It’s perfectly understandable that when a city like Philadelphia elects a George Soros sponsored defense attorney to become District Attorney, that that District Attorney will be more interested in setting criminals free than prosecuting crimes. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Two judges have sparred with the Philly DA’s office recently over questions about old murder convictions

The developments — which prosecutors dispute — have offered a degree of pushback as DA Larry Krasner’s office has sought to free one man from death row and overturn another man’s murder conviction.

by Chris Palmer | Thursday, May 19, 2022

Judges in state and federal courts in recent weeks have raised questions about whether prosecutors under District Attorney Larry Krasner included incomplete or even misleading information in court documents seeking to remove one man from death row and overturn another man’s murder conviction.

The developments — which prosecutors dispute — have offered a degree of pushback to the post-conviction work of Krasner’s office, one of the most aggressive offices in the country in seeking to overturn cases it has viewed as flawed or marred by misconduct.

Jane Roh, spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office, defended the office’s conduct in each of the two recent cases. And though Krasner did not comment, he has frequently touted the 28 exonerations his office has helped secure as a signature achievement — while casting judicial resistance as an unsurprising byproduct of dealing with those invested in the status quo.

The more pointed of the two recent episodes unfolded in federal court last week, when U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg said in an opinion that prosecutors may have breached their “duty of candor” while supporting a bid to vacate the death sentence of Robert Wharton.

There’s a certain amount of stupidity involved in this. Pennsylvania currently has 128 men and 1 woman under capital sentences, but hasn’t actually executed anybody since 1999, and has executed only three men since the restoration of capital punishment in 1976. More importantly, all three of the men executed were ‘volunteers,’ men who had voluntarily dropped their appeals just to get it all over. No one has been executed in Pennsylvania against his will since the restoration of capital punishment!

It’s not just governors who are opposed to capital punishment which have caused this. Tom Corbett was Governor from 2011 through 2014, and he signed 47 death warrants during his four years in office . . . yet not a single prisoner was actually put to death. Current Governor Tom Wolf, an opponent of capital punishment, refused to allow any executions during his 7½ years in office. The Democratic nominee to succeed Governor Wolf, current Attorney General Josh Shapiro, is an opponent of capital punishment, so if elected — which is the greater probability — Governor Wolf’s moratorium on executions will continue. The Governor of Pennsylvania can grant clemencies, but only upon the advice of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is why Governor Wolf hasn’t commuted all current capital sentences. Why Mr Krasner’s office has spent so much time and money, all while being short-staffed, to overturn a capital sentence which will, in all likelihood never be carried out, is a mystery.

How about the case of Lavar Brown:

Meanwhile, in Common Pleas Court last month, Judge Scott DiClaudio was poised to overturn a murder conviction that prosecutors have described as badly flawed. But the judge said he would not do so until one of his colleagues first considered a thorny legal issue involving Krasner’s finances.

Krasner’s office had told DiClaudio it believed Lavar Brown — convicted of participating in the 2003 robbery and fatal shooting of a North Philadelphia Rite Aid manager — deserved a new trial due to a host of past prosecutorial misconduct.

Really? The crime occurred 19 years ago; will the witnesses from 2003 be able to be gathered? Will their memories have faded? Are they all still alive?

But it doesn’t really matter: even if Mr Brown’s conviction is thrown out and a new trial ordered, Mr Brown will remain locked up because he has already been convicted in a separate murder case!

Interestingly enough, even though Chris Palmer’s article noted that there have been allegations of financial improprieties by Mr Krasner in the case — he had received income from two of his former law partners who had previously been involved in Brown’s case — and the article gives Mr Krasner’s defense on that, that the payment was simply a catch-up for what he was owed when he left private practice, neither Mr Palmer’s article nor any other I have been able to find in the Inquirer’s website mentioned that the District Attorney owes back taxes and has been picketed over it.

The newspaper is still covering for Philadelphia’s let ’em loose prosecutor!