An interview with Judge Patrick Dugan

Judge Patrick F. Dugan is running for Philadelphia District Attorney against incumbent District Attorney Larry Krasner in November. He sat down with Broad + Liberty’s Paul Davis earlier this week.

Davis: My first question is why have you decided to run against District Attorney Larry Krasner again, this time as a Republican?

Dugan: The first thing I want to correct is that I am not running as a Republican. I’m running as a Philadelphian. The way that this came about was obviously I lost the Democratic Primary to Krasner and the Republicans on their own did a write-in campaign. I received nearly 7,000 votes from the Republicans; hence, I won the Republican nomination to be on the ballot come November. 

I’m still an independent Democrat, but I am running for all Philadelphians. I’m running for the Working Families Party. I’m running for people who are Democrats. I’m running for the people who are unaffiliated. I’m running for Republicans. I’m running for Independents. I’m running for people who don’t vote. I’m running for people who are too young to vote. I’m running for all Philadelphians. I am not running with political parties. I’m running as an independent who’s on the ballot due to a write-in campaign.

Davis: What are your qualifications to be the District Attorney?

Dugan: Time of service. I’m a native Philadelphia. I was a judge for seventeen years and I was elected by my fellow judges to be the President Judge for five years. I was one of the people who started the Veterans Court, which is a fantastic restorative rehabilitative-type justice program in the court with less than ten percent recidivism rate.  

I sat in Criminal Court predominantly for the last seventeen years and I saw the ends and outs of how things work. I started something called Covid Court. During Covid, I went into the prisons to have hearings because the world was shut down by the leadership, and I was not afraid to go into prisons during Covid to have hearings sooner rather than later, as to not delay justice for both the victims as well as the defendant. 

I served our nation as a soldier on active duty in the Army and as an Army reservist for 23 years, five years overseas, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the President Judge, I oversaw three divisions: civil, traffic and criminal, with thousands of cases a year with 250 employees and 27 judges that we had to staff and assign. Basically, I was the CEO of Municipal Court. So, I could be the CEO of the District Attorney’s Office.

I saw firsthand sitting on the bench how the District Attorney’s Office began to not prosecute people. Some of the days I saw 95 percent of the cases in front of me were withdrawn by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the District Attorney’s Office. On average, 70 percent of the cases that were charged and presented in the courtroom were withdrawn due to the policies and incompetence coming out of the District Attorney’s Office. I think that’s insane and a disservice. The District Attorney is forgetting what his oath is. His oath is to the law and to the citizens of Philadelphia.

I had a front row seat on it. That’s why I resigned from being a judge, a job that I thoroughly loved. I enjoyed going to work. I loved what I was doing, helping people, helping victims, upholding the law, being fair to defendants, victims, witnesses and to the entire system. I resigned from my job because I’m so disgusted by what was going on in the DA’s office. Somebody had to step up and take this mission on. Besides stepping down in December to do this, that’s why after contemplating for the last two months, I decided, yes, I’m going to take this opportunity and run again in November for the same reason that I resigned. I quit my job to help our city be safer.

Davis: What did you learn from your previous campaign and what are you doing differently in this campaign?

Dugan: I’m not going to do much differently, to be honest with you. Because in primaries, as you are well aware of, it’s a narrow group of people who get to vote. Very few people come out to vote in the primary. 

Davis: What was it, 30 percent of the Democrats, I believe?

Dugan: It was closer to 20 percent came out to vote. In the primary, you have to be a Democrat to vote. There are approximately a million eligible voters in the City of Philadelphia. Well, I think everybody should have an opportunity to vote. Independents, Working Family, Republicans and Democrats will all have a say now in the general election. It’s a wider pool of voters, and I think Philadelphians deserve an opportunity to actually have a race.

If I had said no, take me off the ballot, then Krasner walks into it again for four more years. Philadelphians deserve an opportunity to make that decision. I would also say that I think the reason why the Republicans came out with this plan to do the write-in was because it was very successful in Pittsburgh. Similar circumstances in the Democratic race, one guy won, the other guy got written-in, and the guy who lost the primary wound up winning in the general election. So, it’s not unprecedented. Pittsburgh-Allegheny County did it, I believe, last year. 

Davis: Do you think you are going to pull in more Democrat votes this time around, as well as other voters who are opposed to the progressive Krasner?

Dugan: A combination. I received 53,000 Democratic votes. I’m hoping that I can keep them, and I’m hoping that other people are taking a second look at this, and those who stayed home will come out to vote this time. 

I want to prosecute people running around with guns. I want to prosecute those who are carjacking, those who are stealing cars, those who are committing retail theft. “Let ‘Em Loose Larry” Krasner is not prosecuting the vast majority of these people who are committing these crimes, and it’s not fair to our citizens. If you’re going to run around with your gun, committing crimes, you’re going to get arrested and we got to prosecute you to the fullest. But for those who are committing crimes who have issues that need help and aren’t violent, we can help them with restorative rehabilitative justice, which is what I was involved in.  

Davis: Krasner appears to be running against President Trump rather than you.

Dugan: Krasner is running against Trump to get clickbait and get more people from California to send him money. He’s fear-mongering and he’s dodging the issues. So many times in the primary at meetings he would insinuate that I was a Nazi. He would not address his retail theft policies, and the media has given him a free pass. 

Davis: Most of the cops that I’ve spoken to support you. If elected, will you work closely with the police, and have less of an adversarial position than Krasner has with the cops?

Dugan: The DA should be partners with many folks, including the mayor and the police commissioner. Krasner doesn’t want to be a partner with the police because he doesn’t play well in the sandbox. He has to be the head of everything.

Davis: Many people have noted that Krasner acts more like the activist defense attorney that he used to be rather than a prosecutor. Do you agree?

Dugan: Absolutely. A case gets tossed against a police officer and Krasner, for whatever reason, will bring that police officer back to the court and refile charges time and time again, despite being told there’s nothing there. It has become a personal vendetta.

Davis: Thank you for speaking to us. 

Paul Davis, a Philadelphia writer and frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty, also contributes to Counterterrorism magazine and writes their online Threatcon column. His work has also appeared in the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Weekly. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com