Rory Fleming

Rory is the founding attorney of Fleming Law LLC, an immigration law boutique in Philadelphia. He has worked for a variety of criminal justice and harm reduction nonprofits, including Law Enforcement Action Partnership and Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project, and provided campaign services for over a dozen district attorney campaigns. His articles have appeared in the Atlantic, Slate and many other outlets.

PA Gov. Shapiro Wants to Ban the Death Penalty. He Mustn’t Stop There.

When Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) announced on February 16 that he would extend the moratorium on the death penalty…

February 23, 2023

Public Defenders Aren’t Principally About “Public Safety,” and That’s Ok

The notion that public defenders, constitutionally-mandated criminal defense lawyers, are part of the “public safety” sector has seemed to spread…

February 2, 2023

Reform Wins in Midwest, Oakland in 2022 Prosecutor Elections

Do Americans really love the drug war, mass incarceration, and the rest of our litany of criminal injustice? The 2022…

November 15, 2022

Prosecutor Reform Will Largely Play Defense on Election Night

The so-called progressive prosecutor movement started around 2015. It was about getting candidates elected to implement local policies with profound…

November 4, 2022

What DA Krasner’s Likely Impeachment Tells Us About Reform Opponents

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is probably getting impeached. At a time when US Senate candidates like Mehmet Oz in…

October 31, 2022

El Paso DA Turmoil Could Have Profound Immigrant-Rights Implications

The District Attorney of El Paso County, Texas, Yvonne Rosales, is decidedly non-progressive. When running for the seat, Rosales stated,…

October 13, 2022

San Francisco’s New DA Moves to Prosecute Overdose Deaths as Murder

The successor to San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is making good on her promise to ramp up the drug…

October 3, 2022

Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner the Latest Target of Anti-Reform Backlash

On September 13, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a resolution holding Philadelphia’s district attorney, high-profile reformer Larry Krasner, in…

September 15, 2022

A Bleak Outlook for Massachusetts’ 2022 Prosecutor Elections

The politics of prosecutors in Massachusetts this year is a complicated mess, but one that overall bodes ill for reform…

September 1, 2022

American Bar Association Calls for the Abolition of Life-Without-Parole

The life-without-parole sentence is barbaric. Decarceration activists call it “death by incarceration.” Pope Francis denounced it as “a hidden death…

August 16, 2022