The homicide unit in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has been mired in conflict and left without a chief after a monthslong internal dispute escalated into an unusual and questionable intervention by a sitting judge, people familiar with the matter say.
District Attorney Larry Krasner last month moved to resolve longstanding discord between two supervisors in the unit by reassigning them to new roles, the sources said, but his plan changed when Municipal Court Judge Karen Simmons pressed him to reconsider.
Simmons, who supervises the criminal division of the city’s lower courts and often presides over homicide cases, met with Krasner and objected to the proposed transfer of an assistant supervisor, then asked City Council President Kenyatta Johnson to weigh in, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters.
Johnson subsequently contacted Krasner’s office to express concern, one person said. And in the end, sources said, the assistant supervisor was not transferred.
Legal scholars said the judge acted improperly and may have violated the code of judicial conduct by blurring the boundary between the courts and the prosecutor’s office in a way that could undermine confidence in both.
“Under the rules of professional responsibility, that is improper overreach, and threatens both judicial and prosecutorial independence,” said Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies legal ethics.
Simmons declined to comment. A spokesperson for the courts did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, Krasner denied that Simmons influenced his decision-making.
“Neither she nor I dictates each other’s actions,” he said, declining to elaborate on their discussion.
Krasner said his conversation with the judge arose from a long-term professional relationship “that has included occasional in-person and telephonic discussions about a variety of professional issues … all of which are entirely appropriate topics for an elected DA and a supervisory judge to discuss.”
The conflict in question, sources said, involved tensions with racial undertones between a white unit chief and a Black assistant chief that had gone on for months, and led to the transfer of the chief — but not the assistant.
The episode, they said, has left one of the most important units in the office without stable leadership and contributed to what they described as a workplace marked by distrust and fading morale.
The turmoil
In January 2025, Krasner promoted Bob Wainwright, an experienced trial attorney, to homicide chief and tapped Christian Wynne, whom fellow prosecutors describe as a rising star, as assistant chief.
The two initially got along, but friction began to flare last spring, sources said.
Wainwright believed that Wynne was insubordinate and disrespectful, and was not contributing enough to the unit’s work, sources familiar with his thinking said. Wynne, for her part, felt that Wainwright had assigned her menial tasks, excluded her from important decisions, and was overly controlling, people with knowledge of her frustration said.
The conflict between the two — first reported by the blog Big Trial — intensified last year to the point that they could not be in the same room together, the sources said. And then, last July, Wynne was overheard in the office making remarks about Wainwright laced with racial animus, including that he was the “least impressive white man” she had ever met, the sources said.
Wynne did not respond to a request for comment. Wainwright declined to comment.
Krasner declined to comment on the personnel dispute.
Sources said Krasner attempted to intervene at several points and, in the fall, assigned a senior member of his staff to try to mediate the conflict — without success.
Finally, in March, the sources said, Krasner decided to move Wainwright to a grant-funded position with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Wynne to the district attorney’s gun violence task force. Both would keep their supervisor titles and salaries, but would no longer oversee homicide, the sources said.
Wynne viewed the change as a demotion, according to people familiar with her thinking.
On the day Krasner announced the moves, sources said, Simmons, who is a mentor to Wynne and has long advocated for racial equity in the justice system, went to Krasner’s office and encouraged him to rethink his decision to reassign one of the few Black female supervisors in his office.
A source familiar with the matter said Simmons also called Johnson, the City Council president. He declined to comment through a spokesperson.
Tiffany Williams Brewer, a Howard University associate law professor who studies legal professional responsibility and Black women in leadership, said that while she believed the judge’s intervention was likely “not meant to corrupt the district attorney’s office, I am concerned, because judges should not actually be engaged in this kind of conversation.”
Krasner, for his part, denied acquiescing to Simmons, and said Wynne’s role has not changed in the aftermath.
He had long planned to unite the office’s homicide unit with its gun violence task force, the squad that investigates gang violence, he said, and Wynne is now serving as the link between the units while remaining a supervisor in homicide.
Meanwhile, Wainwright started working at the U.S. Attorney’s Office last week, and Krasner has not yet appointed a new chief.
All of this comes at a time when the office also lacks a first assistant district attorney — a legally required appointee, second-in-command to Krasner, who traditionally serves as the day-to-day manager of the office. Former First Assistant Robert Listenbee retired in January, and the role has remained unfilled since.