Philly DA Larry Krasner again called for the judge who accused him of potential crimes to recuse himself

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner on Friday again said the federal judge who accused him of potentially breaking the law should step away from the underlying case, writing in court documents that the judge had displayed “apparent bias” against him during the proceedings.

In a brief filed Friday, Krasner again defended his conduct in the matter before U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond, and said Diamond’s “baseless allegations of criminality demonstrate only the Court’s apparent bias.”

The brief largely echoed arguments Krasner made in another motion he filed 10 days ago, in which he also called for Diamond’s recusal. And Friday’s filing — which came in response to one from the state attorney general’s office that supported Diamond’s handling of the case — came two days after the deadline the judge set for any additional paperwork to be filed on the issue.

Krasner nonetheless said the “bedlam” caused by Diamond’s actions and decisions “has unfairly done real and lasting damage to the DAO and to the reputations of its personnel.”

“The Court did not demonstrate ‘neutrality throughout an evolving landscape’,” he wrote, “rather, it twisted the landscape in what publicly appears to be an effort to steer the proceedings to a particular conclusion.”

Diamond has not yet responded to Krasner’s filings, and has not said whether he will step back from the underlying matter — a post-conviction case in which a man is challenging his murder conviction. It was not clear how quickly Diamond might rule.

Friday’s filing was the latest development in a high-profile saga that has led to a series of controversial developments concerning Krasner’s office.

Chief among them was Diamond’s issuance of a memorandum last month in which he said Krasner and one of his top supervisors, Matthew Stiegler, may have committed crimes including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, or perjury.

The judge also said he had referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for a potential criminal inquiry. Federal prosecutors have declined to comment on how or if they might proceed.

Krasner has denied wrongdoing. And in a series of documents he filed last month, the progressive Democrat said Diamond — who was appointed by President George W. Bush, a Republican — had exhibited apparent bias against him, including by misinterpreting witness testimony, making inconsistent credibility determinations, and reaching “baseless” conclusions about what happened.

He said some of Diamond’s language was “Orwellian” and that at least one instance of potential criminal conduct relied on allegations “more closely resembling fever-dream conspiracy theories than evidence.”

In Friday’s filings, he largely reiterated those arguments, although he did appear to say for the first time that he “chose” not to testify before Diamond because the judge had “twisted what was at issue” throughout the proceedings.

The underlying matter is centered on Dennis Johnson’s attempt to have his 2009 murder conviction overturned. Krasner’s office had once supported that effort, but reversed course earlier this year after prosecutors discovered that the staffer who filed the brief backing Johnson’s position had made a series of mistakes in her paperwork.

After that, Krasner and several of his staffers held a variety of discussions about what went wrong, who was to blame, and how the office should move forward. And this summer, when Diamond called hearings to learn how the errors occurred, the prosecutors involved in those discussions told the judge that the DA had acted in ways they viewed as inappropriate — including, they said, by entertaining proposals to blame a single staffer, and threatening “consequences” for those who didn’t follow his orders.

Diamond said some of the actions could amount to obstruction of justice or criminal conspiracy.

Krasner, however, has disputed those characterizations, and said some of the staffers who spoke out against him were “legally incorrect” about what took place and had behaved in ways that were insubordinate.

As for Diamond, Krasner said in his Friday filing that he “appeared to pre-judge the case and levied baseless accusations of criminality.” And although Krasner said at one point in the brief that he chose not to testify because of what he cast as the unclear nature of Diamond’s inquiry, he also criticized the judge for suggesting that crimes occurred “with zero input from Krasner, whose input the Court had not and still has not sought.”

Beyond saying Diamond should recuse himself, Krasner has also asked the judge to reconsider a decision barring him and one of his supervisors from participating in the case moving forward.

That aspect of Krasner’s appeal remains pending. Diamond said any additional paperwork on that issue should be filed by the middle of next week.