Perjury case against three former homicide detectives can go to trial, judge says

The landmark perjury case against three former Philadelphia homicide detectives can proceed to trial after a judge on Friday denied the defense attorneys’ bid to dismiss the charges.

Common Pleas Court Judge Lucretia Clemons said that after spending three months reviewing the case, she found that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to charge Martin Devlin, Manuel Santiago, and Frank Jastrzembski.

The detectives’ lawyer, Brian McMonagle, had argued that prosecutors acted inappropriately in presenting evidence to the grand jury that had nothing to do with the alleged crimes. The prosecutors “smeared” his clients’ names, he said, and “threw the kitchen sink” at jurors “just to see what would stick.”

For that reason, he said, the case should be thrown out — not only to protect his clients but also to set a standard to prevent the District Attorney’s Office from doing this to others in the future.

“It was horrific manipulation,” McMonagle said Friday.

Clemons agreed, saying that prosecutors’ decision to present evidence outside the scope of the case was “outrageous” — but, she said, it didn’t rise to the level of prosecutorial misconduct. She said she believed that the grand jury would have indicted the men with or without that evidence.

» READ MORE: The Homicide Files database: Review murder cases involving these three detectives and others accused of misconduct

Still, she said: “It should not have been used. Period.”

District Attorney Larry Krasner charged Devlin, Santiago, and Jastrzembski — all now retired — with perjury two years ago, saying they lied on the witness stand during a 2016 retrial that threatened to send a man whose murder conviction had been overturned back to prison for life. It was the first time in city history that detectives involved in an overturned murder case had faced criminal charges over their alleged actions in the investigation.

Krasner’s office said the detectives lied when they testified that they had secured a confession and evidence implicating Anthony Wright in the 1991 rape and murder of 77-year-old Louise Talley. During the retrial, which was handled by Krasner’s predecessors, Wright was quickly acquitted, and some jurors even publicly criticized the evidence presented in court.

After Krasner took office in 2017, he convened a grand jury to investigate whether the detectives’ actions in the case amounted to a crime. It was during that grand jury proceeding that McMonagle said prosecutors committed “egregious” misconduct.

He said former Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings, who ran the probe, called a witness before the panel who not only asserted that Wright’s confession was false — but also accused Devlin, the detective who elicited it, of coercing false confessions in other, unrelated cases. He said Cummings also introduced an anonymous juror note from another case Devlin was involved in that described him as “wicked” and “evil.”

After Judge Clemons ruled that the case would move forward, McMonagle asked for permission to immediately appeal to Pennsylvania’s Superior Court.

“This is beyond any case I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Prosecutors all over the state could look at this and say ‘prosecutorial misconduct doesn’t apply in front of a grand jury.’”

Clemons denied that request, and said McMonagle could file an appeal in the event of a conviction, as is customary.

Assistant District Attorneys Steven Wildberger and Clarke Beljean declined to comment on the judge’s decision. The detectives are free on bail, and trial has been tentatively scheduled for November.