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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   22968 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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Truly unbelievable set of court opinions from Philadelphia, providing lots of support for accusations of anarcho-tyranny:

  • A person is charged with two murders, one in January 2003 and another in December 2003. In 2004, he is convicted of the first murder, and is sentenced to life in prison. In 2005, he is convicted of the second murder, and is sentenced to death, partially because the first conviction is an aggravating factor.

  • In 2018, the person files for habeas corpus in the second sentencing (not conviction). The county prosecutor (Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, elected as a Democrat) concedes error and agrees that the death sentence should be reduced to life imprisonment. The habeas judge rejects the petition, and the state supreme court affirms (five to two), keeping the death sentence in place, because there was no actual basis for the prosecutor to concede error!

  • In 2020, the person files for habeas corpus in the first conviction (not sentencing). The prosecutor concedes error and agrees that the conviction should be overturned, and the habeas judge grants the petition and vacates the conviction. But the family of the murder victim intervenes and appeals, and the state supreme court reverses (by a bare vote of four to three), finding that the prosecutor not only had no basis to concede error, but actively lied to the habeas judge in order to get this murder conviction overturned! And this particular prosecutor has been engaging in similar shenanigans in over one hundred other murder habeas petitions! (Specifically: He has conceded error in 120 cases, including 110 murder cases and 35 death-sentence cases (75 percent of all the death-sentence cases in the county). 45 of the 120 concessions have not resulted in new trials; rather, the "exonerated" former convicts have merely been freed. 10 of the 120 concessions, including 9 in murder cases, have already been rejected as baseless by the state supreme court or by the federal appeals court.)

  • Remedy: Whenever the Philadelphia prosecutor concedes error in a habeas petition, the state prosecutor (Attorney General) must receive an opportunity to intervene against the Philadelphia prosecutor. (The three dissenters think (1 2) that this remedy goes too far beyond the limits of the case. One concurring justice thinks that it doesn't go far enough, and state law obligates the state prosecutor to intervene in county proceedings that become non-adversarial due to the county prosecutor's admission of error.)

The DAO insists its many concessions over the past eight years in mostly murder cases “simply demonstrate that the DAO has embraced its responsibility as a minister of justice”. We endorse in the strongest possible terms a prosecutor’s duty to minister justice. Lest there be any uncertainty on this score, we reiterate that a prosecutor is ethically obliged to concede relief on PCRA review when (but only when) the facts and law support it. We also emphasize that our decision is not intended to “counteract the policy choices” of the DAO. DA Krasner remains free “to exercise his discretion on behalf of the Commonwealth in Philadelphia’s criminal and PCRA cases”. But the means for achieving those ends cannot transgress the bounds of the law, and what we have seen in this case and too many others is the opposite of justice. Again and again, the DAO has made unreliable concessions unsupported by the facts and law. And when conceding relief, the DAO has repeatedly lacked candor to the court, misrepresented facts, failed to conduct adequate investigations, and inexplicably dodged necessary evidentiary hearings. This Court too has a “duty… to minister justice”. Indeed, our “principal obligations are to conscientiously guard the fairness and probity of the judicial process and the dignity, integrity, and authority of the judicial system, all for the protection of the citizens of this Commonwealth”. Our duty to safeguard justice compels us to order that in all PCRA cases in which the DAO concedes relief, the PCRA court shall afford the OAG notice and the opportunity to intervene before ruling on the concession.

Digging into this is truly an eye glazing endeavor. How the fuck did lawyers do this before AI?

Anyways, it seems to be based on whether there was prosecutorial misconduct in the first trial, specifically if they committed a Brady violation by not turning over information from witness interviews that could be used to impugn their credibility. The specific details are really boring and technical.

It's not really surprising that the Philadelphia DA office, historically, did not keep its hands perfectly clean. And it is abstractly a good thing to check the work of one's predecessors. But this probably isn't the best use of their resources.

It's... uh, a bit worse than that. The PA Supreme Court brings up 11 people where the DA Office seems to knowingly provided false information to the courts in order to free serious criminals, mostly murderers and one armed robber, ranging from trying to bind the court to incorrect concessions (another case involving this very same guy) to concealing parallel state-federal operations (Antonio Martinez, this case again) or concealing or failing to recognize important facts of the case (Robert Wharton, Kevin Johnson), to just straight-up lying about the basic facts of the case (Dontia Patterson).

Given that the supposed 120 concessions of error, that the DAO has been caught trying to illegitimately free convicted criminals in at least 9% of concessions. Dissent quibbles that those cases had some overlap, so it's probably worse than that.

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