Annie Dookhan Sentence

[O Really]

Yeah, I know -this was addressed in an earlier thread but I didn't remember what.
Annie Dookhan, chemist, falsified or faked drug screens affecting maybe up to 40,000 defendants. Some who really were guilty will get out because of her work. Some who were never guilty will deal with a loss of some years of their lives. She pled guilty, got 3-5.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/1 ... story.html

[O Really]

I wonder how many of her supervisors plus cops and DAs knew that she was the "good" drug analyst to go to in order to get a conviction.

Hard to imagine they wouldn't know, except they undoubtedly didn't want to "know." I doubt the DAs probably knew the extent to which she was, ummm, "creative," though. Risk of getting caught and having the mess they've got now would be pretty high.

[O Really]

The consequences of getting caught and having the mess they've got now are very high, but we don't know what the risk of getting caught is, do we?

No, but we do know that for most of those defendants, particularly the ones who weren't guilty, some lawyer would be trying to discredit the test, along with anything else they used for defense. We know that it would have been pretty easy for a statistical analysis to show her results differed from others in several ways. I'd guess it would be a lot like planting evidence. A lot may get by with it, but it's still a high risk action, from a prosecutor's standpoint.

[Boatrocker]

"...Dookhan was involved in more than 40,000 cases at the lab from 2003-2012..." She was either very good at disguising her shenanigans, the defense attorneys were very bad at discovering them, or the "justice" system is so broken that this kind of thing happens all the time thus making it difficult for the Dookhans to stand out.

I'm going with "justice system broken."

I'd love to see some of the "didn't want to know" cops and DAs be held accountable, too, but they almost certainly won't be. Sure, they are frustrated that so many cases are now tainted, but it's not like they've suffered any personal harm from it.

Cops rarely suffer any personal consequences for such shit as this. DAs and other officers of the court, virtually never.