Civil rights suit against city goes to trial

Man was wrongly jailed in homicide

Shawn Drumgold, 42, was convicted of shooting and killing 12-year-old Darlene Tiffany Moore with a stray bullet in 1988. (THE BOSTON GLOBE/FILE)

Lawyers for the City of Boston and a man who spent 15 years in prison before prosecutors concluded he was wrongly convicted of an infamous murder are expected to deliver opening statements today as Shawn Drumgold's civil rights lawsuit goes to trial.

After screening prospective jurors for two days, lawyers for the city and Drumgold, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 1989 in the death of 12-year-old Darlene Tiffany Moore, finished picking a 13-member jury yesterday in US District Court. The trial is expected to run six to eight weeks.

Drumgold, who is now 42 and lives in Dorchester, was convicted in Suffolk Superior Court of shooting and killing Moore with a stray bullet as she sat atop a mailbox on a Roxbury street corner, talking to friends on the night of Aug. 19, 1988. The killing horrified city residents and came to symbolize a time when drug-fueled gang violence seemed to be spiraling out of control. Some residents called for deployment of the National Guard.

In 2003, after several prosecution witnesses told the Globe that police investigators bullied them into testifying against Drumgold, Suffolk prosecutors reexamined the case and said they believed the former drug dealer was wrongfully convicted, but stopped short of saying he was innocent. A superior court judge overturned the conviction, saying that "justice was not done" and that the "system had failed." Prosecutors never retried Drumgold.

Drumgold's lawyer, Rosemary Scapicchio, said US District Judge Nancy Gertner has barred both sides from contending that Drumgold was innocent or guilty. Instead, the case hinges on whether two now-retired Boston police detectives, Timothy Callahan and Richard Walsh, violated Drumgold's civil rights, leading to his wrongful conviction.

"We're saying he didn't commit the crime, but the defense has successfully precluded that issue from getting before the jury," Scapicchio said.

Mary Jo Harris, one of five outside lawyers hired by the city to fight the lawsuit, declined to comment.

Through January, the city's defense had cost taxpayers $1.23 million in outside legal fees and expenses for a private investigator, according to updated figures obtained yesterday by the Globe under a public records request.

William F. Sinnott, the city's corporation counsel, has said the city is mounting a robust defense because there was no miscarriage of justice. He refused to say in a January interview whether the Police Department still believes that Drumgold is guilty.

Yesterday, Sinnott said that the key issue was whether the homicide investigators did anything to violate Drumgold's civil rights. "We firmly believe they did not and that their investigation was conducted professionally and well," he wrote in an e-mail.

Gertner has divided the trial into three phases. The first phase will deal with whether Callahan and Walsh violated Drumgold's rights.

If the jury concludes that they did, it will hear evidence in the next phase about the potential liability of the Police Department and of Francis M. Roache, who was commissioner during the Moore murder investigation. The final phase, if it takes place, will deal with damages.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.