Philadelphia District Attorney Krasner Erases History
Whether it is Russia trying to hide the people who disappeared into the gulags, China ignoring the dissidents erased in the Cultural Revolution, or the Khmer Rouge pretending that the Cambodian genocide never happened, a leader trying to rewrite history is seldom a good idea. Now Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is attempting this dubious feat, erasing four homicides from the city’s history as if the victims were never killed.
On a spring day in 2009, defendants Donta Craddock and Ivan Rodriguez were out cruising on the streets of Philadelphia in a Pontiac Grand Prix. The two decided to steal a motorcycle at gunpoint, a felony. Rodriguez drove off on the stolen motorcycle. Craddock took off in the Grand Prix, almost instantly pursued by Philadelphia police who were alerted by a witness. Fleeing from the lights and sirens of the police, Craddock rammed into a crowd on the sidewalk in North Philadelphia, killing four people: Aaliyah Griffin, 6; Gina Marie Rosario, 7; Latoya Smith, 22; and her daughter, not even one-year-old Rimanee. The scene was horrific, with the children splattered over the street and neighbors weeping. The victims were black and Latino.
The Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney’s Office did not hesitate. Craddock and Rodriguez were charged with second-degree murder because the killings of the innocent victims took place during the course of a felony – the robbery of the motorcycle. Also known as felony murder, this crime category has existed under the law for longer than the United States has existed as a country. If five guys rob a bank and one kills a security guard during the robbery, all five defendants are charged with felony murder because their unlawful conduct resulted in the death. Second-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment in Pennsylvania.
Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy, an experienced homicide prosecutor, led the case against Rodriguez and Craddock. Jurors and witnesses cried during the trial as they heard about the children who were killed. The defendants were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The defendants appealed, but the courts upheld the convictions.
The victims’ families found some solace in the convictions. Janice Brown, the mother of Latoya Smith and grandmother of Rimanee Smith, said, “Justice has been served.” Aaliyah Griffin’s mother remained devastated: “It’s still hard. That’s my first daughter – she’s the one that made me a mom. She’s my best friend and they took it away from me. I’ll never get to see her with kids; I won’t see her in college; I won’t see her get married.”
Unfortunately for the families of these murder victims, Larry Krasner was elected district attorney of Philadelphia in 2017. And Krasner does not like the doctrine of second-degree murder. Under his leadership, as new murders were committed, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has been reducing cases from first- or second-degree murder to third-degree murder or manslaughter, vastly cutting the amount of time these defendants will spend in jail. And Krasner has had plenty of opportunities to go light on murderers, since Philadelphia set a new all-time record for homicides in 2021, with 562 killings. Other prosecutors, including former Philadelphia district attorney and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, have been sharply critical of Krasner for his practice of downgrading homicides.
Still, while future homicides might be punished less severely in Philadelphia, the families of murder victims from prior years, before Krasner became district attorney, assumed that they would be safe from Krasner’s light touch on killers. They were wrong – as the families of the victims murdered by Craddock and Rodriguez recently found out.
https://www.realclearpennsylvania.com/articles/2022/06/01/philadelphia_district_attorney_krasner_erases_history_835271.html