Philadelphia’s district attorney scores legal win against GOP impeachment effort

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — 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 overturned a lower court ruling in a lawsuit brought by Larry Krasner after he was impeached by the state House in November 2022, a year after he was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term. Republican lawmakers had argued that Krasner, a Democrat, should have prosecuted some minor crimes, questioned his bail policies and how he has managed his office, and their impeachment resolution passed almost exclusively along party lines.

Krasner quickly dismissed the GOP claims as targeting his policies. A month later, the lower court issued a split ruling in the matter that rejected two of Krasner’s challenges — that the opportunity for a trial died when that legislative session ended in 2022 and that as a local official, he could not be impeached by the General Assembly.

In its ruling, the state Supreme Court found the articles of impeachment “became null and void” when that legislative session came to a close. The GOP controlled the House at that time, but it is now led by Democrats,

“The Constitution simply does not textually permit the House and the Senate of a subsequent session of the General Assembly to take any further action on matters which the House or Senate of a prior session of the General Assembly may have begun, but not finished during that session,” Chief Justice Debra Todd wrote in her opinion.

Krasner’s office did not immediately respond Thursday to an email seeking comment on the ruling. Jason Gottesman, a spokesman for House Republicans, declined to say if the GOP caucus would try to take the impeachment issue up again.