Activists have swept a new wave of prosecutors into office. Is the focus now shifting to the judiciary?

In 1989, when John Blount was just 17, he was convicted of a double homicide. Blount was sentenced to death, and later re-sentenced to life in prison without a chance for parole. While incarcerated, he started a mentoring program for kids, kept a nearly spotless disciplinary record, and got his GED. He was written up only once, for owning a contraband radio. In 2016, following a series of Supreme Court decisions deeming mandatory life-without-parole sentences unconstitutional for defendants under 18, Blount was made eligible for a resentencing. Before his resentencing hearing in 2018, his lawyer had worked with the Philadelphia district attorney’s office to negotiate a 29-year-to-life sentence. The judge, however, disagreed. “I cannot discount two lives,” said Judge Barbara McDermott after rejecting the negotiated sentence. “I believe in proportionality in a sentence.” Her sentence, 35 to life, will make him eligible for parole at the age of 52. (Blount’s attorney is now petitioning the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to consider the case.)

It used to be unheard of for Philadelphia judges to reject a negotiated sentence in these resentencings—until Larry Krasner, arguably the most progressive prosecutor in the country, took over the city’s district attorney’s office in January 2018 and started delivering on a promise to minimize incarceration. In response, several Philadelphia judges have shut down his attempts to keep people out of prison or release them earlier. Some, such as McDermott, have overruledresentencing agreements. Recently, some judges reportedly declined to consider an initiative, developed by Krasner, to seek shorter probation sentences.

After watching these developments with growing dismay, Rick Krajewski, an organizer for a leftist political group called Reclaim Philadelphia, convened about 30 Philadelphia activists in January at the offices of a prisoner-advocacy organization to float a radical proposal. Many of them had been instrumental in getting Krasner elected. But clearly, electing a progressive prosecutor hadn’t been enough. This time, Krajewski wanted to persuade them to spearhead a rare grassroots campaign for the typically sleepy judicial race.

 This meeting birthed a coalition of organizations that collectively are raising public awareness about Philadelphia’s May 21 primary election and the judicial candidates running for seven open benches. Some are taking the unusual step of campaigning for candidates who share their progressive values. The coalition includes anti-incarceration advocates and activists for racial equity. Its platform includes eliminating cash bail, increasing sentences to rehabilitation-focused programs rather than prison, barring U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement from courts, and decriminalizing sex work and drug use.

Organizers also want to promote a more diverse judiciary that understands where defendants come from. “A big piece is, one, how are you treating the people who come before you? Are you humanizing them?” says Devren Washington, an activist associated with Black Lives Matter Philadelphia who is a lead coalition organizer.

Philadelphia voters first demonstrated an appetite for criminal-justice reform in 2015, when they elected Mayor Jim Kenney, who’d campaigned on promises to advocate for reducing the use of cash bail and give people with a rap sheet a more promising second chance. Since Kenney took office, the city won two big grants from the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, totaling $7.5 million, to make the city’s criminal-justice system more efficient. (A grant from the MacArthur Foundation also funded the reporting of this story.) In the past four years, the city has cut its jail population by 44 percent.

Krasner, elected in 2017, came to office during a nationwide wave of reform-minded prosecutors: In Houston, Chicago, Brooklyn, and other left-leaning cities, prosecutors have been winning races on platforms to end mass incarceration. A prosecutor has tremendous sway when, for example, suggesting bail, negotiating plea agreements, and recommending sanctions for parole and probation violations. But judges and magistrates have the final say—and their decisions have been thrown into relief in jurisdictions that have elected reformist prosecutors. “What we are seeing is that the judges are deciding to take it upon themselves to be the obstacle for a progressive district attorney,” says Robert “Saleem” Holbrook, a former juvenile lifer who now works as a policy adviser at Amistad Law Project, a prisoner-rights advocacy organization.

Organizers also want to promote a more diverse judiciary that understands where defendants come from. “A big piece is, one, how are you treating the people who come before you? Are you humanizing them?” says Devren Washington, an activist associated with Black Lives Matter Philadelphia who is a lead coalition organizer.

Philadelphia voters first demonstrated an appetite for criminal-justice reform in 2015, when they elected Mayor Jim Kenney, who’d campaigned on promises to advocate for reducing the use of cash bail and give people with a rap sheet a more promising second chance. Since Kenney took office, the city won two big grants from the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, totaling $7.5 million, to make the city’s criminal-justice system more efficient. (A grant from the MacArthur Foundation also funded the reporting of this story.) In the past four years, the city has cut its jail population by 44 percent.

Krasner, elected in 2017, came to office during a nationwide wave of reform-minded prosecutors: In Houston, Chicago, Brooklyn, and other left-leaning cities, prosecutors have been winning races on platforms to end mass incarceration. A prosecutor has tremendous sway when, for example, suggesting bail, negotiating plea agreements, and recommending sanctions for parole and probation violations. But judges and magistrates have the final say—and their decisions have been thrown into relief in jurisdictions that have elected reformist prosecutors. “What we are seeing is that the judges are deciding to take it upon themselves to be the obstacle for a progressive district attorney,” says Robert “Saleem” Holbrook, a former juvenile lifer who now works as a policy adviser at Amistad Law Project, a prisoner-rights advocacy organization.