Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. (Photo: P.J. D'Annunzio/ALM)

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has rejected attempts by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner's office to enforce an unusual post-conviction plea deal that was entered into more than 30 years ago and would have converted a defendant's life sentence to, at most, a 25-year prison term.

The three-judge Superior Court panel, ruling unanimously in Commonwealth v. Chimenti, determined that the prosecutors' request to enforce the deal, which the state Supreme Court subsequently took issue with, was an attempt to "usurp" the judiciary.

"Notwithstanding the fact the current District Attorney's Office 'agrees' its predecessors breached the agreement, and thus appellant is entitled to PCRA relief, we reject such an argument as it is beyond the power of the district attorney," Superior Court Judge Correale Stevens wrote in the court's 23-page precedential decision. "To adopt the position of the current district attorney on the so-called plea agreement would allow the district attorney to usurp the power of the judiciary, including that of our Supreme Court."

Todd Michael Mosser of Mosser Legal, who represented Salvatore Chimenti, said he "vehemently" disagreed with the decision.

"Its analysis is incomplete and we're going to seek further review," he said.

Cameron Kline, a spokesman for the District Attorney's Office, said the office is "currently reviewing the opinion and has not yet made its decision as to next steps, or if it will be taking any next steps."

The ruling is the latest example of courts in Pennsylvania pushing back against the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, as Krasner, who was elected in 2017 as a criminal justice reformer, has reversed course from prior policies that often sought the harshest penalties whenever possible. Although the office has seen pushback even on charging decisions, most clashes with the judiciary have come after Krasner's office stopped seeking the death penalty decades after a defendant's conviction.

The Superior Court's Wednesday ruling, which affirmed a decision by Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Genece Brinkley, comes following a convoluted history involving numerous appeals, and a previous decision by the Supreme Court that invalidated the unusual plea deal, which was initially entered into when Ed Rendell was the city's district attorney.

According to Stevens, Chimenti was convicted in 1983 of first-degree murder and possession of an instrument of a crime in connection with the shooting death of Andrew Tucker in 1982. After Chimenti was convicted and retained new counsel, his lawyer contacted the District Attorney's Office alleging that one of Chimenti's prior attorneys suborned perjury from a witness at trial.

Stevens said the parties struck a deal where, if Chimenti cooperated in the perjury investigation, his conviction would be vacated and he would plead guilty to murder generally, with a promise that the degree of guilt would rise no higher than third degree—a deal that would ensure Chimenti spend no more than 20 years in prison. As part of the agreement, he agreed not to raise the perjury issue as part of his appellate arguments.

The trial court, however, rejected the deal and sentenced Chimenti to life in prison.

The parties, according to Stevens, jointly petitioned then-Superior Court President Judge Edmund Spaeth Jr. to enforce the agreement by remanding it to another Common Pleas judge who would accept the plea deal. Spaeth granted the petition, but the Supreme Court vacated Spaeth's order in 1986, saying it "reduced the prospective hearing judge to a 'rubber stamp' empowered only to perform ministerial function," and called the order "problematic" because it "effectively abrogated a jury verdict without any semblance of a record."

On his direct appeal, Chimenti contended his prior lawyer had been ineffective for suborning perjury and failing to call two witnesses who could have testified truthfully. The Superior Court, however, affirmed the judgment, and the Supreme Court denied the appeal in September 1987.

Chimenti continued to file petitions seeking relief, but was routinely denied. Then in February 2018, after Krasner took over as the city's top prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wellbrock of the newly revamped conviction integrity unit entered a letter on Chimenti's appeals docket saying prosecutors agreed he was entitled to relief.

"The history of this case has revealed that your client's good faith reliance on a plea agreement, combined with this office's ongoing interference in effectuating the terms of that agreement, has resulted in an inability to effectively litigate" the claimed violations, the letter said, adding the office would agree to vacating the sentence and recommending a sentence between 12.5 and 25 years.

Chimenti's counsel filed a new PCRA petition, contending that Chimenti had held up his end of the deal, and the Supreme Court only invalidated the mechanism used to enforce the deal, rather than the deal itself. The government, refusing to honor the deal, Chimenti argued, constituted governmental interference that only ended when that letter was sent.

Prosecutors advocated for granting Chimenti's PCRA relief, but the trial court dismissed the petition, Stevens said.

On appeal, Stevens, who was joined by Judges Susan Gantman and Victor Stabile, determined the PCRA appeal was not timely, and any argument about governmental interference was moot because the Supreme Court had voided the agreement.

"We reject appellant's claim of governmental interference that the commonwealth should have abided by an alleged agreement which was voided by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania," Stevens said.