In Pennsylvania, elected district attorneys determine whether or not to charge officers who kill or use force against civilians. There is little recourse should anyone disagree with the decision.

After Pennsylvania State Police troopers shot and killed 19-year-old Christian Hall in December 2020, the department conducted an investigation and sent its findings to Monroe County District Attorney E. David Christine Jr., the longest-serving DA in the county’s history.

Christine regularly works with state police and depends on troopers to help build cases, as they are responsible for coverage in the majority of the county he oversees.

His office said troopers were brought in from outside the local jurisdiction to conduct the investigation. Officials determined the shooting was justified because Hall had what troopers at the scene believed to be a deadly weapon.

Hall’s parents, Fe and Gareth, disagree and have asked federal agencies and the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General to look into the case.

A district attorney can ask the state attorney general to investigate a criminal case if its office doesn’t have the resources, or if there is a “real or apparent” conflict of interest, according to state law. But it’s nearly impossible for the Attorney General’s Office to intervene on its own.

David Rudovsky, a longtime use-of-force expert and senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said there is an inherent conflict of interest when a local prosecutor is asked to investigate law enforcement.

“Everybody recognizes with local police and a local DA, they are working together every day,” he said.

The Monroe County DA declined to refer the case to Democrat Josh Shapiro’s office, stating no such conflict existed.

“Our resources are not only more than adequate, but if you would compare the relative experience of Mr. Christine or myself to the attorney general himself, you’ll find a guy who has never tried a case before, never been in prosecution before,” Michael Mancuso, an assistant district attorney, said of Shapiro. “He has maybe a fraction of the experience we have.”

Jacklin Rhoads, communications director for Shapiro, said the office is well-equipped to handle such investigations and has had 39% more criminal cases referred to it under Shapiro than under the previous administration. That includes 10 from the Monroe County district attorney, according to Shapiro’s office.

“I would say that’s blatantly untrue,” Rhoads said of Mancuso’s statement. “We have high-caliber prosecutors in our office that are capable and we have the resources to take on cases like this. And I think we’ve demonstrated that over the last five years.”

While all DAs have the option to send Shapiro cases when law enforcement kills someone, that rarely happens.

Police officers in Pennsylvania have killed at least 108 people since 2017, according to a Spotlight PA examination of databases maintained by The Washington Post and Fatal Encounters.