We have previously noted the hostility of the George Soros-sponsored defense lawyer who has become Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Larry Krasner, when it comes to police officers. Simply put, he hates their guts.

Mr Krasner has charged three officers with murder from three separate incidents. On November 17^th, we noted that while the District Attorney’s Office was able to get a manslaughter conviction against former officer Eric Ruch, though he was acquitted of the third-degree murder charge Mr Krasner sought, but Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott sentenced Mr Ruch to just 11½ to 23 months in jail, well below the state advisory minimum of 3½ years.

Mr Krasner waxed wroth:

DA Larry Krasner seeks a tougher sentence for convicted cop Eric Ruch

by Craig R McCoy | Tuesday, November 29, 2022

District Attorney Larry Krasner has asked a Common Pleas Court judge to reconsider the sentence she gave a former Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man, saying it was too lenient and appeared to blame the victim.

Krasner filed the motion with a persistent nemesis, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott, criticizing her decision to sentence former officer Eric Ruch, 34, to 11½ to 23 months in county jail last month after a jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter. It was the first such conviction for an on-duty police killing in at least 50 years.

Under advisory state sentencing guidelines — which judges don’t have to follow — Ruch faced a minimum sentence of 3½ years, Krasner pointed out during a news conference Tuesday at the District Attorney’s Office.

Because McDermott’s sentence was under two years, state law mandates that Ruch serve his time in the Philadelphia prison system, rather than in the far-flung and grimmer archipelago of state prison system. It also meant that McDermott, and not the state Parole Board, retains control over whether to grant him early parole.

Mr Krasner’s petition is unlikely to result in a stricter sentence, not only because judges in the Keystone State have fairly wide discretion, but because it seems that the DA’s Office went out of its way to piss off Judge McDermott:

In a 17-page appeals motion, prosecutors wrote that McDermott “improperly and excessively blamed the victim in this case.”

The ‘victim,’ 25-year-old Dennis Plowden, Jr, led police on a high-speed chase that ended when he plowed — yes, pun intended — into parked cars in the Olney section of Philadelphia. After Mr Plowden emerged from the car, he sat down, and, believing that he was using his right hand to pull a weapon, Officer Ruch fired, striking him in the hand and head. Judge McDermott did state that Mr Plowden caused the entire incident, and yes, she blamed him.

Of course, to Mr Krasner, people fleeing the police are never at fault.

McDermott and Krasner have also been at odds in another one of the cases the district attorney has brought against a former police officer. She presided over the murder case against ex-officer Ryan Pownall.

In that role, McDermott rejected Krasner’s attempt to limit the grounds on which Pownall’s defense lawyers could argue that police have a legal right to shoot suspects. Her decision was affirmed this summer by the state Supreme Court.

Note that important part: Judge McDermott’s decision was upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court! She was right, and Mr Krasner was wrong.

Three months after that, McDermott tossed out Pownall’s case entirely. She said Krasner’s prosecutors had bungled the grand jury process that led to Pownall’s being charged.

Mr Krasner could appeal to Superior Court, but he’d have a tough time winning there. Judge McDermott could grant an early parole to Mr Ruch, and, as noted in a previous story:

McDermott suggested she would have let Ruch, 34, walk out of court with no prison time would it not diminish the severity of the voluntary manslaughter charge, which calls for a minimum of 4½ years in prison, according to state sentencing guidelines.

I’d hope that Judge McDermott would grant that early parole to Mr Ruch, though any time served lower than nine months, the time possible to earn good behavior credits, would be problematic.