PHILLY DA LARRY KRASNER IS A CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATOR?

JUSTICE IS BLIND. IN PHIILADELPHIA IT IS ALSO VIOLATING A MINORITY'S CIVIL RIGHTS.

Selective Prosecution Is a Civil-Rights Problem—Even When It’s Politically Fashionable

American civil-rights law was not written solely to correct past injustices; it was written to prevent their recurrence in new forms. One of the most enduring lessons of the Jim Crow era is that civil-rights violations often do not arise from openly unlawful statutes, but from selective enforcement by officials cloaked in discretion.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s recent statements regarding the prosecution of federal immigration officers raise precisely that concern.

This is not an allegation of racism, nor a claim of criminal misconduct. It is a civil-rights warning grounded in history and law: the selective use of prosecutorial power to intimidate a disfavored class out of lawful employment is an abuse the Constitution was designed to prevent.

Selective enforcement, not policy disagreement

Prosecutors are entitled to policy views. They are not entitled to weaponize criminal process to advance those views.

Mr. Krasner has publicly announced an intent to pursue state criminal charges against a specific, identifiable class—federal immigration officers—while framing their lawful professional duties as presumptively suspect. He has further emphasized that such prosecutions would be immune from presidential pardon, a statement legally accurate in isolation but misleading in context, as it implies criminal exposure for conduct long protected by Supremacy Clause immunity.

The problem is not the abstract legal proposition that state crimes can be prosecuted. The problem is prejudgment.

When a prosecutor publicly signals that a particular class of lawful actors is a target—before facts, cases, or individualized conduct are assessed—the prosecution ceases to be neutral. It becomes deterrence by intimidation.

The historical parallel—method, not motive

During the Jim Crow era, prosecutors rarely needed openly racist statutes to achieve discriminatory ends. They relied instead on:

• Facial neutrality

• Discretionary charging

• Selective enforcement

• Public signaling meant to chill lawful conduct

The harm was not merely wrongful conviction. It was economic and professional destruction—lost livelihoods, constant legal jeopardy, and the deterrence of lawful activity through fear of prosecution.

Modern civil-rights doctrine recognizes that deprivation of livelihood through discriminatory enforcement is a constitutional injury even absent conviction. That principle applies regardless of the political popularity of the target.

Federal law-enforcement officers constitute a discrete and identifiable class. Singling them out for prosecution based on disagreement with federal policy—rather than individualized criminal conduct—raises serious civil-rights concerns.

The constitutional line prosecutors may not cross

The Supremacy Clause exists to prevent precisely this outcome: fifty local vetoes over federal law through harassment and prosecution. Courts have consistently held that federal officers acting within the scope of lawful duties are immune from state criminalization. Attempts to circumvent that protection through selective charging do not advance accountability; they erode constitutional order.

Civil-rights enforcement is not defined by the popularity of its beneficiaries. It is defined by whether power is exercised evenly, neutrally, and in good faith.

Accountability does not mean politicized prosecution

If a federal agent commits a crime outside lawful authority, prosecution is appropriate. If a prosecutor announces in advance that a class of federal officers will be targeted as a matter of policy, accountability gives way to coercion.

History teaches that the danger lies not in one prosecution, but in the precedent such tactics normalize.

Civil rights are not progressive or conservative. They are structural. And selective prosecution—no matter how rhetorically justified—remains one of their oldest enemies.