3 retired Philadelphia detectives to stand trial in perjury case stemming from 2016 exoneration

PHILADELPHIA — Three retired Philadelphia police detectives are to stand trial accused of lying under oath during the 2016 retrial of a man acquitted by a jury of a 1991 rape and murder.

If the case goes to trial in November, it would mark a rare moment in which police or prosecutors face criminal charges for shoddy work that leads to wrongful convictions.

Of the nearly 3,500 people acquitted of serious crimes in the U.S. since 1989, more than half of those cases were marred by alleged misconduct by police or prosecutors, according to a national database.

Former detectives Martin Devlin, Manuel Santiago and Frank Jastrzembski, all now in their 70s, hoped a judge would dismiss the case because of what they called damaging evidence aired before the grand jury that indicted them.

Philadelphia Judge Lucretia Clemons acknowledged errors in the trial Friday but said the remaining evidence was enough to send the case to trial. She agreed to consider letting the defense appeal the grand jury issue to the state Supreme Court before the trial.

An unusual combination of factors allowed prosecutor Larry Krasner to charge investigators in the case of exonerated Anthony Wright, convicted in 1993 of the rape and murder of an elderly widow two years earlier. Detectives testified at his retrial in 2016 and reopened a five-year window to file perjury charges.

Wright was arrested at the age of 20. He spent 20 years in prison before DNA testing seemingly cleared him of the crime. Nevertheless, Krasner’s predecessor chose to retry him and called the detectives out of retirement to testify.