Lynne Abraham

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Lynne Abraham 2007

Lynne Marsha Abraham (born January 31, 1941 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) is an American prosecutor and politician. She served as Philadelphia District Attorney from 1991 to 2010 , was the first woman to serve, and was re-elected four times. As a district attorney, she was responsible for approximately 75,000 cases and appeals annually and ran an office with 300 assistant district attorneys and 275 support staff. In 2015 she applied to be the mayor of Philadelphia.

Origin and family

Lynne Abraham comes from a humble background. The grandparents were European immigrants of Jewish origin, the father worked as an unskilled worker in the vegetable trade. The mother suffered from depression, was placed in a psychiatric ward and committed suicide in the 1980s. Lynne and her younger sister grew up at times with Catholic foster parents. She studied law from Temple University and received her PhD from law school. She was also a lecturer there. Since 1976 she was married to the radio pioneer Frank Ford (1916–2009), 24 years her senior, who was also involved with the Democrats in Philadelphia. Lynne met Ford in 1956 as a babysitter for a Ford daughter. Abraham later had a part-time job at the Valley Forge Music Fair, which Ford started. Ford talked Abraham out of her original desire to be medicine, that she had a big mouth , was rhetorical and smart, that she should study law.

Career

Abraham began her career as a legal advisor to the Philadelphia City Council. During the tenure of the controversial Mayor Frank Rizzo , she dealt with planning and urban renewal issues at the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority. Rizzo was known nationwide as a law-and-order politician in Philadelphia, who temporarily won votes among the white middle and lower classes and thus massively suppressed the black and gay civil rights movement. He named Lynn Abraham, who is considered to be "tough" and assertive, as the best man we have . She addressed both traditional corruption problems in the planning authority and the nepotism of Rizzo himself.

In 1977 she became a judge at the local court, in 1980 at the Court of Common Pleas and in 1991 chief prosecutor. Predecessor, Ronald D. Castille , who served as Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2015 , resigned because of his candidacy for mayor. She was re-elected in 1993 and was re-elected in 1997, 2001 and 2005 against several opposing candidates in the Democratic Party's primary elections. She has held the office longer than any of her predecessors and was the first woman in this position.

Because of the comparatively high proportion of death penalties or corresponding criminal charges, she was also referred to as "Deadliest DA" or "Queen of Death" and criticized. In the case of the internationally controversial conviction of the black activist Mumia Abu-Jamal , she spoke of one of the clearest cases of her career, according to Charlie Dent (quoted in a debate in the US House of Representatives ). Abu-Jamal was undeservedly stylized by some as a folk hero and nothing more than a murderer.

Political role

In the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections , she was elector for the Democrats in Electoral College and supported candidates for the US Democrats, such as John Kerry and Barack Obama . Her successor, R. Seth Williams , had run against Abraham in the Democratic primary in 2005 and became the first African American in office in Philadelphia in 2010.

Abraham ran for Mayor of Philadelphia in 2015 , but was eliminated in the primaries.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c THE HONORABLE LYNNE M. ABRAHAM District Attorney of the City of Philadelphia, official biography entry at the prosecutor's office. In: www.phila.gov. Retrieved June 13, 2015 .
  2. ^ A b Claudia Vargas: Abraham to run for Mayor. In: Philly.com. September 18, 2014, accessed June 13, 2015 .
  3. ^ Lynne Abraham for Mayor (election campaign platform). In: www.lynneabraham.com. Retrieved June 21, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Robert Huber: Lynne Abraham: Can a Woman Win the Philadelphia Mayor's Race? In: Philadelphia Magazine. February 1, 2015, accessed June 21, 2015 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Gerry Wilkinson: Entry on Ford at Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia. In: www.broadcastpioneers.com. 2009, accessed June 13, 2015 .
  6. ^ Frank Rizzo of Philadelphia Dies at 70; A 'Hero' and 'Villain' . In: The New York Times . July 17, 1991, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed June 13, 2015]).
  7. ^ Richard A. Keizer: Subordination or Empowerment?  : African-American Leadership and the Struggle for Urban Political Power, Oxford University Press, USA, 1997, chapter '4. Not quite brotherly love: electoral competition and the institutionalization of biracial political cooperation in Philadelphia 
  8. ↑ Rosenberg, Tina "The Deadliest DA" in The New York Times , July 16, 1995
  9. ↑ Lynne Abraham the 'Queen of Death'. In: www.workers.org. May 17, 2001, accessed June 13, 2015 .
  10. ^ Congressional Record, v. 152, PT. November 17, 2006 to December 6, 2006 . Government Printing Office, 2010, ISBN 978-0-16-086782-8 ( google.de [accessed June 13, 2015]).
  11. ^ High court dismisses ruling on Abu-Jamal death sentence , Bill Mears, CNN 2010
  12. ↑ Debra J. Saunders: Mumia finds safety in numbers. In: Jewish World Review. December 21, 2001, accessed July 18, 2015 .
  13. ^ US Electoral College 2008 Election - Certificates. In: www.archives.gov. Retrieved June 13, 2015 .
  14. ↑ Philadelphia Daily News, Clout column, Nov. 7, 2008: "Nutter, Abraham headed for college in Dec."
personal data
SURNAME Abraham, Lynne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abraham, Lynne Marsha (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American prosecutor and politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania