STORY: "Can Defendants Convicted by Tainted Evidence Ever Truly Be Free," by Britni de la Cretaz, published by Pacific Standard on April 6, 2017.
SUB-HEADING: "As Massachusetts begins to unravel the fallout of 40,000 convictions obtained with tainted evidence, a bigger question looms: Can the state really do justice by those defendants?"
GIST: “You
know, there’s a lot of psychological things they do to you in
[prison],” says Timothy Taylor, “just to try and break you down.” Taylor,
50, is one of the “Dookhan defendants”: the people who were convicted
with evidence tested by chemist Annie Dookhan at the Hinton Drug Lab in
Boston. Between 2003 and 2012, these 24,000 cases, spanning seven
districts, accounted for nearly one in six drug cases in Massachusetts
over the course of a decade. The majority of them were for simple
possession. Dookhan was arrested in 2012 after it was revealed that she had fabricated evidence, forged signatures, and altered drug samples. In 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three to five years in prison, with two years probation. She was paroled in 2016. Dookhan
was not the only drug technician to fabricate evidence. Sonja Farak of
the Amherst Drug Lab was arrested within months of Dookhan, for gross
misconduct spanning the course of a decade. The offenses ranged from
stealing to using and manufacturing drugs in the lab. Between Dookhan
and Farak, over 40,000 convictions were procured with tainted evidence. Now,
four years after Dookhan’s arrest, prosecutors’ hands have been forced
by the state’s highest court into clearing this mess up.........The
Massachusetts drug lab scandal has exposed a rift in the way the
justice system works. For the state, this is the result of two bad
apples and not enough oversight in the labs, something that’s already
been fixed with the removal of the two problematic lab technicians. But
for advocates and many defendants, making this right is not as simple as
deciding whether to dismiss the tainted cases; they’re seeking
reparations, and an acknowledgment of harm done from the state. They
also see these two technicians as but a symptom of a much larger problem
that is rooted in the justice system itself, and the ways law
enforcement and society perceive drug crimes......... "Taylor
was serving a five- to seven-year sentence on a 2009 trafficking
conviction he’d already been working on appealing when he found out
about Dookhan’s arrest. He checked his paperwork and Dookhan’s name was
signed on the drug certificate. Taylor maintains his innocence in the
case, explaining that he pleaded guilty because he was facing 16 to 30
years in prison if the case went to trial. Faced with a sentence of that
length, “I pled out; I took the five to seven.” But in light of
Dookhan’s conviction and the questionable nature of any drug lab testing
performed at the Hinton drug lab, Taylor withdrew his guilty plea. He
is currently waiting re-trial.........Taylor is evidence of the collateral consequences Dookhan defendants face. Since his release from prison three
years ago, he has been homeless. His public-housing application is on
hold until he appeals his conviction. The only work he’s been able to
find is flipping burgers at Five Guys. When he was arrested, he says he
was in the process of trying to adopt his son; while he was
incarcerated, another family did just that. Before his arrest, he says
he had been stably housed, looking to open his own restaurant, and doing
advocacy and education around rights for former offenders. “I used to
go in front of the Boston Common in front of 11 delegates from different
states to say this is the problem, [Criminal Offender Record
Information reform] needs to be addressed,” Taylor says. The roadblocks
he now faces are ones he’s all too familiar with.......... But Jason Lydon of the No Drug Arrests Collective disagrees. “We
don’t know what deal people would or would not have taken based on the
fact that they were being told that their drugs were being evaluated by
these drug labs that were involved in this scandal,” he says. Taylor is
adamant: “Had I known Annie Dookhan was doing what she was doing, I
would never [have] pleaded guilty.” The
state sees itself as a victim of Dookhan and has said as much in its
arguments, citing the time and budgets it feels have been squandered to
re-examine such a large number of cases. “That kind of mindset makes me
think the state will do the bare minimum possible,” says Oren Nimni, an
attorney at Community Law Office who has advised clients with Dookhan
convictions. Drug
reform advocates like Lydon say the real victims here are not what they
see as a corrupt legal system, but the lives of those who are affected
by, in Lydon’s words, “a system built to uphold white supremacy.” The
NDAC is pushing for all of the cases touched by both Dookhan and Farak
to be dismissed, but they’re also asking for more than that. “There
needs to be a clearing of records, but also reparations,” Lydon says. They’re
calling on the state to provide financial reparations for individuals
who were incarcerated, as well as a complete effort by prosecutors and
district attorney’s offices to ensure that Dookhan defendants who lost
public housing are re-homed, and any whose convictions triggered
immigration issues to have said investigations halted. “[Defendants]
could conceivably seek [reparations], but they would have a pretty high
burden of proving that they were factually innocent, which would be the
standard for compensation under the state’s wrongful conviction law,”
Wark says."
The entire story can be found at:
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/
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/
