COMMENTARY: "How many more Annie Dookhans are out there?," published by myfoxboston.com on January 22, 2103.
GIST: "One of the first concepts law students learn is called the fruit of the poison tree. In simple terms, it means that evidence obtained from an illegal arrest, unreasonable search, or coercive interrogation must be excluded from trial. The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine is also intended to deter police from using illegal means to obtain evidence. It is one of the pillars of our legal system. If you apply this principle to the ever expanding state drug lab scandal, we just took two big bites out of two bad apples. What makes this worse is that chemists Annie Dookhan and Sonya (Sonja) Farak were part of the system that's intended to test the veracity of evidence. Yet, these two women are charged with poisoning the tree. I hate to say I told you so, but… Actually, I now wish I had never said, "How many more Annie Dookhans are out there?"......... Dookhan and Farak are part of a long chain that is the prosecutorial arm of the state's criminal justice system. This same system isnow investigating itself. It's time to bring in an outside arborist, the feds, before this tree bears more poison fruit."
http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/20642513/2013/01/21/how-many-more-annie-dookhans-are-out-there
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
