Aggregated News
A malfunction in a DNA processing machine led to the scrambling of samples from 11 Denver police burglary cases, officials acknowledged Friday. It took more than two years for the department to discover the errors.
As a result of the mix-up, prosecutors are dismissing burglary cases against four people, three of whom had already pleaded guilty.
All four people had confessed to at least one burglary, but the DNA error meant they were charged with the wrong ones, Denver district attorney spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough said.
The problem caused evidence from one case to be tied to another. Authorities have since sorted out the samples, but prosecutors won't refile charges against the four people because the statute of limitations has expired. Two of the dismissed cases were against juveniles.
They will file charges in a fifth burglary case, against an adult who is already jailed on unrelated crimes in Adams County, Kimbrough said.
The mistake happened after an $80,000 DNA processing machine "froze" while running a tray of 19 DNA samples on June 13, 2011. An analyst in the city's crime...
As a result of the mix-up, prosecutors are dismissing burglary cases against four people, three of whom had already pleaded guilty.
All four people had confessed to at least one burglary, but the DNA error meant they were charged with the wrong ones, Denver district attorney spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough said.
The problem caused evidence from one case to be tied to another. Authorities have since sorted out the samples, but prosecutors won't refile charges against the four people because the statute of limitations has expired. Two of the dismissed cases were against juveniles.
They will file charges in a fifth burglary case, against an adult who is already jailed on unrelated crimes in Adams County, Kimbrough said.
The mistake happened after an $80,000 DNA processing machine "froze" while running a tray of 19 DNA samples on June 13, 2011. An analyst in the city's crime...