Two brothers who were convicted in the 1991 rape and murder of a tourist in Hawaii filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday claiming that the police had framed them and then bungled an investigation that could have brought the true killer to justice.

Albert Schweitzer, who goes by his middle name Ian, served 23 years in prison for a life sentence before newly discovered DNA evidence cleared his name and he was freed in 2023.

His brother, Shawn Schweitzer, took a deal to plead guilty to manslaughter and kidnapping in 2000 and spent one year in prison. After Ian’s convictions were overturned and he was released in 2023, Shawn Schweitzer made a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, and his conviction was soon vacated.

The brothers argued in the new lawsuit that they “had nothing to do with the crime.” The evidence suggested that an unknown man may have been responsible.

Dana Ireland, a 23-year-old white woman, was biking in a remote area of the Big Island when she was raped and murdered. Investigators grasped for clues for years before indicting the Schweitzers. The brothers, who are part Native Hawaiian and were 20 and 16 at the time of the murder, alleged in the lawsuit that they were targeted after the police were “under immense pressure to solve the high-profile murder.”

In 2023, Kenneth L. Lawson, co-director of the Hawai’i Innocence Project, which represented Mr. Schweitzer in his criminal trial along with the Innocence Project, told The Times that the case’s racial dynamic fueled the news media’s interest in the investigation and put added pressure on the authorities to secure convictions.