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Annie Dookhan's falsification of drug lab tests has become a reason for over 21,000 people to celebrate. Massachusetts will drop 21,587 cases in the largest single dismissal of convictions in U.S. history:
Massachusetts formally dropped more than 21,000 tainted drug convictions Thursday that were linked to a disgraced state chemist who in 2013 admitted to faking test results.
It's the largest single dismissal of convictions in U.S. history, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Thursday's dismissals by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had been expected after several district attorneys on Tuesday submitted lists of 21,587 cases they said they would be unwilling or unable to prosecute, The Associated Press reports.
Previous Coverage:
Massachusetts: Tens of Thousands of Drug Convictions to be Overturned After Fraudulent Lab Tests.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:23AM
So 21,587 time say very very conservatively 10K each for false arrest and illegal confinement that is upwards of 200 Million dollars a more equitable 1 Million each would be 21.5 Billion dollars, and I doubt that is recoverable from the lab tech's that did the actual deed
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:23AM (19 children)
She only served a few years, and is now out on parole. WTF? Her criminal actions affected tens of thousands of people and had them in trouble with the law or in jail for offenses they didn't commit.
She should get a 10-year sentence for every person she caused to wrongly see a jail cell, and a 1-year sentence for people who had other legal problems. She should be in prison for the next 50,000 years at least.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Scrutinizer on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:37AM
Annie Dookhan should pay for her crimes, I absolutely agree. It is therefore troubling that Annie's victims, those who later found productive work, literally paid for her crimes by coughing up the tax monies used to feed and house dear Annie.
Once a person's crimes rise to the level where restitution for the victims is impossible, and the damages in money and lost life reaches far into the millions or beyond, I really only see one way for a properly-convicted criminal to pay without harming her victims all over again: exile or execution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @01:13AM (2 children)
How about a fair punishment for her: one day in prison for each person she wrongly convicted. I'd settle for that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:07AM (1 child)
Only if YOU pay the bill for her prison room, board, heath care, etc.
I'm only willing to pay for one bullet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @10:04PM
I've already paid for over 21k people to unjustly spend several years in prison each. What's one more person who deserves it?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:07AM (6 children)
The truly inexcusable part is that the people falsely imprisoned because of her aren't out yet. If the "justice system" actually gave a damn about justice they would have been released with a nice compensation check the instant the court found that the tests were faked. If anyone involved in that had an ounce of shame, they'd resign.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:23AM (5 children)
Making crime victims whole is indeed a worthy goal, though the "justice system", part of the US government in this case, has no money of its own with which to give to anyone else. Since I as a plebian within the USA do not have the authority to demand you give me half of your production, neither can I then delegate that same authority to anyone else.
All the funds US governments have are stolen.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:26AM (4 children)
They sure didn't mind spending taxpayer money keeping those falsely imprisoned people locked up for an extra 4 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:29AM (3 children)
It's a lot harder to lock innocent people in prison if there are no stolen funds to pay for prison guards, cooks, and staff; or buy prison electricity, water, and supplies.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:45AM (2 children)
Unfortunately, it's also a lot harder to lock up serial killers and scam artists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:51AM
The former you can take care of yourself [cz-usa.com], and the latter are much less of an issue if following the axiom: "you cannot cheat an honest man".
Regardless, if you think "government" cares about you and/or your well-being, you're wrong [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @06:51PM
they don't do much of that anyways. there are hundreds of serial killers killing at will right now, but the pigs are too busy stealing to give a shit. they are preying on the weak or poor for non crimes because they are too chicken shit to go after real, dangerous criminals. the "justice system" is the biggest thief in the country. once the cops, prosecutors and judges realize this they get even more corrupt because they have been morally compromised. now they have nothing to lose except by being found out or challenged. we need to take back our streets from these scum.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:26AM
She should get a similar sentence to what civil engineers would get for approving bad dams/buildings that collapse and affect tens of thousands of people. Or professionals who repeatedly perjure themselves.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:29AM (6 children)
I don't know about ten years for each of her victims. (You can't even establish with certainty how many victims there were) No one lives that long, and at some point, that kind of math becomes an exercise in vindictiveness. It also becomes meaningless. Do we want to give her life in prison, without the possibility of parole? Let's just go with that sentence then. It doesn't require a lot of pointless calculation, it's justifiable, and it achieves the goal of ensuring that she 1) is punished severely and 2) never has the opportunity to hurt another member of society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:33AM (4 children)
Hm. [heavy.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:50AM (3 children)
The person who stabbed the prison guard shouldn't have survived the experience. He should have beed dropped, on the spot, and any medical attention delayed for "security reasons" for days, or weeks.
People shouldn't go to prison unless they are dangerous, and once there, they should be handled like dangerous animals.
If I need to spell it out, there should only be a few thousand people in prison in this country. At MOST tens of thousands. The system is broken, and we need it fixed. Only people guilty of heinous crimes should be sentenced to prison. Small time pot heads should never see prison. Petty thieves should never see prison. Your average "criminal" should be serving his home community in some fashion, working off his debt to his fellow citizens. Ideally, that petty criminal should be working for the people he victimized. If not working for his victims, he should at least be paying them restitution.
Prison is wrong in most cases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @03:00AM (2 children)
Spot on. No victim, no crime, no need for prison time. Where there is a victim, the criminal is tried and sentenced to restitution for his victim (not "the state"); he can also pay for the costs of his capture and conviction after making his victim as whole as possible.
This is what a bootlicking authoritarian would say, supporting executions by neglect without any shred of due process.
Why should the victims pay to support the life of their victimizer? Exile or execution. Paying for one bullet, or a bus ticket and a makeshift raft, is a hell of a lot cheaper than a prison.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:08PM (1 child)
Bootlicking authoritarian. I like that. How 'bout I plant my boot far enough up your dumb ass that you can taste the leather, then pull it out and let you lick the shit off of it. Did the prison guard get your fucking "due process"? No? The prisoner deserves less consideration than he gave the guard.
"Exile or execution". Hmmmm. So - we have a problem child, and we banish him to - where the fuck we gonna send him, exactly? Export him to Mexico? Canada? Mozambique? WTF does that solve? We ship our criminals to any place on earth, because we are to candy-assed to deal with them, and all the earth learns that we are beneath contempt. Besides which, we cannot deport a citizen. Not possible. We can do a lot of things to a citizen, but we can't deport him. Execution, you say? Hmmmm - as cynical as I am, I am cognizant of the fact that people do make mistakes. A murder, in the heat of the moment? Dude has never had so much as a traffic citation, and he kills some sumbitch during an argument? So - uhhh - we execute him? Probly not. We punish him for making a mistake, then send his ass home to support his family, so we don't have to support his family. We give him x number of years in prison, then turn him loose, maybe with some supervision.
You badmouth me as an authoritarian, then you only see two fit punishments for a guy who has fucked up - deportation or execution?
Jesus Christ, man - go out and buy you a moral compass. I mean, you don't even have a broken one, do you? Go get one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @06:08PM
Lots of people take the extreme route of punishing the guilty in the most extreme ways. It is a terrible policy that leads to very bad consequences. It erodes the morality of everyone involved. It satisfies the emotional need for vengeance, but when you give into such impulses then yes, it does lead to authoritarian horrors. I wouldn't call you a boot licker, but you're way too cozy with authoritarian practices on occasion.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 22 2017, @11:36AM
I think the important goals are at first to make sure to bar this person from any position where it's possible to screw up anything else. And secondly punish enough such that others get the message sufficiently that won't ever try the same.
Vindictiveness is rarely efficient but it sure feels good.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Scrutinizer on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:24AM (1 child)
There's never just [truthinjustice.org] ONE cockroach [reason.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @05:58AM
Mod this up. It's a whole fucking nest networked into buncha colonies.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:24AM (2 children)
With a little bit of effort based on the image of the perp and a Google search for "Patel Dookhan," one can gather enough evidence to surmise that "Annie" Dookhan is Indian. So you'd see the same kind of shit with Indian forensic analysts as you'd see with Indian programmers.
The only reason why the top paragraph was mentioned is because Google is rolling out their new annoying mode today, where Googling the origin of a name yields zero usable results. The beauty of Google search for a long time was that it was effortless, now, you have to put more and more effort into your searches thanks to their underhanded PC/censorship algorithms. Now, though, the behavior of their site is deliberately designed not only to yield half-useful results but to piss people off so they'll fight in the streets of Berkeley. Oh well, better they fight each other with petri-dish created "grassroots movements" than ignore divisive issues and work together to solve real problems. Thanks Obama!*
* Grand Emperor-for-life Baraq Hussein Soetoro, the network of whom are the ultimate army of fifth-columnists
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:35AM
Now, try this one: Sonja Farak [bostonglobe.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @11:30AM
In general, Indians do crappy work. In general, the police only arrest guilty people. Generalizations make life easy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:34AM (3 children)
Theads seem to be disappearing, like the Kasparov one it's gone, what's up with that? or am I hallucinating?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:44AM
Give it a day, it'll sort itself out. You just overdid it on 4/20.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:59AM
Cache consistency issue? I haven't noticed because after many years of dealing with crappy "web accelerators" I've picked up the habit of cache busting by inserting random junk into URLs whenever I feel like it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @01:42AM
Nope I was actually hallucinating my brain confused with this
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170416/22213937166/how-garry-kasparov-learned-to-stop-worrying-love-machines-that-beat-him-his-job.shtml [techdirt.com]
Thread over at techdirt
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:54AM (2 children)
Cheers of joy!
Everybody else got the munchies?
(Score: 1) by Scrutinizer on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:58AM
I do love me some bath salts.
Hm, now that I look at you, I could go for a bite [independent.co.uk]...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @05:23AM
Found the cranky old person! Or the young judgemental shit...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by kaszz on Saturday April 22 2017, @01:21AM (7 children)
Why were there no silent testing of the lab? send some known positives and known negatives together with fake criminal cases. It would have spotted the faked results really quickly. Radon test labs are tested this way. So why not drug testing labs?
Which makes me think there's definitely more actors in this case running the show behind the curtains. And a good reason to be able to have a retrial not over the top punishments. This lab technician may be a criminal but it can only be enabled on this scale by some kind of supporting infrastructure.
As some other poster hinted in regards to conscientious in programming, It may be connected to the culture of diligence and honesty one is brought up in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @01:47AM (3 children)
The objective of crime labs is to please there pay masters, not come up with correct results, the objective of the state is to convict someone, in the end it does not matter who or if they are guilty or innocent, my apologizes if I hash you out on actual reality but people particularly those that work for the state are not concerned with justice or truth or anything you think they might and should be concerned about, they are self interested actors in a capitalist system so they lie cheat and steal like all the rest
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @05:25AM (1 child)
Yep. I think I posted this last time this came up, but while she's guilty, the whole capitalist system enabled her.
She was merely doing what her employers wanted any employee to do: get the customer what she's paying for.
The state is the customer, and the state is paying for convictions.
I would bet anything that this lab was chosen because it delivered the most convictions over competing labs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @07:31AM
The power of greenspan compels you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:56PM
According to the English legal system the US adopted, the state's interest is purely in conviction, no matter whether the accused is actually innocent.
It is up to the accused to hire his own experts to disprove the state lab. The jury will then choose which side to believe and in the end the lawyers all backslap each other and head to the bar (hah!).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Saturday April 22 2017, @03:00AM (2 children)
You misunderstand the purpose of the system. The system's objective has always been to identify a class (or classes) of people and put as many of them as possible in jail. Unfortunately, due to TV and movies, juries started to demand actual evidence, so the system had to find another way to produce such evidence.
None of the people ultimately responsible for this mess will suffer any consequences for it. Those are the people who looked the other way when one person was able to produce an unbelievable number of positive tests, or those who rewarded this "productivity".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @07:37AM (1 child)
You seem unfamiliar with either class or the system, more than 90% of cases never go before a jury and those that do are controlled very tightly by prosecutors, most people make deals because of the overwhelming violence of the state, they have a monopoly on violence for a reason and it is not to protect you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @08:14AM
Government and its agents most certainly do not have a monopoly on violence here in the USA, though they would very much like you to think they do.
You've heard of the Bundy ranching family? About the Battle of Bunkerville where armed BLM agents pointed loaded weapons at Americans, Americans who were also armed but didn't back down, and which ended in the BLM leaving behind the stolen property in question and fleeing?
After the Bundy family members were acquitted in Oregon likely due to jury nullification (over the later Malheur preserve protest), all the stops are being pulled out in Nevada federal courts [oathkeepers.org]. A conviction won't stop even individual people from realizing how powerful they can when they start treating government agents like the criminals they are.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:16AM (4 children)
This wasn't a case of one individual cheating and falsifying tests. The SYSTEM accepted, and even rewarded, her conduct.
I went into the Navy when drug testing was just beginning. Initially, you peed in a bottle, your name was put on the bottle, the bottle went off somewhere, and the results came back. It wasn't hard to tamper with the samples, if you were either a corpsman, or you were a corpsman's buddy or something. I got a result back that had stuff in it that I never even HEARD OF!!
There were enough false positives, that the military went to using TWO bottles per sample, both marked with identities. A positive result was routinely challenged, and if the matching sample was clean, then that false positive was dismissed as bogus.
In forensics - is there any checking? A single sample sent to a lab is "tested", and used as "evidence"? There is no opportunity to challenge the result? No second sample to go back to? Where and how does the system self-check itself?
Is Mass making changes to the SYSTEM, or is it merely trying to correct a personnel error? If/when the state sends it's forensic evidence to two or more labs, to be independently tested by at least two lab technicians, then the system might be considered "reliable".
There will be times when there isn't enough of a sample to divide into two samples. Those instances should be inherently less convincing in court, than those cases where two independent labs find the same results.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:36AM (3 children)
System works fine for lynching black people. It's not for justice.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:44AM (1 child)
So, stand up and insist the system be fixed. If that's the best you can do, maybe you need to be lynched.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @05:30AM
The system is beyond fixing at this point. Do you think people like Sessions will listen to people standing up and insisting the system be fixed?
You're on the side of justice today, but I've seen enough posts to know that your moments of clarity do not last long.
All it takes is for something to (1 frame flash #MAGA) get your authoritarian follower side going, and you'll post just about the polar opposite of what you just wrote.
Please hang on to this moment of clarity.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 22 2017, @11:57AM
Is there any data to support that she made tests for black people falsely positive more often than for other groups?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @07:48PM
Fake news? Anyone...? Anyone...?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @03:48PM
Nah, couldn't happen in the US.