BPD detective to get new trial on claim he helped put innocent man in prison for girl's murder

The sad case of Tiffany Moore - the 12-year-old shot to death as she sat on a mailbox in 1988 - continues to wend its way through the court system.

A federal appeals court today ordered a new civil trial for Timothy Callahan, a homicide detectives who helped make the case against Shawn Drumgold as Tiffany Moore's murderer.

Drumgold spent 14 years in prison before being released on evidence detectives withheld evidence. In 2009, a jury awarded him $14 million - $1 million for each year in prison - in a lawsuit against Callahan (Drumgold has other pending lawsuits against the city and then Police Commissioner Francis Roache).

Callahan appealed. In its 2-1 ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed he should get a new trial because the judge "omitted the statement that Drumgold had to show a reasonable probability that he would not have been convicted but for Callahan's withholding of evidence" - that Callahan had put a key prosecution witness up in hotel before the murder trial.

This will be Callahan's third trial - in 2008, a jury deadlocked on the lawsuit.

• Complete ruling, Shawn Drumgold v. Timothy Callahan