SEPTA Special Prosecutor Survives Court Challenge and Lands in the Election

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the law that put a state special prosecutor on SEPTA, rejecting a constitutional challenge from Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.

The Oct. 1 ruling keeps the mass transit prosecutor in place through Dec. 31, 2026, when the authorization under Act 40 expires. Attorney General Dave Sunday and Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman celebrated the decision as validation of the 2023 law.

Act 40, which grew out of Senate Bill 140, passed with bipartisan support in both chambers and was signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro in December 2023. Then-Attorney General Michelle Henry chose Michael Untermeyer in June 2024 to prosecute crimes on and around SEPTA.

Krasner had argued the law unconstitutionally stripped power from his office. “This has to be rejected. It never should have passed,” he said in 2023, according to City and State PA. Commonwealth and Supreme Court judges disagreed.

Sunday said the office has paid dividends in holding violent offenders accountable on the transit system, and said his prosecutor will continue pursuing cases ranging from homicide to assaults on SEPTA workers.

The ruling lands in the middle of election season, and Republicans are using it. Pittman said the decision validated what his caucus has long stood for, and took a shot at Krasner, saying the lawlessness he attributed to the district attorney had hurt the state’s largest city.

Shapiro, meanwhile, keeps pressing the Republican-led Senate for long-term SEPTA funding while taking credit for emergency dollars that kept the system running. Transit funding remains one of the sharpest divides in Harrisburg.

What happens to the prosecutor’s office after Dec. 31 is now a live question for the next legislature.