When it comes to the Philadelphia district attorney Democratic primary contest between incumbent Larry Krasner and challenger Carlos Vega, it’s personal.
Vega was one of the roughly 30 prosecutors whom Krasner summarily fired upon assuming the city’s top law enforcement post in January 2018. Now, Vega has launched a primary challenge against Krasner, arguing that “the election for district attorney is not a choice between reform and safety. Black and brown communities like the one I grew up in are taking the brunt of both the systemic injustices that plague our society and the worsening epidemic of violent crime.”
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District Attorney Krasner has pushed back, saying that Vega is offering Philadelphians a return to a dark past marred by racism, mass incarceration and supervision, and overly punitive prosecution.
The personal animosity between Krasner and Vega was apparent during their televised debate last Wednesday, and they even traded barbs with one another after the cameras were shut off.
Here, in the hopes of cutting through the campaign rhetoric and personal animus, we offer a fact-check of some of the key claims made by both Krasner and Vega during the debate.
The candidates on gun crimes convictions
Since there were a heartbreaking 499 homicides committed in Philadelphia in 2020, and 177 homicides committed thus far in 2021 (a 34-percent increase compared to the same date in 2020), gun violence—and the role of the District Attorney’s Office in combating it—was a major topic of discussion during last week’s debate.
Krasner argued that under his leadership, the DA’s Office “has a nearly 85 percent conviction rate for shootings, fatal and non-fatal.”
According to the DAO’s Public Data Dashboard, there were a total of 773 non-fatal shooting cases during Krasner’s tenure (2018 to present). 236 were dismissed or withdrawn and 69 were found not guilty or acquitted. That leaves 468 cases having pled or been found guilty, which amounts to a conviction rate of about 60.5 percent, not 85 percent. The conviction rate for homicides under Krasner has been 80.1 percent.
For 2021 alone, those percentages are lower: The conviction rate for non-fatal shootings has been 48.7 percent, and for homicides, it’s been 69.2 percent.
Krasner said that his conviction rate “is comparable to other cities in a very favorable way. It’s a very high rate compared to other cities.” That claim is questionable. In 2020, the conviction rate in Cook County (Chicago) for “unlawful use of weapon” was 63.4 percent, and in 2019, it was 76.5 percent. The Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office’s Gun Violence Enforcement Division’s conviction rate in 2018 was just under 92 percent. In 2019, it was just under 91 percent.
Krasner said that his conviction rate “is comparable to other cities in a very favorable way. It’s a very high rate compared to other cities.” That claim is questionable.
Vega argued that police have been “removing guns at record rates, yet there are no consequences. The conviction rate has gone down substantially.” According to Vega, between January 1 and April 30, there have been charges filed in 785 homicides, shootings, gunpoint robberies, aggravated assaults and gun possessions. He said Krasner’s office has discharged, withdrawn, and had verdicts of not guilty in 530 cases, for a conviction rate of 32 percent.
Vega’s percentage checks out. If you total illegal firearms possession cases, homicides, non-fatal shootings, robberies with a gun, and aggravated assaults with a gun, you come up with 278 convictions out of 852 cases. That leaves us with a roughly 32.6 percent conviction rate.
Some of Vega’s stats, though, were a bit misleading. For example, he stated that “There were 348 gun possession cases [thus far in 2021], and [Krasner] withdrew or lost 233 of those cases. He only got verdicts of guilty as to 6 of them.” That framing leaves out the 110 cases—a substantial portion of the 348—in which defendants pled guilty.
RELATED: Philly Under Fire podcast series goes inside the front lines of Philly’s gun violence epidemic
On focused deterrence
In the context of combating gun violence in the city, Krasner and Vega had a heated back-and-forth over “focused deterrence,” a strategy through which the police department and other law enforcement agencies focus in on the handful of violent criminals in a neighborhood and communicate “clear incentives for compliance [with the law] and consequences for criminal activity.”
During the debate, Mr. Vega said that Krasner “dismantled” focused deterrence upon assuming office. That’s not true. Focused deterrence was implemented in South Philadelphia (with great success) in 2013, but Mayor Kenney ended the program in 2016. Larry Krasner assumed office in January 2018.
During the debate, Mr. Vega said that Krasner “dismantled” focused deterrence upon assuming office. That’s not true. Mayor Kenney ended the program in 2016.
But Krasner’s response was not wholly illuminating either: “We have that; we’ve had that for two years. Perhaps he’s not paying attention.”
Krasner may have been referring to intelligence-sharing between the DA’s office and the police, but focussed deterrence is not actively being used in Philly. The City and police only launched a similar program called Group Violence Intervention in August, 2020. It is run by the same national criminal justice organization as focused deterrence, but puts a greater emphasis on social services, and less on the threat of arrest.
RELATED: Read more about how focused deterrence is working in other cities
On the police and other law enforcement agencies
While running on a promise of enhanced collaboration between the DAO and the Police Department, Vega argued that Krasner has not in fact meaningfully prosecuted bad cops: “His office has brought charges on 51 police officers … not a single one has been convicted. Of those cases, 17 have been thrown out of court, three have been reduced to misdemeanors, one he got ARD [Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition], which was sealed. So, his office is incapable of prosecuting the police officers.”
Vega’s numbers check out. Granted, as The Pennsylvania Capital-Star recently reported, “Due to loopholes in state and federal law, it is difficult to appropriately discipline officers for misconduct.” Still, DA Krasner’s soon-to-be record-breaking amount of police prosecutions have yet to yield much fruit by way of conviction.
Krasner and Vega’s conversation on their relationship with the police soon turned to the ever controversial police union, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). Krasner stated that “The FOP has spent $120,000 on my opponent’s campaign, both directly and through something called Protect our Police PAC.”
Krasner stated that “The FOP has spent $120,000 on my opponent’s campaign, both directly and through something called Protect our Police PAC.” That number checks out.
Krasner’s number checks out. According to City of Philadelphia campaign finance data, the FOP has donated $42,200 to Vega’s campaign since December 2020, and the Inquirer’s Chris Brennan reports that “Protect Our Police [PAC] has received $80,000 since last summer from the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police.” That brings us to a grand total of $122,200.
Vega, meanwhile, retorted that Krasner “has fragmented relationships with other law enforcement agencies … with the attorney general, Josh Shapiro, calling his employees Nazi war criminals.”
Vega’s comment refers to what Krasner in 2019 said was an “office joke” that labelled former DAO prosecutors who left to work at the AG’s Office as “war criminals” and the AG’s Office as “Paraguay,” hearkening back to Nazi war criminals’ escapes to the South American country of Paraguay post-World War II. (Shapiro called the comments “hateful speech.”)
It’s no secret that Krasner and Shapiro have butted heads in the past. In the summer of 2019, Krasner slammed Shapiro for legislation that would have given the AG concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute gun crimes in Philadelphia. Whether Krasner’s comments have in fact severed his working relationship with the AG’s Office, though, seems questionable. In fact, Shapiro and Krasner’s joint gun violence task force announced a series of arrests just a few weeks ago.
RELATED: An argument for defunding the Fraternal Order of Police
On criminal justice reform
DA Krasner stood by his message of progressive prosecution and criminal justice reform during the debate, stating that “We’ve cut future mass incarceration in half, future mass supervision on parole and probation by two-thirds.”
According to the DAO Public Data Dashboard, future years of incarceration imposed for all offenses are down 53 percent, so Krasner’s cut-in-half stat is on point. That said, future years of supervision for all offenses are down 57 percent, under that two-thirds number.
Krasner also praised his office’s progress on expanding the use of diversion programs that redirect low-level offenders away from jail and towards social services, job training or drug rehab. He stated that “AMP [the Accelerated Misdemeanor Program] has been expanded.”
While we weren’t able to find specific stats on AMP, the number of diversions during Krasner’s tenure has steadily declined; the difference in diversions between November 2017 and January 2020 was a drop of 80 percent.
Meanwhile, Krasner has greatly expanded the use of diversion programs for gun possession cases, something for which he has been criticized. Compared to the 2014 to 2017 average rate of diversion for illegal firearms possession cases, the 2018 to 2020 average jumped up 87 percent.
Part of the candidates’ discussion on criminal justice reform revolved around two different wrongful prosecution cases. In the case of Anthony Wright, Krasner accused Vega of trying “to take an innocent man and put him back in jail for a second time.” This was a reference to Vega’s involvement in the 2016 re-trial of Wright for a 1993 rape and murder, despite DNA evidence proving his innocence after more than 20 years in prison. (Wright was acquitted by the jury after less than an hour of deliberations.)
During Wednesday’s debate, Vega stated that “I was called in at the eleventh hour, to aid or second chair that DA, at which point I presented evidence and the jury spoke. What speaks volumes with the Innocence Project is this: The Innocence Project brought disciplinary action against that DA. They did not bring disciplinary action against me because I was not involved in the decision-making of those cases. I presented the evidence.”
No matter how they vote, hopefully citizens can wade past the two candidates’ animus for one another and cast their ballots with all the facts at top of mind.
The Innocence Project, which represented Wright, has disputed Vega’s framing of his involvement, and the transcript backs that up. In a 2017 deposition as part of Wright’s lawsuit against the City, Vega explained that he “got involved in the case about a month or six weeks before the trial.” Still, he seems to have been heavily involved in the case, even going so far as to offer Wright a plea deal of “40 to 80 years’ incarceration.” Vega also cross-examined a number of witnesses during the 2016 retrial, in which he served as second chair of the prosecution.
In addition, Vega stated in the deposition that he believed Wright was guilty based on eyewitness testimony, and that even if he knew detectives had planted evidence or fabricated testimony, he would still have recommended the DA’s office proceed to trial.
Krasner also noted that, “the city ended up paying $10 million dollars after that man was acquitted.” That figure checks out: In June 2018, The Inquirer reported that Wright received a $9.85 million payment from the City.
Vega’s prosecutorial record came up again in the context of the wrongful conviction of George Cortez. For his part, Vega said that he “exonerated George Cortez … and [he] found the true killer” in 2016, four years after Cortez was falsely convicted of homicide and sentenced to life in prison.
Krasner disputed this, saying that, “What actually happened there is with no involvement of Mr. Vega, a conviction was reversed by a higher court. His office, when he was there, fought that reversal. After it’s reversed, and they’re going back for a second trial, it is discovered that one brother rather than the other committed the crime.”
A 2016 report for the Inquirer indicates that Krasner’s correct on the first point: George Cortez “was granted a new trial in April 2015 after a judge ruled that there were issues with the use of a cell phone video the first time around.”
So, a higher court was in fact behind the push to exonerate Cortez. But Vega was involved in identifying and prosecuting the true killer. According to the Inquirer, Assistant District Attorney Kirk Handrich, who was the primary DA on the case, “dug into the evidence anew and found signs that Cortez could have been incorrectly identified.” Handrich worked with Vega, a veteran prosecutor, to instead bring charges against the true killer, George Cortez’s brother, Owen.
Facts vs. fiction
As Philadelphia Democrats head to the polls next Tuesday, May 18, to vote in the DA’s race, they’ll have a hard time separating out campaign trail facts from fictions. The closing days of the race promise to grow more personal and hyperbolic still, as Mr. Vega has recently filed a notice of his intent to sue the Krasner-aligned Real Justice PAC and the Krasner campaign for “maliciously false and misleading rhetoric.”
No matter how they vote, hopefully citizens can wade past the two candidates’ animus for one another and cast their ballots with all the facts at top of mind.
Thomas Koenig is an incoming 1L student at Harvard Law School from Oreland, PA. He interned with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office from 2018-2019. Follow him on Twitter @thomaskoenig98.
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