UPDATE: This story has been updated with links for additional context.
Pat Dugan, a judge in the Philadelphia Municipal Court for the last 17 years, stepped down from his role to run against incumbent Larry Krasner for the position of district attorney. A decorated veteran, Dugan founded the Philadelphia Veterans Court in 2010 as a “national model” and lowered recidivism to less than 10% through use of diversion programs. Dugan has spent the last five years serving as President Judge and focused his platform on diversion, innovation and reform initiatives. The candidate recently sat down for a phone interview with PGN to discuss his stance on LGBTQ+ and other issues. Some responses have been edited for length or clarity.
If you are elected, what are the major goals of your term?
The main goals of my term are to have a parallel approach to criminal justice. By that, I mean that we have second chances, we have diversion courts and we try to have holistic approaches to some of these men and women who come into the criminal justice system, so that we can release them as more productive, safer and to where they’re getting therapy or other treatment, etc.
While we’re doing that, we must also hold criminals accountable. We cannot continue to have one in eight young Black males being killed before they’re 25 years old. When people are caught with illegal guns, there has to be some sort of accountability. That is not happening and it has to change.
We also can’t live by what Krasner’s mantra was for the last seven-and-a-half years, where you can steal anything you want. And he’s done that with his policy that started a month after he took office, retail thefts went from a little bit over 7,000 to last year, 22,000 with an arrest rate of less than 2%. That is a free pass to steal what you want.
We are losing taxes. Businesses are leaving us, and frankly, I can’t get a hoagie in Center City anymore because, after a $100 million investment, Wawa has left Center City because of the policies coming out of the office of a guy who graduated from Conestoga High and doesn’t know anything about Philadelphia. So, these are some of the things that I want to address to make a difference. I want accountability, but I also want to give those second chance passes.
And how do you plan to impact or uphold Philadelphia laws?
When there’s an arrest, how about we look at the evidence and then do some charging, instead of not charging so many people who are arrested. Yes, we have to follow the evidence, but we also have to have DAs who are trained. Attorneys who are leaving the DA’s office are saying this, including Thomas Mandracchia who did an interview talking about the lack of training when he became the assistant DA. They’re left hanging out to dry to do it on their own. Krasner looks at some of the courts, particularly Municipal Court, as this lowly type of court, so he sends his DA in untrained.
They are losing at such a high rate. They are withdrawing up to 70% of the cases. This is outrageous. Up to 61% of the carjackings wind up being withdrawn, or they just don’t make it past the original hearing up this. 69% of property crimes don’t make it past that initial hearing because of the withdrawals. It’s just because they’re not prepared with evidence.
The district attorney’s office is not the “public defender with a budget,” like Krasner stated when he went around the entire country to all these elite law schools. (PGN could not find evidence of Krasner stating this.) Of course, I welcome elite law school graduates to come in and work with us to save our city, to make it safer. But I’m also going to double down on Temple, Drexel, Rutgers Camden, Widener, Penn and Villanova, because they don’t know that Broad Street is Broad Street and not 14th Street. I heard things like that in the courtroom. So many of them that come in don’t even understand the city, but more importantly, they’re not trained and they leave at a very high rate.
We have asked Krasner to give us the statistics of his hires and how many are still with them. What we got from folks is that it’s 68 out of 78 new attorneys in one class have since left. That’s a pretty high turnover rate. Chris Lynette — one of the attorneys quoted — said when he went back to Krasner’s office to ask for help, it was an echo chamber. Nobody wants to listen.
We have to change the culture in the office, and we have to change it at the top. Recently, judges have been coming out against the office. We had a Court of Common Pleas judge issue a scathing opinion saying that the district attorney’s office lost three boxes of evidence on a case that has been going on for years in which the district attorney’s office accused former prosecutors of doing the same type of things. But this court found that in fact, it’s this current office under Krasner’s regime, that withheld evidence.
The person who introduced the conviction integrity unit to Philadelphia, Patricia Cummings, refused to follow the subpoena that ordered her to come to court, and apparently her attorney told the attorneys there she would plead the fifth if she showed up. This judge ordered the entire office to take an ethics class, 12 hours of continuing legal education, under the supervision of the disciplinary board, with an emphasis on candor to the court and she fined the office $120,000. I’ve never heard of this.
What do you think is the most important aspect of being a DA?
Ethics and integrity are the cornerstone of a decent society and the rule of law. A few years back, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court started a new judicial ethics advisory board and nine judges were selected to be on that initial panel. Out of over 1,000 judges, I was one of those nine chosen for that elite position.
If we don’t have integrity, how can we trust what’s going on? When you’re a judge, we assume that people in those positions of power have some ethics, so that we’re not cheating to get what we want done. We have to follow the rule of law and what’s in the best interest of the victims, the defendants and the whole criminal justice system.
And if you’re coming in with a slanted bias and you’re willing to cheat to get your way, which apparently all these judges are calling out Krasner about that, then how can the system actually continue to work properly if we don’t trust it? Attorneys must not lie to a court of law, because then the system breaks down. You could lose your license for doing this.
I’m wondering if anybody has reported Krasner for disciplinary issues, because it sure seems that all these judges are saying he should be. The Philadelphia ethics board has slammed Krasner twice with fines in the last two elections. In 2017 and 2021, they fined him because he mixed independent expenditures with his campaign. It’s against the law here in Philadelphia, and he’s the chief law enforcement officer, yet he is breaking what the rules say.
Frankly, in my opinion, part of it has to do with what his policy was on the retail thefts where you won’t be prosecuted if you take under $499 worth. (Krasner has also instituted a new policy for addressing types of retail theft.) So taxes are going to double and our chief law enforcement officer doesn’t pay his taxes. He has a 40% interest in the building on, I think, Locust Street.
So I think ethics and integrity have to be the foundation of a district attorney. You have to follow the evidence and can’t have all your biases come into your duty. That’s why we try to train our young lawyers and judges about implicit bias. It’s the same thing with police officers. We’re trying to get rid of the biases when it comes to the criminal justice system.
What steps have you taken towards connecting both with your local community and the local LGBTQ+ community?
I can tell you that I have members of my family who have been part of that community for quite some time. As a judge, I have a reputation for being fair and I treat everybody with respect when they come into my courtroom, no matter what part of our society they belong to, be it race, religion or sexual orientation. And the feedback that I’ve gotten, especially after I decided to step down and run, has been positive. I’ve had a couple of advocates call me up and say that they wished they could help me, and that I was one of the fairest judges they have ever seen. How you treat every single person that comes into a courtroom matters, including people who are murder defendants. This is part of who I am.
Anybody who’s going to target a member of our society for their sexual orientation — if that’s the reason why they’re doing it — I would certainly approve additional hate charges as well. We can’t have our fellow Philadelphians or people who are coming through the city being harassed or assaulted in any way because of their sexual preferences, their skin color, etc.
In this ever-changing political landscape, how do you intend to protect and support the LGBTQ+ community and specifically transgender rights?
I’m hoping that there’s judges who stand up to some of the policies coming out of the White House and the far right. I’m hoping that people start to understand that people have to push back through the voting booth and by putting pressure on those who are calling folks out for how they live. A person who is transgender has every right to live as they wish to.
I support folks to live a life of happiness without being harassed, name called or dealing with this issue about bathrooms. I mean, come on, unisex bathrooms have been in existence worldwide. The far right makes it this boogeyman because it gets good clicks. It raises money for Donald Trump and that other nutjob down there, Marjorie Taylor Green. That’s why they do this, to be part of this culture war.
If elected, will you honor the request of Nizah Morris’ family and grant them access to all the withheld records, including 30 witness interviews, relating to Nizah Morris’ homicide that are stored at the DA’s Office?
The only caveat I have is I’m hoping it’s still an active murder investigation, so I certainly won’t want to compromise the investigation. Maybe that’s why Krasner is doing it, but I certainly feel that the family should have an idea what’s going on with this case. I mean, even if you don’t give full access to all of the records, there’s got to be some sort of briefing for this family. Even if you’re not naming witnesses, offering a status update is important. This family has been hung out to dry all these years and that has to be repaired.
Plus we used to have geographic assistant district attorneys, assigned to specific areas based off the police divisions, and that assistant district attorney’s job would be to talk with the community, give updates on cases, and communicate with victims. I have heard families say that there should be better communication with our victims and their families.
Why are you the best fit for this position?
I’m going to bring some sensibility back to the office. I was the president judge in municipal court, so I know how to run an office. I had over 300 employees spread across three buildings, dealing with thousands of cases a year. I led through COVID. I got my hands dirty. I went into the prisons during COVID with only a mask on to handle cases for those men who were stuck in jail when the world stopped in an effort to move some of them out of prison.
I also want to hold people accountable. I want to make sure that the district attorney is not the best friend to murderers, and that’s what’s been going on right now. Our murder rates went through the roof during Krasner’s tenure, and we have to be more compassionate toward our victims. They’re the people that need hugs.
You have to support the evidence, convict the culprit, embrace the victims, follow the rule of the law, and hold people accountable while continuing to provide second chances. That’s what I did for the last 17 years, and I can bring that more robust strategy to the DA’s office. Our diversion programs have suffered under Krasner no matter what he says. I’m going to bring back accountability and integrity to the DA ‘s office, but still with an emphasis on helping people not recommit so that it’s a rehabilitative, restorative type of justice.
For more information on Pat Dugan, visit judgeduganforda.com.
