A few days ago, I had the pleasure of meeting with the Philadelphia Inquirer’s opinion editor and deputy editor. Followers of this blog may recall that once upon a time I wrote op-eds for the Inky but that, following a change of leadership a few years ago, that relationship came to an end.
The change occurred when Kevin Ferris, the only right-of-center member of the editorial staff, departed to join Freedoms Foundation in Valley Forge. He had been my advocate and largely responsible for my work being published. With his departure, I hit an editorial stone wall.
In any event, I was delighted and surprised when the nice people at the Inky suggested that we get together over lunch to discuss my return to their pages. We had a very frank talk in which I pointed out that my philosophy and political views hardly coincided with the Inky’s consistently progressive viewpoint. The editors agreed but stated that they were determined to broaden the paper’s political and social range of opinion. They felt that it was important to stimulate discussion of alternative views among their readership. All of us agreed that we are living in rancorous and angry times when political divisions have shut down civil discourse.
They said that they were searching for ways to not only bring in new readers but more importantly to help open the minds of the reading public to other viewpoints.
Amen to that.
Now, in 2016, billionaire George Soros launched a nationwide campaign to radically transform prosecutors’ offices in our major cities. To that end, he contributed a reported $1,000,000 to the campaign of progressive civil rights lawyer Larry Krasner who was running for Philadelphia District Attorney. Krasner’s major professional accomplishment had been the prosecution of about 75 civil rights law suits against members of the Philadelphia Police Department.
Unsurprisingly, the Fraternal Order of Police opposed Krasner’s candidacy and supported that of Republican Beth Grossman, a veteran prosecutor. Krasner ran on a platform to clean out the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and remake it in his own image. But, backed by Soros’ vast financial resources, Krasner swamped his opponent and won the election.
All of this is the set up for what follows below. After my very pleasant lunch with the editorial staff, I sent them an article about how Krasner and his office have treated crime victims and their families. I just received welcome word that the Inky will run it online tomorrow and in its Sunday print edition.
Then it occurred to me that the piece might be of interest to followers of Knowledge is Good. After all, a Krasner equivalent may be coming to a town near you. So, now that you have the backstory, take a look at my article which appears below Larry’s picture. Hope you enjoy it.
Larry Krasner on the campaign trail.
On May 5, 2018, Mike Poeng was washing his car in front of his store at 54th and Spruce when he was approached by Jovaun Patterson. Brandishing an AK-47 rifle, Patterson announced, “This is a robbery. Go inside.”
But Poeng’s wife and children were in the store. Fearing that Patterson was going to murder him and his family, Poeng resisted using nothing more than his bare hands and pure guts. His valiant efforts ended when, as caught on surveillance video, Patterson shot him and fled the scene.
Police rushed Poeng to the emergency room where he died and then was resuscitated by means of open heart massage. The high-powered rifle round had severed his femoral artery, caused massive internal damage and left a “fist-size” exit wound in his right buttock. Poeng spent months in the hospital and is now home, confined to bed and unable to work.
According to police, the night before the shooting, Patterson brought his AK-47 to a neighbor’s house where he said that “he was tired of [Poeng’s] mouth and something had to be done about him.” This declaration of intent combined with the video of Patterson shooting Poeng as well as Poeng’s devastating wounds and near death amply justified the attempted murder charge filed against the shooter.
But then the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, under the leadership of progressive champion Larry Krasner, dropped the murder charge and allowed Patterson to plead guilty to the far less serious charges of aggravated assault and robbery and agreed to an absurdly low sentence of three and one-half to 10 years in prison.
Under Pennsylvania law, crime victims have the right to be apprised of plea deals and to be heard at sentencing. Nevertheless, the DAO never notified Poeng of either this sweetheart plea deal or the sentencing which proceeded without his presence or input.
When the news media exposed this shameful outcome, Ben Waxman, the DAO’s spokesman, defended Patterson’s sentence as “wholly appropriate” and ludicrously argued that the guilty plea to aggravated assault instead of attempted murder “was also wholly appropriate as the video evidence depicted a struggle involving the gun prior to its discharge.”
In addition to bypassing the clear-cut evidence proving attempted murder, Waxman’s rationalization failed to explain why the DAO had not notified Poeng of the plea deal and the sentencing. In this regard, the DAO’s shoddy and unlawful treatment of Poeng was not an isolated incident.
As the public criticism and media scrutiny intensified, the DAO resorted to the time-honored governmental strategy of throwing a powerless underling under the bus. So it was that Waxman claimed that the assistant district attorney assigned to the Patterson case “made two mistakes. First, she did not contact the victim prior to the plea, which is against DAO policy as well as state law. Second, she did not get authorization from her supervisor to convey the plea offer.”
To those of us familiar with the criminal justice system and Larry Krasner’s management of the DAO, Waxman’s explanation is simply preposterous.
When Krasner took office, he ordered a mass firing of 31 veteran prosecutors in order to root out and radically change the DAO’s long-standing law and order culture. This purge not only destroyed the professional lives of the many good and dedicated prosecutors who were unceremoniously fired without warning, it also traumatized and terrified those who remained on the payroll. As intended, it brought the office to heel and left the survivors afraid of their own shadows and fearful of doing anything that did not meet with the approval of their new master.
The point here is that, after Krasner’s brutal mass firings, it is impossible to believe that any lowly assistant district attorney would dare act to orchestrate something like the Patterson giveaway show without first fully briefing supervisors and obtaining their express authorization and approval. Moreover, the DAO’s cover story doesn’t explain how the purportedly mistaken plea deal actually made it through the pre-sentencing process and sentencing itself without the knowledge and complicity of DAO supervisors.
Of course, one way to clear up this matter would be to allow the news media access to the ADA and her supervisor. But no such access has been granted. Why?
Even more important, the neglect of Mike Poeng is by no means an isolated incident.
For example, in May 2018, Krasner’s office declared the murder conviction of the killer of Antwine Jackson to be “an egregious example of police and prosecutorial misconduct” and agreed to let the defendant go free without notifying Jackson’s next of kin. Krasner’s office later claimed that it had been unable to locate the family. But a reporter for this newspaper had no difficulty whatsoever in contacting the decedent’s sister. So why couldn’t the DAO do the same?
Similarly, Krasner’s office never notified Steven Bernstein, the brother of another murder victim, that it was reducing the death sentence of his brother’s killer to life in prison. And, in the murder case of Philadelphia Police Sergeant Robert Wilson, Krasner’s office didn’t notify the family of a plea deal until so late in the process that any discussion would have been pointless.
Then we have the murder of real estate developer Sean Schellenger who perished after literally being stabbed in the back. His assailant was arrested and charged with first degree murder. According to Linda Schellenger, the victim’s mother, Krasner himself “manipulated” her when he told her that she need not attend a hearing in the case because “nothing would happen.” But, when the family nevertheless went to this supposedly inconsequential hearing, it watched in surprise and consternation as Krasner’s office agreed to reduce the first degree murder charge to third degree.
All of this raises a key question: Does Larry Krasner’s concept of doing justice include taking into consideration and giving weight to the devastation, suffering and concerns of crime victims and their families? Do these innocents have any rights in his criminal justice system? Or does he consider them and their concerns to be of little or no importance as he pursues his quest to radically transform the DAO?
In short, whose side is he on?
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