Ben Mannes: Ideology over justice — How Larry Krasner’s policies failed Kada Scott

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is facing growing outrage following the brutal kidnapping and murder of 23-year-old Kada Scott — a crime many argue could have been prevented had his office competently handled earlier charges against the alleged killer, 21-year-old Keon King. 

As evidence and testimony mount, it has become increasingly clear that the failure to keep King behind bars rests not with magistrates or judges, as Krasner has claimed, but with the policies and practices of his own office.

At a press briefing last week, Krasner attempted to shift responsibility for King’s release, asserting that his office had asked for a million dollars in bail and that magistrates had failed to heed that request. 

“The unfortunate reality,” Krasner told reporters, “is that some, but not all, of these judges don’t want you calling them in the middle of the night” to appeal bail decisions. It was a familiar refrain for a DA who has long blamed the system he swore to reform. But as court officials later made clear, Krasner’s story doesn’t hold up.

According to Marty O’Rourke, a spokesperson for Philadelphia’s courts, “The D.A. and his staff know there are assigned Municipal and Common Pleas Court judges on call 24/7 and prepared at any hour to address emergency Court matters.” O’Rourke called Krasner’s statement “appallingly disrespectful and a sad attempt… to find a scapegoat for his own failings.” 

King was no stranger to law enforcement. Earlier this year, he had been arrested for kidnapping and strangulation involving a previous girlfriend — charges that contained strikingly similar facts to Scott’s case. But when the victims and an eyewitness failed to appear for trial, Krasner’s inexperienced prosecutors were not prepared to proceed. They withdrew the charges, and King walked free. His release set the stage for the events that led to Kada Scott’s death. 

When King was previously charged, court records show that the District Attorney’s office requested bail of $999,999 — a figure Krasner now claims proves his office sought to detain King. But as former Magistrate Judge Jim O’Brien explains, that figure is part of a “gimmick created by Larry Krasner himself as a get around the cash bail system.”

“He believes in a no-cash system where people are either held without bail or released,” O’Brien said. “From my understanding, he selected that specific number because the prison would automatically isolate anyone held on a million dollars bail or higher.”

According to O’Brien, Krasner’s prosecutors routinely request $999,999 bail at preliminary arraignments “regardless of the charges, misdemeanor or felony” — not because of case-specific evaluation, but to present a symbolic rejection of cash bail. “Because they engage in this practice of only asking for $999,999 bail,” O’Brien said, “the request is rarely taken seriously because it would be an abuse of power to set that amount in all those cases. We are required to consider cases individually and not have an automatic preset number as he requested.”

This means Krasner’s claim that his office “asked for a million dollars” in King’s case was not the action of a DA aggressively seeking to protect the public, but rather a political maneuver consistent with his long-held opposition to cash bail. 

O’Brien dismissed Krasner’s claim that his office was deterred from appealing the $200,000 bail set by a magistrate because judges dislike middle-of-the-night calls.

“After bail is set, both the D.A.’s office and the defense have the right to an immediate appeal to the emergency standby judges,” O’Brien said. “They have a two-hour window to file that appeal… and the standby judge is available 24/7. I don’t know of a single judge who would punish the appellant by setting the bail higher or lower to discourage people from waking them up. His assertion is nonsense.”

That process is well established: the preliminary arraignment court operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year. If Krasner’s staff failed to pursue a bail modification, the responsibility lies squarely with his office — not with the judiciary. 

O’Brien, who served 23 years on Philadelphia’s bench, recalls another irony in Krasner’s handling of bail: during the 2000 Republican National Convention, Krasner, then a defense lawyer, fought against what he described as unconstitutional high bails levied by DA Lynn Abraham’s office. “He repeatedly argued that those bail requests were unconstitutional,” O’Brien said. “Now he uses nearly the same tactic he once condemned as a constitutional violation.”

As a candidate, Krasner touted the elimination of cash bail as a cornerstone of reform. As D.A., he has turned that ideal into a cynical procedural ploy — one that has now cost innocent lives. 

An avoidable tragedy

Kada Scott’s family learned over the weekend that the remains found behind the former Ada Lewis Middle School in East Germantown were hers. DNA tests confirmed what many already feared: Scott was killed soon after her abduction on October 4. Police believe her alleged killer, Keon King, used a stolen vehicle later found burned to conceal evidence. King is now held on $2.5 million bail, and prosecutors say homicide charges are forthcoming. 

In an emotional statement shared through Newsweek, Scott’s parents asked for prayers and called for accountability, urging “meaningful change so that no other family has to endure this pain.” 

But meaningful change seems remote as long as the city’s top prosecutor refuses to acknowledge his failures. Rather than accepting responsibility for his office’s decision to drop the earlier case against King, Krasner has attempted to shift the blame — first to judges, then to victims, and even to the cash bail system he has spent years undermining.

In her study, “Prosecutor-Led Bail Reform: An Observational Case Study in Philadelphia,” Sarah D. Jones wrote that “Philadelphia has been a leader in prosecutor-led bail reform, as the progressive District Attorney’s Office (DAO) implemented its second round of reform, which attempts to simulate a no-cash bail system by limiting pretrial recommendations to either $999,999 bail or release.” She went on to note that “[f]indings demonstrate that guidelines were adhered to by the DAO and agreed to by judicial magistrates in only 16.7% of cases. This research, despite its convenience sampling and limited generalizability, has significant policy implications, both within Philadelphia and for the broader progressive prosecutor movement.”

When pressed by reporters at a tense press conference last week, Krasner fled the podium rather than answer questions about his office’s record. His evasion mirrored a pattern of denial that has characterized his tenure — one in which ideology and optics consistently trump the real-world consequences of failures in public safety.

The tragic death of Kada Scott is not an isolated lapse but the latest in a series of deadly consequences arising from an administration defined by legal inexperience, political deflection, and misplaced priorities. Krasner’s “bail gimmick” did not just fail the judicial process — it failed a young woman whose life might have been saved if Philadelphia’s District Attorney had chosen accountability over activism.

Based in Philadelphia, A. Benjamin Mannes is a consultant and subject matter expert in security and criminal justice reform based on his own experiences on both sides of the criminal justice system. He is a corporate compliance executive who has served as a federal and municipal law enforcement officer, and as the former Director, Office of Investigations with the American Board of Internal Medicine. @PublicSafetySME