A federal judge on Sept. 15 referred Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate whether he violated the law while his office was overseeing an appeal from a murder conviction.
U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond disqualified Krasner and Assistant District Attorney Matthew Stiegler, chief of Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit, from participating in the post-conviction application involving Dennis Johnson, who seeks to have his second-degree murder conviction overturned.
In September 2009, a state jury in Philadelphia convicted Johnson of second-degree murder, robbery, and a firearms violation. In November 2010, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder plus concurrent terms of up to 10 years for robbery and seven years for the gun charge….