World Courant
Jack Stollsteimer, the highest prosecutor in closely populated Delaware County, will run for Pennsylvania legal professional normal in 2024, he introduced Monday, looking for an workplace that performed a essential position in court docket defending Joe Biden’s 2020 victory within the presidential battleground.
Stollsteimer joins a Democratic main area that’s already four-deep during which he would be the solely elected prosecutor. Nonetheless, his competitors for the Democratic nomination options veterans of the marketing campaign path and the courtroom.
In his marketing campaign for legal professional normal, Stollsteimer will lean closely on his expertise because the twice-elected district legal professional of Delaware County, Pennsylvania’s fifth-most populous county sitting between Philadelphia and Delaware.
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Delaware County, Pa., District Lawyer Jack Stollsteimer appears to be like on throughout a information convention exterior Academy Park Excessive Faculty, on April 26, 2022, in Sharon Hill, Pa. Stollsteimer, a Democrat, introduced his candidacy for Pennsylvania legal professional normal on Nov. 27, 2023. (AP Picture/Matt Rourke, File)
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“I’m uniquely certified as a result of I do this work each single day within the fifth-largest county in Pennsylvania,” Stollsteimer stated in an interview.
Stollsteimer, 60, has been a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia, a high official within the state Treasury Division, the state-appointed security advocate in Philadelphia’s faculties and, earlier than school, a senior aide to state Home Democrats. A Philadelphia native, Stollsteimer earned his legislation diploma at Temple College.
The legal professional normal’s workplace, the state’s high legislation enforcement workplace, has a price range of about $140 million yearly and performs a outstanding position in arresting drug traffickers, combating gun trafficking, defending state legal guidelines in court docket and defending shoppers from predatory practices.
The workplace additionally defended the integrity of Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election towards repeated makes an attempt to overturn it in state and federal courts by Donald Trump’s marketing campaign and Republican allies.
Maybe Stollsteimer’s most-touted achievement is combating gun violence within the impoverished metropolis of Chester, utilizing a partnership based mostly on a mannequin used efficiently elsewhere to attach offenders or recognized criminals with job coaching, faculty or community-building applications.
His workplace says gun homicides are down by 68% since 2020 and there have been 65% fewer shootings.
As Philadelphia’s state-appointed protected faculties advocate, Stollsteimer clashed with district officers and the state Division of Schooling over what he described as an unwillingness to report violent incidents.
“Issues have gotten worse, not higher,” he informed The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2011. “You may’t deal with the issue till you’re trustworthy about it, and the district will not be trustworthy about it.”
Stollsteimer mounted a quick marketing campaign for legal professional normal in 2015 however dropped out earlier than the first.
In 2019, he received his race for district legal professional, turning into the primary Democrat to carry the workplace in Delaware County, as soon as a Republican bastion that Democrats now management. Stollsteimer received reelection earlier this month by 22 proportion factors, drawing assist from unions for constructing trades and police.
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Stollsteimer had a busy 4 years in workplace. In maybe the highest-profile case, his workplace prosecuted three law enforcement officials for responding to a taking pictures exterior a highschool soccer sport by opening hearth at a automobile, killing an 8-year-old lady, Fanta Bility, and wounding two others.
Stollsteimer is now the fifth Democrat to announce his candidacy, after state Rep. Jared Solomon of Philadelphia, former state Auditor Normal Eugene DePasquale, former federal prosecutor Joe Kahn and Keir Bradford-Gray, the previous head of Philadelphia’s and Montgomery County’s public protection legal professionals.
On the Republican facet, York County District Lawyer Dave Sunday and former federal prosecutor Katayoun Copeland have introduced their candidacies.
Candidates should file paperwork by Feb. 13 to seem on the April 23 main poll.
Lawyer Normal Michelle Henry doesn’t plan to run to maintain the workplace.
Delaware County’s high prosecutor turns into fifth Democrat to run for Pennsylvania legal professional normal
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