Boston – A year after discovering an explosive scandal at a drug
lab, Massachusetts is still picking up the pieces. As of September, over
330 prison inmates had been released from custody and at least 1,000 cases
had been dismissed or not prosecuted because of either tainted evidence
or other issues pertaining to the lab's closure.
Annie Dookhan has been accused of faking test results, tampering with evidence
and routinely failing to follow proper testing protocols. With the Boston
legal system thrown into turmoil and with thousands of challenges from
defense attorneys, the legal community is bracing itself for the long
ride ahead. Many are expecting that it could take years before the cases
personally handled by Dookhan are cleared.
In mid-August, an attorney appointed by Governor Deval Patrick to help
establish a database of Dookhan's cases said that over 40,000 defendants
may have been affected, which is 6,000 more than officials initial estimates.
Matthew Segal, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union
of Massachusetts said, "Forget having your day in court, forget having
a lawyer – it's taken us this long just to get a number on the
number of cases that she tested." Segal also said that it's been
very damaging to the integrity of the justice system.
By all accounts, Dookhan, 35, took pride in her reputation as the most
productive chemist in the lab, and she ultimately became the go-to person
for prosecutors in drug cases. However, prosecutors now figure that Dookhan's
reputation was entirely built on fraud. Dookhan told the state police
that instead of testing all of the substances turned over to her by the
Department of Public Health laboratory; sometimes she would test only
a fraction of them but certify all of them as drugs, according to authorities.
Dookhan pleaded not guilty and her lawyer had not responded to the requests
for comment.
This public scandal lead to the state's public health commissioner's
resignation, the resignation of the lab's manager, and the firing
of another manager. The catastrophic effects of this case have echoed
throughout the state and the state's public defender says that the
number of affected cases may even be higher since management and protocol
lapses at the lab could have enabled other chemists to veer away from
protocol or falsify their results as well. Defense attorneys tend to agree
that all test results from the lab over the last ten years should be questioned.
Chemists and lab technicians have a moral obligation to follow strict protocol
when testing evidence in criminal cases. It's a scary thought to imagine
that one chemist can impact as many as 40,000 criminal cases, but in the
case of Annie Dookhan, she has proved that anything is a possibility.
At Taylor & Taylor, we are aware that criminal cases frequently hinge
on scientific evidence, but we are also aware that scientific evidence
can be affected by human error or an outright disregard for justice.
If you have been accused of committing a crime, we urge you to contact a
St. Augustine criminal defense attorney from our firm right away. We are always searching for flaws in a prosecutor's
case, violations of our clients' constitutional rights and irregular
laboratory testing procedures. With all of these defense possibilities
in mind and more, we will stop at nothing to fight for your rights.
Contact our office today by calling (888) 387-9958.