PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has dealt District Attorney Larry Krasner a victory, effectively putting a stop to a two-year-old effort by state Republicans to impeach him. The Court on Thursday ruled state lawmakers had improperly tried to stretch the impeachment process across two different legislative sessions.
In November of 2022, a resolution to impeach the Democratic district attorney passed along party lines, as the Pennsylvania House was controlled by Republicans at the time. In December, the Republican-controlled Senate accepted the articles of impeachment.
Republicans blamed a rising rate of gun violence on Krasner’s office management, his approach to bail hearings, and his choices of crimes to prosecute. Krasner’s stance was that those choices were precisely why he had been overwhelmingly elected to a second term with nearly 72% of votes cast.
Krasner called the impeachment the act of a “lame-duck majority” and filed suit in a lower court to overturn the impeachment resolution. The court issued a split ruling, rejecting Krasner’s premise that the impeachment could not stretch across multiple legislative sessions, while at the same time ruling that the impeachment did not meet necessary legal standards.
The Republican-controlled Senate never took the House impeachment articles to a trial while it awaited the outcome of the court case, and Krasner never faced expulsion from office.
In considering an appeal from Republicans, the higher court did not address the issue of standards, leaving the lower court’s ruling on the issue intact. But it did accept Krasner’s argument on the question of legislative sessions, saying that articles of impeachment “became null and void” at the end of 2022, when the legislative session ended.
House Republicans issued a statement after the ruling, acknowledging that the impeachment trial will not move forward, but calling on the court to issue an answer as to whether impeachment was justified.