- Civil rights attorney Larry Krasner is the heavy front-runner to win the race to be Philadelphia's next district attorney, a powerful position in the heavily incarcerated city.
- While he has never served in government, he has a long career of suing police for civil rights abuses and defending activists in court.
- District attorneys' races have become the frontline in the battle to reform criminal justice and end "mass incarceration," with millions of dollars being poured into local races over the last year.
Civil rights attorney Larry Krasner has always been obsessed with what it takes to make change. At the age of 11, he got into a debate with his Sunday School teacher about whether it was right to break the law for the greater good. The two were arguing over the Civil Rights movement and protests over the Vietnam War — events that shaped his life and perspective.
Today, Krasner is running for district attorney of Philadelphia, a powerful position in a city with the highest rate of incarceration of the US's 10 most populated cities.
At 56, he is pursuing elected office for the first time after a 30-year career defending radical activist groups like Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia. He's also sued police for civil rights violations more than 75 times.
"I was born in '61. So in '68 when I'm watching TV … I'm seeing the Vietnam War and the protests and the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago," Krasner told Business Insider.
"I remember all that and, even more importantly, I remember [Martin Luther] King. … It was a very visual time, and when you are a 7- or 8-year-old kid and you're watching this happen ... it's compelling. The war was compelling. It was all compelling. And then, they were getting killed. [Robert F. Kennedy] was speaking out against the war. And then he is dead. And then King is dead, and he's dead because of white supremacists."
Krasner, well-dressed in a sharply cut blue suit, tinted horn-rimmed glasses, and a well-kempt head of silvery hair, doesn't look the part of a political outsider.
With his raspy but measured speech, he could pass for a senator in a liberal state. But make no mistake, Krasner may be the most progressive candidate for such a major office in years. The center of his campaign platform is ending "mass incarceration," the constellation of state and federal policies that have put more than 2 million Americans behind bars.
And though nearly all of the candidates in the seven-person Democratic primary he won in May promised reform, all it took was one look at their careers to convince him to run for office for the first time in his life.
Some of the candidates "were flagrantly authoritarian during their careers," Krasner said. "And yet all of a sudden I'm hearing about their 'Which way is the wind blowing now' virtues, and I just figured this is ridiculous."
"Somebody real has got to get into this, because these people aren't going to change anything."
Lawyers are usually 'technicians' for the movement, not the leaders
Krasner is widely expected to win the general election against his Republican opponent, Beth Grossman, due to Philadelphia's 7:1 Democratic registration advantage, but he isn't spending the final days of the campaign resting.
With the November election weeks away, Krasner is spending every day hitting the pavement courting voters — over the course of the weekend he would run from debate to community meeting to city forum.
Though he sounds excited, Krasner is also keenly aware of how winning will upend his life, his successful and lucrative criminal defense and civil rights practice, and his family. His wife, Lisa M. Rau, is a judge on the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia and has been unable to attend any campaign events out of ethical concerns.
If elected, Krasner wouldn't be the first progressive district attorney in a major US city, but he might be the most radical — though he is loathe to use the term. When I asked him whether he considered himself an activist after spending his career defending the rights of activists and suing police, he demurred.
"I don't think I deserve that much credit," he said. "I consider myself an activist's lawyer. I consider myself to be a movement lawyer." After a little pressing, Krasner launched into a story, as he often does. He referenced the relationship between William Kunstler, the famous civil rights lawyer and activist, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I think [Kunstler] used to refer to the lawyers as 'technicians' for the movement," he added.
That idea, of lawyer as a "technician" to a movement is central to Krasner's idea of himself. Though he is a charismatic figure, he seemed uncomfortable to suddenly be the face of Philadelphia's leading movement for change.
President Donald Trump's roaring victory in last year's election has cast a shadow over the DA's race ever since candidates began throwing their hats in the ring last September — almost as much as that of Seth Williams, the city's last elected DA.
Williams resigned in June after a year-long corruption scandal and was sentenced to a five-year prison sentence for, in the words of the judge, feeding "his face at the trough" of public money.
When Krasner announced his candidacy in February, in an 11-minute video surrounded by local activists, he joined a crowded Democratic field of former assistant district attorneys and a judge.
David Rudovsky, a civil rights professor at University of Pennsylvania's law school, told Business Insider they were all "trying to out-progressive each other" on everything from mass incarceration and racial injustice to the death penalty.
At a debate in April that Rudovsky moderated, he told the seven Democratic candidates, "It sounds like you all are running for public defender."
A PAC associated with George Soros put $1+ million behind Krasner's campaign
Over the last several years, the push for criminal justice reform has centered around electing progressive district attorneys, an acknowledgement that DAs make the day-to-day decisions of what cases to pursue, what charges to press, and who gets a second chance.
Much of that push has been led by billionaire financier George Soros, and his "Safety and Justice" PACs, which funneled more than $3 million into seven DA races in 2016. The PACs reportedly put more than $1 million behind the Krasner campaign, a fact detractors have repeatedly seized upon.
But while Krasner concedes the "Soros money" — as it's been called locally — "amplified" his message, he established himself long before it arrived.
On day one of his campaign in February, Krasner released a detailed platform calling for an end to cash bail imprisonment, reviewing convictions and freeing the wrongfully convicted, ending "stop and frisk" and civil asset forfeiture abuse, and standing up to police misconduct.
By the time Soros-paid ads aired in late April, three weeks before the primary, Krasner had a slight edge over Joe Khan, the establishment front-runner when the race began, and a heavy lead over Michael Untermeyer, an ex-Republican who put nearly $1 million of his own money into the race.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
source http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-larry-krasner-district-attorney-philadelphia-progressive-democrat-2017-11
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