"Convicted former state chemist Annie Dookhan was involved in more than 24,000 cases in which people were convicted or had other adverse dispositions, the ACLU of Massachusetts said Thursday.The numbers were provided by prosecutors in response to ACLU litigation. The ACLU said that in the vast majority of the cases, the defendants had not received any official notice that Dookhan had been involved in their case. The “tainted convictions have brought years of jail time, as well as harsh collateral consequences, including deportation from the United States and difficulty finding employment or housing,” the organization said in a statement. The number of cases does not reflect those tainted by a second state chemist at a second state drug lab. A report by the attorney general’s office released earlier this month said that Sonja Farak’s actions would “no doubt have implications for many cases.” “Over the last decade, Massachusetts has convicted thousands and thousands of people of drug crimes based on tainted evidence,” ACLU of Massachusetts legal director Matthew Segal said.
Is The Age of Progressive Prosecutors Over?
21 hours ago
