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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: 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.