The DNA testing involved technology that wasn't available at the convict’s trial 25 years earlier. Two of the convict’s motions for the testing had already been denied when the court employee provided his sister with the document, which the convicted man used as a model to draft a motion that was successful and entitled him to DNA testing that excluded him as the source of evidence recovered from the rape scene and eventually set him free.
In a letter dismissing the court employee from her job, the judge who decided the convict’s motions wrote: “[Your actions were] clearly improper and a violation of Canon Seven … which warns against the risk of offering an opinion or suggested course of action.”