HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania state lawmakers who tried to impeach Philadelphia’s elected progressive prosecutor improperly tried to stretch that process across two different legislative sessions, the state's highest court ruled Thursday.
The decision was a victory for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, following his impeachment by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in 2022.
Chief Justice Debra Todd, writing for the majority in a 3-1 decision, said the state Constitution does not grant power to the House and Senate in subsequent sessions to act on matters that were begun in a prior session.
As a result, the articles of impeachment “became null and void” when that legislative session came to a close at the end of 2022, Todd wrote.
“Accordingly, given these explicit constitutional constraints, we conclude that, when the House exercises its power of impeachment during one session of the General Assembly via the passage of articles of impeachment, trial on those articles must be held by the Senate of that session before it ends,” Todd wrote.
Todd, a Democrat, was joined in the opinion by Justices Christine Donohue and David Wecht, both Democrats. Justice Sallie Mundy, a Republican, dissented. Three other justices did not participate.
Krasner has remained in office after being overwhelmingly reelected in 2021 to a second four-year term. Krasner has not been charged with a crime or been sanctioned by a court.
The Republican-controlled Senate never took the Republican-penned House impeachment articles to a trial while it awaited the outcome of the court case and Krasner never faced expulsion from office.
The House’s seven impeachment articles asserted that Krasner should be removed from office for various reasons, including complaints about his failure to prosecute some minor crimes and enforce bail in some cases.
The articles also cited court rebukes of how his office handled several cases, complained that he had not adequately notified some crime victims of developments in their cases and claimed that Krasner obstructed the House’s investigation of his office.
Krasner — a progressive civil rights lawyer who ran as an opponent of the death penalty, cash bail and prosecuting minor nonviolent offenses — had called his impeachment “pure politics” and an effort to subvert the will of Philadelphia voters. Democrats accused Republicans of abusing their legislative power.
The high court's decision was at odds with a lower court's split ruling last year.
The lower Commonwealth Court had agreed with Krasner that the impeachment articles didn't meet the state constitution’s definition of misbehavior in office. But it rejected his arguments that lawmakers cannot impeach local officials, like him, and that the constitutional window for a trial had closed when the legislative session ended in 2022.
The state Supreme Court did not rule on the other claims. Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, had protested that the court had no role in determining whether the constitutionally empowered impeachment action was appropriate.
The House's vote to impeach Krasner was along party lines, except for one vote. A successful Senate vote to convict Krasner — and force him from office — would have required cooperation from Democrats to reach the necessary two-thirds majority, but Democrats never showed any willingness to cooperate.
Democrats now control the state House. Jason Gottesman, a spokesman for House Republicans, declined to say if the GOP caucus will try to take up the impeachment issue again.
