Just shy of four years ago I wrote about a case in which DA Larry Krasner's office had freed a convicted murderer and then the same man, Jahmir Harris, became a suspect in another, very similar murder. The judge had agreed to vacate the previous conviction in 2021, but still had some criticism for Krasner's Conviction Integrity Unit.
Harris was convicted of firing 17 shots at Louis Porter outside a Walgreens at Oregon Avenue near 23rd Street in December 2012. Porter had just parked his car and his 5-year-old son was in the backseat when he was killed...
The DA’s Office asked Common Pleas Court Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi to vacate Harris’ conviction and set him free, which she did — but not without hesitation.
At one point, DeFino-Nastasi ordered prosecutors to show proof of a more thorough investigation proving that Harris was not involved. Later, she harshly criticized Patricia Cummings — then the director of the Conviction Integrity Unit — for what the judge cast as an incomplete review of the case.
I looked up the outcome of this case and Jahmir Harris was in fact arrested and charged with the Sept. 2022 murder of Charles Gossett but so far it seems that case hasn't been prosecuted.
In any case, this isn't the only time Krasner's office has gotten in trouble for trying to free a convicted murderer. Last year a supervisor in Krasner's office was disbarred for lying to the court over another case.
Paul George, an assistant district attorney who handles appellate cases, was a key player in his office’s attempts to have Robert Wharton’s death penalty reversed so he could serve a life sentence instead.
U.S. District Judge Mitchell Goldberg denied that request, but not before finding that District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office had provided incomplete and misleading information in its efforts to free Wharton from death row...
...three federal judges concluded earlier this year that George’s actions were “misleading and dishonest,” saying he had lied to Goldberg about key facts, “flouted the interests of the public and the victims’ families,” and acted as the “quarterback” of efforts by the district attorney’s office to undo or undermine all death penalty cases.
“George’s conduct was the result of a ‘selfish or dishonest motive’ — placing the DAO’s policy priorities above its professional and prosecutorial responsibilities,” wrote U.S. District Judges Paul S. Diamond, Gerald J. Pappert, and John M. Gallagher.
Just two months ago another member of Krasner's team had her license to practice law suspended for lying to a judge about the same case.
Nancy Winkelman was suspended for three years by a panel of federal judges who found that she was complicit in efforts to mislead a federal judge while seeking to overturn the death sentence of a man convicted of killing an East Mount Airy couple in the 1980s and allow him to serve life in prison instead...
In a forceful and scolding opinion, the high court said Krasner’s office misled judges, submitted false statements, and “violated its duty of candor” in asking a judge to vacate a 2004 murder conviction.
The court wrote that prosecutors’ actions in the case were part of a troubling pattern of conduct in seeking to overturn murder convictions and ordered that, going forward, the state attorney general’s office must be asked to review and weigh in on all such cases.
Specifically, the murderer in this case killed a couple then turned off the heat in their house and left their 7-month-old daughter to die. The baby survived and when Krasner's office sought to overturn the death penalty, his lawyers informed the judge that the victim's family approved of the effort. In fact they had never contacted the surviving daughter, Lisa Hart-Newman, at all. That's the kind of lawyers Krasner hires: ideologues with no shame. The judge ordered Krasner to write an apology letter to the surviving daughter.
And all of that brings us to last week where Krasner's team was in court again trying to help free yet another convicted murderer. But thanks to his office's previous missteps the court was full of attorneys including three from his own office who argued the case was being mishandled.
The unusual hearing grew out of efforts by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office to overturn the conviction of Dennis Johnson, who was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2007 shooting of a man at a North Philadelphia convenience store. While Johnson’s future was ostensibly on the line, it quickly became clear that so was Krasner’s...
While Johnson was in court with his attorneys, the hearing focused on the machinations within Krasner’s office.
...three prosecutors — who still work for Krasner — provided damning testimony about their own office’s sloppy handling of efforts to vacate Johnson’s conviction. They accused Krasner of conduct that bordered on paranoia and coverup, and an office that seemed less focused on the pursuit of justice than on shielding itself...
The three prosecutors provided alarming testimony detailing how Krasner avoided using his official office email and threatened them.
“DA Krasner typically didn’t use that email,” Ernst said about his office email. “He wouldn’t check it. And so, if you wanted to email him, then you typically had to email his private address.”
This is standard operating procedure for government workers trying to avoid the possibility of FOIA requests that could embarrass them. The three attorneys wanted the case turned over to the state attorney general but they testified that Krasner hated everyone there and referred to them as Nazis.
But the biggest revelation during last Thursday's hearing was testimony from Ernst, one of the three lawyers still working for Krasner, that he had threatened to fire anyone who told the judge about problems with the case.
Ernst testified that Napiorski warned her that Krasner had threatened “to fire anyone who tells the judge about this.” She added that Wildberger clarified that Krasner didn’t use the word fire but said “there would be consequences.”...
“If what they say is true, potential wrongdoing abounds,” [Judge] Diamond said. “There’s a question of whether perjury was committed, subornation of perjury was committed, criminal conspiracy was committed, and obstruction of justice was committed.”
The hearing is set to continue tomorrow. But it sounds like Krasner's office could be in real trouble if these claims are substantiated.
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