAUP push back against the restriction of campus speech and advocacy.
—
🎤 DEBATE ANNOUNCEMENT !!!
The Steamboat Institute ~ 4:15-5:30pm
June 21, 2026 (MDT) Time in Laramie, WY
[Link] timeanddate.com/worldclock/@7174238
On Tuesday, June 23, 2026, Jonathan Turley, Professor at George Washington University Law School, and Todd Wolfson, Professor at Rutgers University and President of the American Association of University Professors, will debate the question:
“Is institutional neutrality necessary to preserve the university as a forum for open inquiry rather than an actor in political disputes?”
You can register to join us in-person at the 2026 Heterodox Academy Mountain West Regional Conference, with the option to register for just one day:
[Link] web.cvent.com/event/6349ded3-0500-48e8-a06a-2d176d4d74d5/register?utm_id=97758_v0_s00_e0_tv4_a1demo0dxqdqdh
OR, if you can’t be there in person, you can livestream the entire event from anywhere:
[YouTube Livestream] https://www.youtube.com/live/6Fl7_FmoIyI
On our livestream, you can still participate in our debate poll, submit questions to the speakers, and participate in the live chat with other viewers.
However you choose to attend, we look forward to seeing you there!
https://www.youtube.com/live/6Fl7_FmoIyI
SORRY – I jumped the gun: The Debate is Tomorrow ~ Tuesday June 23rd 2026)
The Conference begins Today –
Schedule (PDF)
https://content.heterodoxacademy.org/uploads/2026-Mountain-West-Conference-Program_FINAL-DIGITAL.pdf
Tuesday, June 23: Reform in Action
Salon B Schedule:
Dialogue, Debate, and Deliberation about Universities
Location: Salon B
Description: Three organizations demonstrate distinct approaches to dialogue, deliberation, and debate through participatory sessions focused on universities.
4:15–5:30 PM – Steamboat Institute Debate
Resolution: Resolved: Institutional neutrality is necessary to preserve the university as a forum for open inquiry rather than an actor in political disputes.
Debaters: Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law School
https://www.uwyo.edu/president/freedom-of-expression/mountain-west-regional-conference.html
Sigh. My tax dollars fund this “social justice” warrior at Rutgers.
Two of the scariest words in the English language: “social justice,” For Thee, Not Me.
So do moine isnt it great
I disagree that this is a result of liberalism. A classic liberal does not practice law in this fashion. This is much further to the left in the realm of the “progressives” and Marxists of the Democratic Party. As stated by a previous commenter, this only serves to diminish trust in our institutions and provoke chaos.
Where is the Bar Association that is supposed to police such actions, or the actions of the Governor or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on Pennsylvania. Seems the Court should take action if the that is within the law of Pennsylvania.
Of course the Obama Administration and Biden did much the same thing when they induced supporters to file lawsuits in various area of environmental disagreements and then would not contest them in Federal Court resulting a change in law by uncontested court decisions. Same actions just different victims.
Gov. Gray Davis of CA pulled this same abdication of responsibility after voters passed Prop 187 ending public education for children of illegal immigrants. Activists sued to have the vote declared unconstitutional, and then Davis conceded to them in Court rather than defend the State’s voters. He was recalled fo doing this, leading to Arnold Schwarzenneger being elected.
Beware legalistic elitism. It is everywhere these days. Elite lawyers believe they can strip the public and juries drawn from the public of all our remaining power. This includes lawyers who work as inside counsel for the huge tech companies.
@GEB – you forgot to mention the “liberal” AKA Democratic National Party’s four point messaging system:
1. Use $5MM to pay two known foreign double agents to create a fake news portfolio which will be leaked through congressional committee organizations under the guise of a legal system as propaganda through the New York Times and Atlantic Journal
2. Launch protests funded by off-shore money by appearing at the attacked federal sites using “Maximum Warfare, Everywhere All the Time”.
3. Protect those who assault journalists and law enforcement organizations and support vandalism by dismissing charges, or releasing anyone arrested (or convicted), if they are ever even confronted with their crimes.
4. Pretend you are shocked this is happening
☺ a great movie
Although these actions are clearly neo-Marxism on display, let us not forget that Charles Manson’s dream was starting a race/class war. Soros is just as deranged, as is anyone willing to kowtow to him. Perhaps the center left, if it still exists (I’m not convinced it does), is finally getting over its fear of reprisal by its own party? We can hope, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’m not sure if this is a genuine paradox or simply crazy, but many strongly Democratic cities that adopted progressive policies and ended up in severe financial distress are now electing even more left-leaning candidates in the hope of restoring their cities to their former greatness.
@gdonalallen
There’s no question for me the destruction is the point. Let’s hope those fleeing don’t spoil the soup, because they easily could. If we are ever talking about tens of millions of people, it could be downright ugly. Purple/red states needed to fortify yesterday.
“District Attorney Larry Krasner [. . .] has not only been serving as the city’s prosecutor but effectively as its top public defender.” (JT)
That Krasner/Soros revolving door for criminals has a name: decarceration. Aka: Let’s make life more dangerous for innocent citizens.
FAFO, boomer
ESAD, moron.
EAD gramps
Ummm. You might want to hold off on your celebration, the blog is about your boys failure and him wearing his pants too tight. THAT is FAFO like you don’t know what losing is.
My first thought is to ask what is the mindset of someone that wants to free a murderer? How can you not imagine the horror of the victims along with the threat of new victims? How can you have sympathy for a monster? How can someone be wired so differently from the vast majority? And lastly how can race be so blinding that you forgive murderers because they are black?
My second thought is that this is another reason people are fleeing blue states and areas in order to feel more secure in red states and areas. In FL there was a DA starting to head down this road and DeSantis had him removed. This is logical. This is righteous. This is responsive to the desires of the electorate.
The purpose of this is to destroy civil order in the public domain. Violence and chaos will ensue causing the public to empower government to relieve them of their rights in exchange for a false security. We can vote away our freedom and security. That is the ultimate goal.
When wolves outnumber rabbits, rabbits are doomed.
Chinese proverb
>>”how can race be so blinding that you forgive murderers because they are black?”
For answers, simply enjoy any of the mass media’s entertainment/propaganda offerings of the past fifty years. From major motion pictures, to best-selling novels, to Madonna videos, the message is always the same: the pampered pets can never, ever be held responsible for anything they do, because institutional this and structural that and systemic the other thing.
Incidentally, I moved from an extremely blue states to a red state, only to watch it turn purple then blue. At some point we have to stop running.
Have you been checked for fleas?
PA had an increase in people moving there. So STFU
I don’t know HB, why don’t you ask your fellow Soros? He seems to be the one funding all these DA’s that pursue usurping the law.
Krasner is a Fascist lapdog, and uses the levers of his power–power purchased by OLIGARCH George OLIGARCH Soros and his NEPOLIGARCH son Alex OLIGARCH Soros–to push his Fascist agenda. Krasner is dishonest scum, the lowest form of life floating on the surface of the American political system.
Suborning justice is an unfortunate part of modern liberalism. I just wonder why Krasner, the Grand-Architect of this situation, wasn’t disbarred. That, to me, is the natural and logical conclusion that should be reached by the Courts.
Unlawful behavior office is not a bug, it’s a feature for this crowd.
Krasner is not the problem . . . He’s merely a symptom. Neville Singham, George Soros, Hansjörg Wyss, Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires who fund these Marxists ARE the problem.
Re :”Krasner is not the problem”…..Krasner, and the rest of that lot, manifest the soft bigotry of low expectations for the intelligence of the low information voter . Do not send to know who was elected. Rather send to know who voted. Therein lies the rub.
Liberals are like mold, they ruin everything.
You are spot on; these clowns are headed for an endless time of eternal unimaginable suffering. They all sold out for a few years of wealth and the illusion of power. They are going to burn like a blow torch that never runs out of fuel. Oh, you can add Bill Gates to that list as well.
“People should not criticize Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. We consider him to be one of our most important assets; seeking to achieve our common goal of the complete destruction of America and the Constitution.”–Alexander Soros, Open Society Foundations.
Just a bit over the top, there.
Commies can’t get past our Constitution. It’s solid as a rock as the law of the land.
Commies have tried to destroy the Constitution since they got started but since we all have copies of it, It CAN’T be destroyed!
Commies hate this one trick. Sorry commie! No revolution here for you. Go back to commie-land!
Thank you for bringing the outrageous misbehavior of Krasner to light. This man is a disgrace to the legal profession. While I am not a resident of Philadelphia, I am a thinking resident of Pennsylvania. He needs to be disbarred and subjected to a true system of justice that should put him behind bars.
The fact Krasner hasn’t been disbarred, even after years of misdeeds, tells me more about the politics in Philadelphia. Glad I don’t live there.
The fact he is not in prison tells us more about the state of our country than politics
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Very near.
Indeed