COMMENTARY:"Massachusetts' drug problem: Twin scandals have tainted as many as 42,000 state convictions. The only thing to do is exonerate everyone," by Mark Joseph Stein, published by Slate, on October 1, 2016. Thanks to CSIDDS (Forensics in Focus) for bringing this commentary to our attention.
PHOTO CAPTION: "Annie
Dookhan, a former chemist at the Hinton State Laboratory Institute in
Massachusetts, stands during her arraignment on Jan. 30, 2013."
GIST: "Annie Dookhan’s
goal
was simple: Get drug users “off the street” and into prison. Dookhan
took pride in her work at a state forensics drug lab, where she tested
evidence seized from alleged drug offenders to determine whether the
substances were illegal. But Dookhan was more interested in imprisoning
defendants than discovering whether they were actually guilty. So she
falsified tens of thousands of reports, often marking results as
“positive” without testing a substance. When whistleblowers reported
Dookhan, the lab silenced them, then covered up her misconduct and
allowed her to continue her work. Over her nine-year career, Dookhan
tainted the convictions of tens of thousands of people—most of them poor, a majority of them charged with mere possession and then
coerced into plea deals. A series of rulings by Massachusetts’ highest court has helped some
of these “Dookhan defendants” overturn their wrongful convictions. But
24,391 of them remain unaided, some still in prison or on parole, others
denied housing and employment on account of their criminal records. A
sizable number have already been deported. The Massachusetts court has
found that each of these defendants has a right to a hearing—yet by one
estimate, appealing the remaining convictions case-by-case would take 48
years and stretch the public defenders’ resources to a breaking point.
How, then, can the state possibly restore justice to these 24,391
defendants convicted on the basis of potentially falsified evidence? The American Civil Liberties Union has an idea: Overturn their convictions. Every single one of them. Immediately. Last week, the ACLU filed
a forceful, exasperated brief
with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court in the
state, urging the justices to vacate every “Dookhan-tainted conviction”
in one fell swoop. If that remedy sounds extreme, so is the crisis:
24,391 people being denied due process every minute of every day in a
state that cannot afford to fulfill its legal obligations to them.
Meanwhile,
a second Massachusetts crime lab scandal looms: Sonja Farak, a former employee at the Amherst crime lab with duties similar to Dookhan’s, was
convicted of regularly stealing drug samples and conducting analyses while
blazingly high
on crack cocaine, methamphetamine, amphetamine, ketamine, ecstasy, and
LSD. Farak’s egregious misconduct may have tainted up to 18,000 cases. That leaves Massachusetts staring down as many as 42,000 wrongful
convictions. The Supreme Judicial Court initially expected prosecutors
to help locate and assist Dookhan defendants but many have done the
opposite, actively thwarting advocacy groups’ efforts. When Dookhan
litigation began, some district attorneys were happy to vacate any
possession sentence stained by Dookhan’s misconduct. But others fought
tooth and nail to keep Dookhan defendants behind bars, vigorously
opposing motions for relief, explicitly acknowledging that their goal is
to protect convictions, not secure justice. At one hearing, a justice
asked a district attorney whether his office had an obligation to inform
Dookhan defendants that they had been convicted based on possibly
falsified evidence. The answer? No. The DAs’ resistance is especially remarkable given the state Supreme Judicial Court’s
firm declaration
that Dookhan defendants have a right to challenge their convictions. In
fact, the justices have even found that any defendants whose evidence
was analyzed by Dookhan are “entitled to a conclusive presumption that
egregious government misconduct occurred” in their case. But prosecutors are not especially eager to disseminate that
information. ........On Friday, I spoke with Matthew Segal, legal director at the ACLU of
Massachusetts, about his request for a sweeping resolution to the
Dookhan scandal. “This is the right remedy,” he told me, “because everything else has
been tried and it just hasn’t worked. We now know that we’ve only
scratched the surface of the cases that Dookhan tainted. There simply
aren’t enough lawyers in Massachusetts, or enough resources, to continue
to litigate these cases one at a time.” Segal also expressed remorse that the Dookhan scandal had to be solved through litigation rather than cooperation. “This was and is a perfect opportunity for the state to walk away
from tainted drug cases that weren’t really doing any good for anyone
anyway,” he said. “Public officials in Massachusetts are quite willing
to say that we can’t arrest our way out of the problem of drug abuse.
And that’s true—but at the same time, we need to act on that belief.”......... I asked Segal why he thought the state remained
so committed to keeping wrongful convictions on these defendants’
records. “It’s as though the state is almost addicted to prosecuting its way
out of the problem of drug abuse,” he said. “The addiction is so strong
that the state won’t even walk away from convictions tainted by fraud.
And they
could walk away. Prosecutors could walk away from these cases right now.” Segal sighed. “But they won’t.”
The entire commentary can be found at:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/09/the_annie_dookhan_convictions_need_to_be_overturned_now.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
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.
