On the evening of March 11, Sinatra Jordan stepped out through the glass doors of the Raymond Detention Center in Hinds County, Mississippi, and headed toward his father’s waiting car. It had been 2½ years, and he was not going to linger.

Jordan, 32, was taken to the jail in 2022 on charges he started a car chase and gunbattle with police. His friend had been in the passenger seat and was gravely wounded. Jordan insisted that he did not have a weapon, that the officers had fired without provocation.

As the months passed with no trial date, no hearing, no updates and rare interactions with his lawyers, there were many times, alone and despairing in his cell, when he wondered whether anyone was listening. Then, in an extraordinary turn, the blame shifted onto the officers.