Why Allegheny County needs a new District Attorney

by Frank Walker and Rob Perkins

Soon, voters will decide whether to re-elect District Attorney Steve Zappala to a seventh term as Allegheny County’s chief local prosecutor. Several incidents in Zappala’s current term show why we need a new DA. 

Let’s start with Zappala’s attack on defense attorney Milton Raiford. Raiford angered Zappala when he raised concerns about systemic racism in the justice system. In retaliation, Zappala issued this order to his employees: “Effective immediately, in all matters involving Attorney Milton Raiford, no plea offers are to be made.” 

To place Zappala’s vindictive order in context, it’s helpful to understand how the prosecution process works. 97 percent of criminal cases are resolved through plea bargains. The prosecutor holds the power to set the terms of plea bargains. During the plea-bargaining process, the prosecutor often agrees to a reduced sentence, such as probation instead of jail time. 

This means that the practical effect of Zappala’s order was this: Raiford’s clients, based solely on their choice of attorney, would be more likely to be ripped away from their families and sent to prison. 

A courageous Zappala employee leaked the unethical order to a reporter. Following a media firestorm, Zappala revoked the order – though he never admitted wrongdoing or apologized. 

Here’s why this story should matter to voters.   

First, Zappala plainly abused the power of the prosecutor’s office. That, in itself, should disqualify him from serving another term. And if a Zappala employee hadn’t leaked the discriminatory policy, the public may never have known about it – which begs the question, what other unethical policies did Zappala implement that never came to light? 

Secondly, as a result of Zappala’s retaliatory tactics, people who work inside the legal system are afraid to speak freely out of fear of retribution. These tactics, in turn, silence the voices of those most likely to see injustice within that system. 

Zappala’s response after the Raiford story broke was especially revealing. In a letter to his employees, Zappala claimed that Raiford’s “allegation of systemic racism in this Office was the first that I ever heard of.” Notably, the concept of systemic racism refers to a system of laws and policies that impacts communities of color unequally. If Zappala truly did not know that the justice system impacts Black people unequally, then he has no grasp of what goes on in our criminal courts on a day-to-day basis – because the statistics show striking racial inequalities.   

In Allegheny County, a White defendant convicted of the same charge as a Black defendant is 41 percent less likely to be sentenced to jail. Black girls are 13 times more likely than white girls to be arrested. As a final example (there are countless others), Black people account for 90 percent of marijuana possession arrests in the City of Pittsburgh – despite similar usage rates to White people and making up just 23 percent of the overall population. 

A separate troubling incident involved the Judge Tranquilli scandal, and Zappala’s failed response to it. This episode reflects a broader failure of transparency and accountability in Zappala’s office.

As background, Mark Tranquilli was a local criminal court judge who resigned on the eve of his own ethics trial. Tranquilli is closely connected to Zappala because, before Tranquilli became a judge, he worked in Zappala’s DA office for 15 years, heading Zappala’s homicide unit for 8 of them.

Tranquilli’s misconduct included the following: he was upset after a jury returned a not-guilty verdict in his courtroom because he wanted a guilty verdict. He directed the case prosecutor and defense attorney to meet him in his judicial chambers. In the tirade that followed, Tranquilli – who, as judge, was supposed to serve without bias – used racial epithets when referring to a Black woman who served on the jury. Tranquilli insultingly added that the juror probably had a “baby daddy” who “sling[s] heroin.” Tranquilli even scolded the prosecutor for allowing the Black woman to serve on the jury.

A core principle in our justice system is that potential jurors cannot be excluded based on race. This helps to ensure fairness in our American system of trial by jury. Tranquilli’s conduct violated that principle. 

The incident becomes more disturbing when one considers that, over the course of his career, Tranquilli prosecuted or judged thousands of cases involving Black victims or defendants. Imagine how they felt when they heard about Tranquilli’s racist rant in the news.

 Here’s why this story should also matter to voters. Common sense tells us that the Judge Tranquilli who embraced harmful racial stereotypes, and believed it was okay to racially discriminate against jurors, likely held those same beliefs when he led Zappala’s DA office for a decade. In response to the Tranquilli scandal, Zappala should have committed to an independent investigation that probed whether racial bias infected Tranquilli’s prosecutions, and publicly shared the investigation’s results. 

Zappala failed to take those simple steps. 

We cannot achieve equal justice under law without advancing racial justice. Zappala has proven that, under his direction, the DA’s office is unwilling to confront racial inequities. This election season, we should hold Zappala accountable by voting him out of office.

Frank Walker and Rob Perkins

(The authors are criminal law attorneys with extensive experience working in Allegheny County’s court system.)

 

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