Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner has become a hero on the left for his aggressive attempts to free people who were wrongfully convicted. CBS profiled those efforts back in 2019, about a year and a half after Krasner took office.
The former public defender assumed the top prosecutor job in 2018. One of his first missions was to beef up the Conviction Integrity Unit to investigate legitimate claims of wrongful convictions.
“There was a culture at various times of win at all cost,” said Krasner. “And if that meant that you were gonna take the document that suggested there was a different suspect, a document that the Constitution requires you, as a prosecutor, to turn over to the defense, and you were gonna shred it, you did. And then there was a separate issue with certain detectives, and everybody who was in the system knew about it.”…
In just 19 months, nine people have been exonerated.
[CBS’ Jerika] Duncan asked, “What do you say about those ex-prosecutors who still believe that the people who’ve been exonerated are guilty?”
“I don’t think this is the realm of belief; I think we should be working with facts. The system will always make mistakes, but the kind of prosecutor who is willing to do these things that are illegal and unconstitutional in order to have a win is the kind of prosecutor who’s going to say to you, ‘I still believe they’re guilty,’ because they’re covering their own tracks.”
The possibility that he might get it wrong didn’t seem to occur to Krasner. Either that or he didn’t care. But that may be about to change. Recently a Philadelphia artist named Charles Gossett was shot in the head in a parking lot.
A local husband, father, and artist lost his life to gun violence on Labor Day and now his family wants answers after police released surveillance video of the suspect on Monday night.
50-year-old Charles Gossett, known to many as Chali Khan, was well-known in the music and arts world. Nearly a month after someone shot Gossett to death, police released video of the suspected killer
The suspect in the surveillance video released by police was instantly familiar to Walter Porter, whose brother Louis Porter had been killed under very similar circumstances back in 2012. He called police and identified the man in the video as Jahmir Harris. Harris was convicted of the 2012 murder of Louis Porter and sentenced to life in prison. But Harris was set free last year thanks to the intervention of Larry 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 last year raised questions about the reliability of the eyewitness’ statement, and said cell phone records cast further doubt on Harris’ involvement.
They also said the case file contained information about an alternate suspect — something that had been illegally withheld from Harris and his attorneys before trial.
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.
In 2018 Krasner said that anyone who claimed a freed suspect was guilty was just “covering their own tracks?” Now it looks like Krasner is the one covering his own tracks.
Jane Roh, spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office, said that prosecutors still believe Harris’ rights in his older case were violated, and that the office’s recent review of that case led prosecutors to believe Harris was “likely innocent” — a position that has not changed based on the new allegations against him.
Walter Porter and his family still believe that Jahmir Harris killed his brother and told the head of Krasner’s integrity unit that was the case before they pushed to free Harris. Maybe Philadelphia needs a new integrity unit to examine the work of Larry Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit. Having one of your freed prisoners (allegedly) murder someone else in nearly the same way seems like a pretty terrible outcome.
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