HARRISBURG – A recent 3-1 ruling from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania dismissed articles of impeachment brought against Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, due to the process being improperly taken up during two different legislative sessions.
In a Sept. 26 memorandum opinion, the state Supreme Court reversed an earlier ruling of the Commonwealth Court from 2022, which threw out Krasner’s arguments that lawmakers are unable to impeach local officials, like him, and that the end of the 2022 legislative session without the proceedings concluding, nullified them.
Chief Justice Debra Todd authored the Court’s opinion in this matter.
“This case is a direct appeal and cross appeal from the Commonwealth Court’s adjudication of a petition for review brought by appellant Larry Krasner, the elected District Attorney of Philadelphia County, in which he raised several legal and constitutional challenges to articles of impeachment seeking his removal from office. The articles were in the form of a resolution passed by a majority vote of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Nov. 18, 2022, and they were transmitted to the Pennsylvania Senate on Nov. 30, 2022 – the final day of the 206th Session of the General Assembly,” Todd said.
“We hold that the articles became null and void upon the expiration of the 206th Session of the General Assembly on Nov. 30, 2022, under Article II of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and, thus, the Senate of the 207th Session of the General Assembly is not empowered by that charter to conduct a trial on the articles to determine if the DA should be convicted and removed from office under them. We therefore reverse the portion of the order of the Commonwealth Court which denied the District Attorney’s application for summary relief on this issue.”
According to Todd and two of her colleagues, the Pennsylvania Constitution does not bestow power to the state legislature to take action on matters in overlapping and subsequent sessions. Therefore, the state Supreme Court determined that the articles were deemed null and void when the 2022 Legislative Session concluded.
Republican lawmakers had brought articles of impeachment against Krasner in 2022 seeking his removal from office, for a perceived failure to prosecute certain lower-level crimes and enforce the imposition of bail, an alleged failure to keep victims of crime notified of developments in their cases and Krasner’s alleged obstruction of justice towards the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ investigation of him and his performance as Philadelphia District Attorney.
With the exception of one vote, the House of Representatives’ vote to impeach Krasner was split along party lines. However, a two-thirds majority of the Senate was needed to convict the impeachment articles against Krasner and remove him from office. But this would have required Democratic votes, which were non-existent.
Krasner, a progressive Democrat and former criminal defense lawyer who was initially elected in 2017 and handily won re-election in 2021, publicly criticized the impeachment articles as nothing more than partisan politics.
While the Commonwealth Court concurred with Krasner that the impeachment articles didn’t meet the burden of proof to define the charge of “misbehavior in office”, it disagreed that the state legislature couldn’t impeach him and that the end of the 2022 Legislative Session rendered the impeachment articles null and void. This result led Krasner to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
With Democrats now constituting the majority of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, it is unlikely that the impeachment articles against Krasner will return and Republicans have not yet indicated whether they will make another attempt to impeach him.
Justices Christine Donohue and David N. Wecht joined Todd’s opinion, while Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy filed a concurring and dissenting opinion.
Meanwhile, Justice Kevin M. Dougherty did not participate in the consideration or decision of this matter, and both Justice Daniel McCaffery and Justice P. Kevin Brobson did not participate in the decision of this matter.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania cases 2 EAP 2023, 3 EAP 2023 & 4 EAP 2023
Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania case 563 M.D. 2022
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com