Lynne Abraham

Lynne Marsha Abraham (born January 31, 1941) was an American attorney who served as the District Attorney of the City of Philadelphia from May 1991 to January 2010. She was the first woman to serve as Philadelphia's district attorney. Abraham won election to that position four times. As district attorney, she oversaw the largest such office in Pennsylvania. The office prosecutes approximately 75,000 cases every year and is the largest appellate litigator in the Commonwealth. Abraham oversaw a professional staff of 300 assistant district attorneys and 275 support staff. She ran for Mayor of Philadelphia in the 2015 election. She is also listed as one of the United States deadliest prosecutors, and was known for seeking and obtaining the death penalty frequently.

Lynne Abraham was born in 1941 and raised in Philadelphia and educated in its public schools. The daughter of first-generation Americans, she grew up on the margins of poverty. Her grandparents were immigrants — a tailor and a butcher — from Europe. She studied at Temple University for her undergraduate degree and also received her Juris Doctor from Temple University Beasley School of Law. She was married to Frank Ford until his death in March 2009.

Abraham is a former assistant district attorney. She served as a legislative consultant for the city council of Philadelphia, where she assisted council in conducting investigations, drafted legislation, testified at public hearings, met with citizens' groups and revised portions of the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter. She served as the head of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority during the administration of Mayor Frank Rizzo. She was elected Judge of the Philadelphia Municipal Court in 1977, then was elected to the Court of Common Pleas in 1980, where she presided over criminal trials until she became district attorney in 1991.

District Attorney

Abraham was elected by her fellow Philadelphia judges to take over as District Attorney in 1991 when then-District Attorney Ronald D. Castille, who is currently the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, stepped down from the post in order to run for mayor. As an incumbent, Abraham was elected to a four-year term in 1993. She was re-elected three more times; in 1997 (defeating challengers Jack McMahon and Leon Williams), 2001 (defeating challengers Alexander Talmadge and Leon Williams) and 2005 (defeating challenger Seth Williams, who would succeed her as District Attorney five years later).

Abraham held the office of district attorney longer than anyone in Philadelphia history. She earned the nicknames "Deadliest DA" and "Queen of Death" for the high rate at which her office sought the death penalty in past decades. Despite her aggressive pursuit of the death penalty, none of her cases has ever resulted in an actual execution, and in several cases the defendants have been exonerated of all charges.

In the 2004 presidential election, she served as one of Pennsylvania's electors, casting her ballot for John Kerry. In the 2008 election, she cast her electoral ballot for Barack Obama.