Three former Philly homicide detectives accused of lying under oath in a murder case head to trial on perjury charges

Opening statements are expected to begin Tuesday in the high-profile perjury trial of three former Philadelphia homicide detectives who prosecutors say lied under oath during a murder retrial nine years ago.

The trial will detail a case within a case, its crimes spanning more than three decades.

It begins with the 1991 rape and murder of 77-year-old Louise Talley in the Nicetown neighborhood. But the heart of the testimony is expected to revolve around the 2016 retrial of Anthony Wright, who was convicted of killing Talley and served a quarter-century in prison until new DNA evidence emerged that excluded him as the rapist.

Wright’s conviction was overturned. But prosecutors under former District Attorney Seth Williams were not convinced, and sought to try him again.

And that is where prosecutors say the three former detectives — Martin Devlin, Manuel Santiago, and Frank Jastrzembski — lied to keep an innocent man in jail and cover up for their own wrongdoing during the murder investigation.

The retired officers, now in their 70s, each face multiple counts of perjury and false swearing.

Defense attorneys sought to get the case dismissed several times, saying prosecutors tainted the grand jury presentment in 2021 by wrongfully presenting evidence unrelated to the case. Common Pleas Court Judge Lucretia Clemons agreed that the evidence should not have been used but ruled that the case could proceed to trial.

On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied an eleventh-hour petition from defense lawyers who asked the high court to overturn the case on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct.

Clemons called about 100 potential jurors for interviews on Monday morning in advance of the trial, which she said could last a week. She and the attorneys for both sides interviewed prospective jurors about their backgrounds and potential conflicts, including personal and family ties to law enforcement.

After nearly three hours, they settled on 12 jurors and two alternates. The panel consists a cross-section of Philadelphia residents, some with family in law enforcement and others with relatives who were victims of violent crimes.

The prosecution, led by District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office, marks a rare instance in which police officers have been criminally charged for alleged roles in securing a wrongful conviction. It also comes as Krasner seeks a third term in office on a progressive platform that includes overturning such convictions and rooting out the prosecutorial misconduct that led to them.

Krasner’s office charged the detectives in 2021, just days before the statute of limitations on their alleged crimes was to expire.

Prosecutors now seek to convince a jury that the detectives’ testimony during Wright’s retrial amounted to lying under oath. But distinguishing between truth and fiction will involve taking jurors back to the initial murder investigation.

A jury convicted Wright in 1993 based largely on the strength of a confession detectives extracted from Wright after Talley’s murder.

The confession was not taped. According to the 2021 grand jury presentment that led to charges against the detectives, they used unlawful tactics to force him to sign a false statement, at one point telling the then-20-year-old they would “pull his eyes out and skull-f— him.”

Prosecutors contend that Santiago and Devlin coerced Wright’s false confession and that Jastrzembski lied about key evidence that linked him to the murder scene.

At the 2016 retrial, the retired detectives stood by their initial telling of the 1991 investigation. Jastrzembski said he had discovered a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt and other clothing in Wright’s home that police said Wright admitted to wearing during the crime.

But DNA established that Talley, not Wright, wore those clothes. And the DNA found on the victim belonged to another man, Ronnie Byrd, who died in a South Carolina prison cell in 2013.

Given that evidence, prosecutors focused on Wright’s confession. Santiago recalled hearing Wright admit guilt as Devlin transcribed the man’s words in real time — word for word.

Wright’s lawyer, Samuel Silver, put that to the test, asking Devlin to transcribe Wright’s confession again, this time in front of the jury.

Devlin agreed. But as Silver read aloud, the former detective transcribed just six words of Wright’s statement — “Go on in your own words” — before conceding he could not keep up.

A jury acquitted Wright and publicly criticized prosecutors for retrying his case. And the city paid him nearly $10 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2018, its largest wrongful conviction settlement at the time.

His case foreshadowed a wave of exonerations for other wrongfully imprisoned men in Philadelphia in the last decade, including several that were documented by The Inquirer in a 2021 investigative series.

Wright, 53, is expected to testify as the three detectives face trial.