How many US Presidents have been a local prosecutor? Who was last major party candidate with this pedigree?

It is perhaps a bit early to start thinking about the potential criminal justice policies of the various folks who might replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party 2024 nominee for President.  (Or is it? is it? is it?)  But I got to thinking about how a new candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket might reshape the campaign’s engagement with a range of criminal justice issues (as well as many other issues, of course).  That thinking, in turn, led me to realize that two oft-suggested potential replacements for Biden have served as local prosecutors: Vice President Kamala Harris served as District Attorney of San Francisco for seven years; Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer served as Prosecuting Attorney of Ingham County for five months.

VP Harris also had a lengthy tenure as Attorney General of California, and Pennslyvania Governor Josh Shapiro also served as his state’s Attorney General.  But service in the role of a local prosecutor strikes me as “different in kind” regarding knowledge of and connections to criminal justice issues.  And so it seems notable that VP Harris’ professional history probably makes her the person with the most significant criminal justice background being serious discussed as a serious presidential possibility since perhaps Earl Warren in 1952.  (Anyone remebder what happened to that guy?)

The quesitions in the title of this post highlight that I am not a presidential historian and have no sense of whether it used to be more common for Presidents and presidential aspirants to have significant criminal justice experience.  This webpage reviewing the “The Long History of America’s Lawyer Presidents,” notes that Presidents James Knox Polk and William McKinley served as county prosecutors.  (Side note about lawyer presidents:  I believe that since 1984, Democrats have nominated a lawyer for President every cycle except in 2000; over that time, the the GOP nominated a lawyer only in 1996 and 2012.) 

Given that the last president with history as a state Attorney General was fined and disbarred due to his behavior while in office, I do not think there is a sound basis to assert or suggest that a President with notable criminal justice service is sure to be particularly attentive to legal rules or norms.  Still, there is something of a movie-script quality to the possibility that the 2024 presidential election could involve one candidate with historic experiences as a prosecutor and another candidate with historic experience as a criminal defendant.  Interesting times.