Philly’s Crime Fighter-in-Chief

Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Lynne Abraham, has prosecuted more than 1 million criminal cases during her illustrious, 17-year career, and it all started when she stole a yoyo at the impressionable age of four.

Harriet Schiller and Lynne Abraham were best friends. They lived on Addison Street in West Philadelphia, and loved to go to the corner store together to buy toys. One day, Schiller, who was a year older than Lynne, had a novel idea. “How about we steal some toys when the owners go home,” Abraham recalls her best friend asking. A plan was set in motion. The two girls climbed into the store through an open window, and Abraham grabbed as many yoyos as would fit in the pockets of her dress. She vividly recalls the thrill of her first criminal accomplishment.

As the pair prepared for their escape, Schiller heard what she thought were the police, and the pair panicked. To her surprise, Schiller ran for the window, leaving a petrified Abraham alone and scared, to fend for herself.

As the future DA tried to climb over the wooden fence at the rear of the store, she fell back, scraping her knee, tearing her dress, and losing the majority of the yoyos that were tucked inside. When she finally made it home, her bruised body and ragged dress, not to mention the one yoyo she managed not to lose, were clearly cause for alarm for her father. “Back then, parents used razor strops to discipline their children, and my father really gave me a beating. I couldn’t sit down for days,” recalls Abraham, who vividly remembers every detail. “I guess at that moment I knew the wages of sin, and went straight,” she said. “I was not destined for a life of crime, but the experience had a profound effect on my psyche. It taught me right from wrong, and the meaning of partners in crime who will desert you in a heartbeat. Believe it or not, Harriet Schiller is still one of my dearest friends to this day.”

Legal Eagle

Lynne M. Abraham was born in 1941 in West Philadelphia. Her father, Norman, worked in the grocery business until an injury forced him into a different line of work. “My dad worked for pennies, and when a barrel of oysters literally fell on him, he had to take a number of odd jobs to support us,” Abraham said. As a bookmaker, Norman was sole supporter of Lynne, her older sister and an ailing mother. “My father wanted his girls to be well educated and successful,” Abraham said. “He had to drop out of school at 16, but he was very smart about so many things, especially financial matters and parenting. He taught us to fix cars, and helped us to be independent and self supporting, and education was the tool he knew would get us there.”

“I was a little thug, and very determined, and even as a kid I was independent and tough-minded,” she said. “I always loved meeting people, too, and I was never one of those kids who hid behind their parent’s legs. I liked looking people right in the eye. Maybe it was because I used to carry my father’s numbers slips in my dress, and I had to meet all of his customers and they thought I was cute. To this day, you could plop me down anywhere in the world and I would be comfortable.”

A gifted student, Abraham graduated from Germantown High School in 1958, and enrolled at Temple University and later Temple University Law School, where she was one of only two young women in her class. “I didn’t really know if I wanted to be a lawyer, because no one in my family was a lawyer, and in fact, I was the first one to ever go to college,” she said. “We had very limited resources and I had to work to pay for both college and law school, but that was fine because it was a character builder for me,” Abraham said.

After graduating from Temple in 1962 and Temple Law in 1965, Abraham got her first job working for the Federal government, a job she describes as, “the most boring one I’ve ever had, and every day was a little death.” She had hoped to land a job in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, but when she was originally interviewed she was told that she had to know her Ward Leader and be a Republican if she had any chance of employment. So, during her two years working for the Feds, she decided to take graduate courses in criminal law, one of which was taught by then First Assistant DA, Richard Sprague, a legal legend known for his tough prosecution of gang members and other criminals. “He used to call on me in class a lot, because Dick Sprague noticed I wasn’t a shrinking violet, and I was willing to bank it all if I thought I was right.”

That chutzpah, and a positive recommendation from Sprague, landed the young attorney an interview with Arlen Specter, the Philadelphia DA at the time, now Pennsylvania’s Republican Senior Senator. “Arlen himself interviewed me, which was highly unusual at the time. There were no hiring committees, and I believe there were only 48 DAs in his office and maybe two other women,” Abraham said. “Well, Arlen offered me the position. And in what is typical of me as a 24-year-old pischer, I said I would take it, but under one condition. I didn’t want to work in juvenile court, so if he hired me it would have to be where the real criminals are.” Specter said emphatically, “Young lady, you are telling the boss, the District Attorney of the City of Philadelphia, that you won’t go where I send you?” Abraham thought she would be told to hit the road, but much to her surprise, Specter offered her the job on the spot. “I give him high, high marks because he really didn’t need me,” she said. “But he never regretted it. I worked my fanny off and got great results, often much better than the men. All I knew was work—24/7, and I never let him down.”

Crime of Passion

There is no one more passionate about fighting crime than Abraham. In the 1970s, Abraham, who thought of herself as a mini cop, made it a personal mission to take on gang violence in Philadelphia. “Around 33rd and York there was a tremendous amount of gang activity, and I wanted to investigate it first hand,” she said. “I would look for bullet holes in the wall and try and get to know, on a personal basis, the gang members who may have put them there. They would say, ‘we never see anybody out here,’ and I would say, ‘well, here I am.’ Those gang boys loved me, and for all their toughness, and they were killers really, they never disrespected me.”

Being one of the first women assistant district attorneys was never an issue for Abraham. “I never thought about myself being a woman. I am a warrior in the fight against crime and disorder,” she said. But, she credits her first week on the job with Jack Meyers of the homicide division, as a revelation, helping to hone her skills as a tough prosecutor and crime fighter. “The first week was like an inauguration, and we had to conduct preliminary hearings, much like we still do today, at the police stations especially around 55th and Pine which was and still is a tough neighborhood,” Abraham said. “I really got knocked around, but I learned all the tactics I needed to know as a prosecutor, like asking questions in the proper order, and anticipating what the judge might be thinking. That experience, to me, was invaluable.”

Abraham said she often ran into some of the very same gang members she prosecuted decades ago. “Believe it or not, 20 years later, these guys who are now all grown up, stop me on the street and ask me if I remember them. The ones who didn’t get killed, and there were many that did, are doing well. I would like to think that I helped them become productive citizens, and free themselves from a life of crime,” she added.

After serving as an assistant district attorney until 1972, Abraham was the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, then Legislative Consultant for Philadelphia City Council, and Judge on the Municipal Court of Philadelphia. Immediately before she was elected to District Attorney, she was Judge on the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, where she presided over homicide and major felony trials. She also created the first and largest non-profit organization within any District Attorney’s office in the county called, “Urban Genesis,” which works with the community to find alternatives to crime.

“I’m not invested in preserving my image or making people like me,” she said. “My only goal, and what I hope will be my most important accomplishment, is making this great city safer.”

The Road Ahead

Abraham does not plan to seek re-election when her term as DA expires. When asked about her plans, the music lover said: “You know in West Side Story, the lyric, ‘Could it be?  Yes it could. Something’s coming, something good, maybe tonight, something will happen, something good, maybe tonight,’ well, that’s going to be me.” An avid traveler, cook, animal-lover—she has two adopted cats in her office named “Miss Demeanor” and “Amicus Curae,”—and devoted wife of former advertising executive and radio talk show host, Frank Ford, she hopes to continue to lead by example in whatever she chooses to do in the future.

“My deepest wish is for Philadelphia to take its rightful place as the top city in the country, and a place where people can thrive and be safe,” Abraham said. “Other than world peace, that would be my greatest accomplishment.”