DA Larry Krasner and former judge Patrick Dugan met for the first time on-stage in Philadelphia to discuss the city’s most pressing issues.
Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner and his challenger Patrick Dugan met on stage for the first time at the West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship on Tuesday night. Dugan, a former judge, tried to differentiate himself from the incumbent DA on issues like retail theft, homicide, and the death penalty. The two Democrats agreed on several topics, but sparred on other issues, specifically Krasner’s focus on President Donald Trump. Krasner, who was vocal about not wanting to comply with Trump’s immigration policies, has made the Republican President a key focal point of the DA race.
Krasner attempted to paint Dugan as a more right-leaning candidate, while highlighting his record as a judge, which set off one of their more heated interactions. “You’re not going to call me some right-wing judge Larry, you’re not going to do that here,” Dugan responded. The debate followed a strict format from moderator Shakaboon Marshall and the candidates rarely interrupted each other. Krasner then asked Dugan to “categorically denounce” President Trump and his policies, leading to one of Dugan’s few mentions of the President during the appearance.
“I categorically denounce Donald Trump and his policies – the guy’s a nut,” Dugan said. “We’re not running against Donald Trump; we’re running against each other. Stop running against Trump and run on the safety of the city of Philadelphia.” Several times, Dugan criticized his opponent for being “soft on crime”, pointing to the city’s murder rate and increasing instances of retail theft. The former judge referenced Krasner’s policy of placing low-level offenders in rehabilitation programs as opposed to prisons and accused the DA of failing to work well with other agencies. Krasner responded to Dugan’s soft-on-crime allegations by paraphrasing Hillary Clinton’s comments on her husband’s presidency of the 1990s, asking the room “Which part don’t you like? The safety or the freedom?”
One of the larger focal points of the evening was a case that Dugan presided over a decade ago, in which he acquitted a police officer who was accused of assaulting a woman at a Puerto Rico Day parade in 2013. At the time, Dugan faced criticism for not recusing himself from the case due to his wife’s service on the police force. She was present in the courtroom for the decision. Dugan, who called the video of Lt. Jonathan Josey “disturbing”, ultimately decided it was not enough to warrant conviction. In another heated moment, Krasner urged the courtroom to watch the video of Lt. Josey’s altercation.
“Go look at the video of the Josey case,” Krasner said. “The one that was decided by this judge with his wife, a police officer, in the room.” Dugan interrupted Krasner, telling him not to mention his wife.
Dugan continued to attack Krasner for Philadelphia’s murder rate, which reached a record-high of 562 homicides in 2021, before falling last year. Crime has been the biggest issue of Dugan’s campaign, specifically on an increasing rate of retail theft, which he blamed on Krasner’s administration’s 2018 policy that treated stealing goods of a value of less than $500 as a summary offense. The two also discussed Krasner’s vocal opposition to capital punishment, while Dugan declined to say he would “never consider it.” The city of Philadelphia has had a moratorium on all death penalty cases for the last ten years.
