Following a jury trial, a man convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon has had his conviction reversed.

Police say Jimmy Joe Small was arrested after they received a tip that Small was in possession of a firearm in a motel. Evansville Police Department’s drug task force conducted a “knock and talk” on Small’s motel room where they found drug paraphernalia and a fireman on a bedside table.

Small was arrested and the State charged him with unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, a Level 4 felony, two counts of possession of methamphetamine, a Level 5 felony and a Level 6 felony, maintaining a common nuisance, a Level 5 felony, and unlawful possession of a syringe, a Level 6 felony.

In a pretrial hearing, Small moved for a speedy trial which the Vanderburgh Circuit Court granted. However, six days before the trial was set to begin, the state moved for a continuance under Criminal Rule 4(D), arguing it could not proceed due to necessary forensic testing that had not been completed.

The state claimed in its motion that court staff “inexplicably” never received the judge’s order for Small’s DNA standards, which were necessary to conduct testing of DNA swabbed from the firearm. A magistrate later attributed the oversight to “a glitch in the Odyssey system,” prompting the court to grant the continuance over Small’s objection.

The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed his Level 4 felony conviction on Tuesday after finding the state failed to demonstrate its reasonable efforts to procure evidence.