Three long-retired Philadelphia police detectives are being brought to trial for allegedly lying under oath during the 2016 retrial of a man who was exonerated in a 1991 rape and murder case. This rare instance of police or prosecutors facing criminal charges for misconduct leading to wrongful convictions is a significant development. Of the thousands of people exonerated in the U.S. since 1989, over half of the cases have involved allegations of flawed work by law enforcement officials. The former detectives, Martin Devlin, Manuel Santiago, and Frank Jastrzembski, who are now in their 70s, had hoped the case would be dismissed, but a judge ruled that there was enough evidence to proceed to trial. Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle argued that the grand jury process was tainted by prosecutors’ actions.
Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Lucretia Clemons acknowledged mistakes in the grand jury proceedings but decided to send the case to trial, although she may allow the defense to appeal the grand jury issue before the trial. The case involves exoneree Anthony Wright, who was convicted in 1993 of raping and murdering an elderly widow in 1991. Wright spent two decades in prison before DNA testing cleared him of the crime. Despite the DNA exclusion, the former detectives were called out of retirement to testify in his retrial. The key evidence in the retrial was Wright’s confession, which his lawyers argued was coerced. The detectives denied this.
During the retrial, lawyer Sam Silver asked Devlin to write down Wright’s confession in real-time, as he claimed to have done in 1991. However, Devlin was only able to jot down six words before giving up. Wright told jurors that the police had made him sign the confession without reading it. The jury acquitted him after deliberating for a short time, and Wright later received a nearly $10 million settlement from the city. Santiago and Devlin are accused of lying about the confession, while Santiago and Jastrzembski are accused of lying about their knowledge of the DNA problem. Jastrzembski is also accused of lying about finding the victim’s clothes in Wright’s bedroom. All three maintain their innocence, with support from friends and former colleagues.
District Attorney Larry Krasner has championed 47 exonerations and pursued a small number of police perjury cases. He charged the Wright detectives in 2021, just days before the five-year deadline expired. Krasner’s actions are part of a growing trend of public agencies in the U.S. compensating wrongfully convicted individuals, with over $4 billion spent on compensation for the average nine years spent in prison. The case involving the three retired detectives highlights the ongoing challenges of addressing misconduct within law enforcement and the consequences of wrongful convictions. The upcoming trial will shed light on this important issue and could set a precedent for accountability in cases of police and prosecutorial misconduct.
