PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I have been posting on the tens of thousands of Doukhan and Farak cases years ago - when signs of the impending attacks on Mass's criminal justice system were just beginning to appear. Little idea did I have (or did Governor Deval Patrick likely have for that matter) that some day - in the midst of a presidential campaign - these cases would rear their ugly head. Similarly, Kamala Harris may not have realized that some of her decisions as Attorney General of California - including a case involving Debra Madden (a lab technician) - would come back to haunt her. This claw from the past was subject of a recent post on this Blog which ran at the link below under the heading: "Crime lab technician Deborah Madden: California: How did a crime lab scandal involving a technician who allegedly took home cocaine from the lab, possibly tainting evidence and raising concerns about hundreds of cases emerge almost a decade later to threaten the aspirations of a presidential candidate? Read on! (HL);
https://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2019/03/crime-lab-technician-deborah-madden.html Joe Biden has also received a 'criminal justice' knocks from the past in relation to matters such as his alleged contributions to the war on drugs - and sentencing policies alleged to have contributed to mass incarceration. Lots of grist for our mill.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Five months after the Dookhan scandal broke, another Massachusetts state lab chemist, Sonja Farak, was arrested for tampering with evidence as well as heroin and cocaine possession. Patrick quickly assured the media: “The most important take-home, I think, is that no individual’s due process rights were compromised” by Farak’s misconduct. Actually, Farak had personally abused narcotics from her first day on the job in 2004 — sometimes even cooking crack cocaine on the single burner in the lab and snorting meth and cocaine in courthouse bathrooms when she was called to testify. She detailed her drug adventures in hundreds of pages of diaries, including the day she was “freaking out” and “crawling on the floor… trying to find crack, which I thought was there.” The state attorney general’s office insisted that Farak had only started consuming narcotics at work a few months before her arrest and blocked all efforts to expose her drug binges since 2004. Massachusetts state lawyers also withheld reports “showing that the machines used for testing in Farak’s lab were issuing faulty reports” that could lead to unjustified convictions. Though Patrick, whose second term ended in early 2015, had promised speedy justice to the wrongly convicted, state officials scorned due process and decency. Slate reported in 2015 that “district attorneys take the position that it is not their responsibility to help identify Dookhan or Farak defendants."
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COMMENTARY: "Deval Patrick’s Forgotten Catastrophic Coverups," by James Bovard, published by USA Today on November 27, 2019.
GIST: "Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick entered the presidential race last week. Patrick is touted as a centrist Democrat and is reportedly former president Barack Obama’s favorite candidate. Patrick is also the only candidate in the race responsible for disastrous coverups at both the federal and state level. Patrick was assistant attorney general for Civil Rights in the Clinton administration. "........................................"The lab scandal continued: Five months after the Dookhan scandal broke, another Massachusetts state lab chemist, Sonja Farak, was arrested for tampering with evidence as well as heroin and cocaine possession. Patrick quickly assured the media: “The most important take-home, I think, is that no individual’s due process rights were compromised” by Farak’s misconduct. Actually, Farak had personally abused narcotics from her first day on the job in 2004 — sometimes even cooking crack cocaine on the single burner in the lab and snorting meth and cocaine in courthouse bathrooms when she was called to testify. She detailed her drug adventures in hundreds of pages of diaries, including the day she was “freaking out” and “crawling on the floor… trying to find crack, which I thought was there.” The state attorney general’s office insisted that Farak had only started consuming narcotics at work a few months before her arrest and blocked all efforts to expose her drug binges since 2004. Massachusetts state lawyers also withheld reports “showing that the machines used for testing in Farak’s lab were issuing faulty reports” that could lead to unjustified convictions. Though Patrick, whose second term ended in early 2015, had promised speedy justice to the wrongly convicted, state officials scorned due process and decency. Slate reported in 2015 that “district attorneys take the position that it is not their responsibility to help identify Dookhan or Farak defendants….[P]rosecutors have no special duty to notify defendants that their convictions might have been obtained with evidence that was falsified by government employees.” A ProPublica investigation noted in 2016 that “it took four years for prosecutors to even attempt to systematically notify the thousands of defendants that their convictions might have been won unfairly.” Most of the victims could not afford lawyers to challenge their convictions, resulting in innocent people spending more months and years in prison. In 2016, a judge condemned two prosecutors overseeing the challenged convictions for their “intentional, repeated, prolonged and deceptive withholding of evidence from the defendants.” More than 61,000 drug convictions were eventually overturned due to the state laboratory abuses. Deval Patrick does not bear responsibility for either Ruby Ridge or the Massachusetts drug lab debacles, but he does bear responsibility for his responses. He compounded the first scandal, failing to stand up for the Weavers’ civil rights. And he failed to honor his pledge for speedy relief of injustice in the second scandal.
That’s not a record that qualifies Patrick for the presidency."
The entire commentary can be read at:
http://jimbovard.com/blog/
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;
