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The Free Thought Project reports
After years of injustice, thousands of people wrongfully convicted on drug charges in Massachusetts will finally have their convictions overturned. The ruling centers on drug lab tests that were falsified by a state-employed chemist named Annie Dookhan.
"The state's highest court on Wednesday [January 18] ordered prosecutors to drop a large portion of the more than 24,000 drug convictions affected by the misconduct of former state drug lab chemist Annie Dookhan, issuing an urgent call to resolve a scandal that has plagued the legal system since 2012."
Dookhan was imprisoned in 2013 after being charged with a suite of crimes relating to her years-long career of deceit, where she falsified tens of thousands of reports to jail innocent people. She would mark results as "positive" for illegal substances without actually testing them, even adding cocaine to samples when no cocaine was present.
At [Dookhan's] sentencing, Judge Carol S. Ball stated, "Innocent persons were incarcerated, guilty persons have been released to further endanger the public, millions and millions of public dollars are being expended to deal with the chaos Ms. Dookhan created, and the integrity of the criminal justice system has been shaken to the core."
[...] The Massachusetts high court ruled that each [of 24,391 defendants] had a right to a hearing, but the cost and logistics of doing so would be unfeasible.
"The court said district attorneys across the state must "exercise their prosecutorial discretion and reduce the number of relevant Dookhan defendants by moving to vacate and dismiss with prejudice all drug cases the district attorneys would not or could not reprosecute if a new trial were ordered." The cases affected by the ruling include people who pleaded guilty, were convicted, or admitted that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them. By vacating the cases, the convictions would effectively be erased...
The court said defendants whose cases aren't dismissed should receive a notice that their cases had been affected by Dookhan's misconduct. Then, any indigent defendants would receive public counsel to explore requests to vacate their pleas or get new trials.
Related: Are Questionable Drug Tests Filling U.S. Prisons?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday January 27 2017, @03:25PM
I briefly glanced at TFA. Obviously this Annie woman is a nut and needs to go to prison, probably for about 120,000 years according to my calculations (24,000 cases times an average of 5 years each). But what about all the people who enabled her? What is happening to them? They should get the same 120,000 year sentence. According to TFA, several whistleblowers tried to do something, but they were silenced by the lab. These people (whoever silenced the whistleblowers) are *just* as guilty as she is, and should suffer the exact same punishment, if not more!
Of course, I also think whoever wrote the laws requiring people to go to prison for mere possession should get the same punishment too. And honestly, the cops and judges who took part in this travesty should all go to prison as well, though not as long (maybe 5-10 years each), and not be allowed to hold those jobs ever again or receive pensions. This is what I'd do if I were dictator.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @03:41PM
you're doing it wrong then. that phillipine leader has the right idea. drugs are bad umkay. drug users are a drain on the system. period.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday January 27 2017, @06:07PM
I don't think that threatening the lives of drug users helps society any more than does threatening their freedom. Threatening their wrong-headed ideas and tendency toward harm, I believe, has the potential to benefit society more.
I disagree with you, for these and other reasons, but I modded you up because I don't think that you should be modded "troll" just for stating a position, even an extreme one, with which others disagree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @06:47PM
A system is less important that the system's users. If large portions of the population are pouring drugs into themselves, in order to briefly escape from the system, it suggests that the system is not fit for purpose. You, on the other hand, conclude that these people are not fit for purpose.
Do you know what else is a drain on your precious system? Drug prohibition: overburdened courts, filled to capacity prisons, militarized law enforcement.
Let's not forget the wasted capacity of these laboratory facilities that could be doing useful research or medical screenings (for diagnosis and treatment rather than evidence for the prosecution).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @08:38PM
filled to capacity prisons, militarized law enforcement
Those are features, not bugs to the authoritarian mindset. Then if the courts are overburdened, the authoritarian's next flourish of logic is to determine that courts should be abolished since they just get in the way.
Makes my skin crawl. I'd rather be shot dead than live somewhere like that.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Desler on Friday January 27 2017, @03:49PM
The prosecutors who are all fighting against upholding the order of the court should be sent to jail too. Protecting one's conviction rate over justice should come with extreme penalties. But who am I kidding? They'll get some bad press maybe and then it'll be completely forgotten.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 27 2017, @03:58PM
Yeah, those people should get over 100k years in jail too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Friday January 27 2017, @04:56PM
Bad prosecutors have a bright future, at least the one form California does!
Quoting from the LA TIMES [latimes.com], about a guy who was indicted in 1998 and released until 2013 thanks to Kamala Harris, AG for California, who appealed his motions to keep him in jail: "[...] A federal magistrate reviewed those facts and determined that Larsen deserved to have his conviction overturned because his lawyer was inadequate.[...] 'Had the jury heard the exculpatory testimony,' the magistrate wrote, 'no reasonable juror would have found [Larsen] guilty.' The magistrate's recommendations were reviewed and upheld by a second federal judge in 2009. [...] Yet the California attorney general's office objected to releasing Larsen, and he remains behind bars while the fight over his release is appealed. [...] it is exceptionally rare for a federal judge to conclude that an inmate is 'actually innocent.' Under these circumstances, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris would be wise to back off and let Larsen go. "
But she didn’t prosecute Steven Mnuchin, quoting The Intercept [theintercept.com] “In the memo, the leaders of the state attorney general’s Consumer Law Section said they had ‘uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct’ in a yearlong investigation. In a detailed 22-page request, they identified over a thousand legal violations in the small subsection of OneWest loans they were able to examine, and they recommended that Attorney General Kamala Harris file a civil enforcement action against the Pasadena-based bank.”
Where is now the former AG of California? In the Senate! Learn boys and girls, wrongful convictions and not prosecuting powerful people are the way to fame and glory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @06:45PM
Yup. Been keeping an eye on her for some time.
Blue Dog [google.com] Kamala Harris defeated Blue Dog Loretta Sanchez to take the seat of the mostly-Progressive Barbara Boxer, who stepped down after four 6-year terms.
Kamala Harris Wants Barbara Boxer’s Senate Seat (Opposes A Special Prosecutor For Bad Cops) [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [thinkprogress.org]
Additionally, Kamala Harris Wants To Reinstate The Death Penalty [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [wsws.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by keick on Friday January 27 2017, @07:06PM
The rub is, she DID go to prison... Was got a whole 4 years for basically ending the lives of nearly 24,000 innocent folks. How many folks are immediately disqualified from work because of a prior drug conviction? Yes, their lives were completely ruined, and this dumb chick who never when to graduate school, forged her fucking degree, got a nice easy 4 year stint.
Personally, she should be on death-row. She knew what she was doing, she knew it would ruin peoples lives. She didn't care. That is the type of person we do NOT need in our society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Dookhan [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by keick on Friday January 27 2017, @07:13PM
Holy crap, sorry for the bad grammar. I really should proof-read things before I hit submit.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 30 2017, @04:51PM
No, the site should be fixed so you can edit a post within a reasonable time after posting it (perhaps 1-5 minutes).