Bad directions blamed for Denver Police DNA errors

The scrambling of DNA samples from 11 Denver police burglary cases which led prosecutors to dismiss charges against four people was the result of faulty instructions from the manufacturer of a DNA-matching machine, police officials said Tuesday.

The mistake caused evidence from one burglary case to be tied to another. The four people charged with crimes as a result each confessed to at least one burglary, but the error meant they were charged with the wrong ones. Three of the people had already pleaded guilty, but none served additional prison time stemming from the botched cases, said Lt. Matt Murray, the department's chief of staff.

"Every one of the defendants in these cases did, in fact, leave DNA at some crime scene," Murray explained in a YouTube video released Tuesday night. "That's not an indication of guilt, but ... all were associated with some criminal case, and that the evidence was just transposed and put in with the wrong criminal case."

The mistake happened when the crime lab's DNA-matching machine "froze" while running a tray of 19 samples in June 2011. An analyst then called the manufacturer, which supplied a map for putting the samples back into the machine in the right sequence. More than two years passed before the crime lab realized the samples were replaced in the wrong order, after the machine froze again this past November. That time, the company gave the analyst a different map, and the samples were returned correctly. The crime lab realized the error because of the discrepancy.

Among the people charged with the wrong crimes was a man serving prison time on an unrelated offense; a man who was arrested and spent 24 hours in jail for the burglary, to which he later pleaded guilty and had his sentence combined with the probation he was serving in a different case; and two juveniles, a boy and a girl. Prosecutors let the boy's burglary sentence run concurrent with his sentence for a separate felony conviction, which was a rehabilitation program. The girl pleaded guilty to a bundle of "numerous" felony cases, including the wrong one, and has not been sentenced.

A third man associated with the case, who is serving prison time, was never charged, Murray said. Prosecutors have dismissed the other cases.

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Bad directions blamed for Denver Police DNA errors