A DNA Mix-Up Involving a Washing Machine Kept a Man in Jail for 3 Years

“I was in jail 37 and a half months,” he said. “Other than when I was sleeping, all I could think about was this.”

his month prosecutors dismissed the first-degree murder and armed robbery charges against Mr. Verret. This followed an evidence admissibility hearing in which his lawyer offered an explanation: A crime lab analyst had mixed up two DNA samples, one from the lid of Mr. Verret’s washing machine and the other from the knife that was used to kill Mr. Poche. This theory was supported by an expert, hired by the defense to retest the material swabbed off the machine. She testified not only that the sample did not match the victim, but also that she could not confirm the presence of human blood.

This may sound like an easy catch. But proving what had happened took much longer than it should have because the crime lab was slow to turn over the documentation to the defense, said Steve Singer, a longtime public defender who took on Mr. Verret’s case. Such a wait is not unusual, he said.

Amid a national reckoning over racism and police brutality, Mr. Singer and other public defenders said they hoped Mr. Verret’s case would draw attention to the way the criminal justice system permits people to be held in jail for months — or even years — ahead of trial because prosecutors and crime labs fail to turn over the documentation that defense lawyers require to understand what put them there.

Mr. Verret is white. But people of color who rely on public defenders are disproportionately affected, said Jonathan Rapping, the founder of Gideon’s Promise, an organization that seeks to improve the quality of free legal defense for marginalized communities. That’s because state-appointed lawyers rarely have the time or resources to be as persistent as Mr. Singer, Mr. Rapping said.