"State says chemist at drug lab imperiled evidence" by Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, August 30, 2012
A chemist at a state drug-testing laboratory is accused of circumventing standard procedures in the handling of drug evidence, lapses that could jeopardize thousands of drug prosecutions and convictions in Massachusetts over the past several years, the head of the State Police said Thursday.
State Police Colonel Timothy P. Alben said the Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Jamaica Plain, which had conducted about half of the state’s drug testing, was shut down Thursday as investigators probe the extent of the “malfeasance.”
District attorneys across the state who used the facility for local prosecutions are being asked to review all cases in which the chemist was involved to determine whether evidence was mishandled.
The concern is twofold: that the state will be faced with the cost of retrying hundreds of defendants who may seek to have convictions thrown out because of faulty drug testing and that some people were falsely convicted and imprisoned, based on errors in drug testing....
In liberal, Democratic Massachusetts?
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"E-mails portray state drug lab in chaos; Employees write of frustrations, heavy workloads" by Kay Lazar and John R. Ellement | Globe Staff, September 14, 2012
Internal e-mails from chemists and supervisors at a troubled state drug laboratory describe a staff drowning in work, instances of misplaced evidence in crime cases, and mounting frustrations over the Patrick administration’s seeming indifference.
It really is TIME to END the DRUG WAR!
“The situation in the evidence office is past the breaking point,” reads a Sept. 11, 2008, e-mail to Julianne Nassif, director of analytical chemistry at the Jamaica Plain lab, from an employee whose name was blacked out by the source of the documents. The documents were obtained Friday by the Globe from a source with direct knowledge of the lab’s operations.
Nassif was fired Wednesday, and a top official at the lab resigned, in a widening scandal over mishandled drug samples in a lab run until July by the Department of Public Health. Officials fear that the mishandling may have affected thousands of cases over the past nine years, raising the specter of unwarranted convictions, errant deportations, and the wrongful taking of property.
And where, oh, where, is that GOVERNMENT that CARES SO MUCH ABOUT YOU and YOUR RIGHTS? Never mind the BENEFITS of ILLEGAL DRUGS when it comes to filling state coffers with seized property and expanded tyranny.
And remember, readers, this isn't some right-wing region of Republicans. This is LIBERAL, DEMOCRAT MASSACHUSETTS we are talking about here.
The 2008 e-mail describes one instance of drug samples mistakenly placed in an outgoing bin without being analyzed, and another in which staff spent hours looking for a sample that finally turned up in a different division’s office.
The documents span 5½ years, from October 2006 through March of this year, when Annie Dookhan, a chemist at the center of the lab scandal, resigned. Investigators have provided few details about Dookhan’s alleged wrongdoing, but said she has admitted to some malfeasance involving mishandling drug evidence.
The e-mails repeatedly recount pleas from district attorneys to lab workers to expedite cases, amid a growing backlog estimated in a March 5, 2012 e-mail as being at least nine months long.
Like I have been saying for years, the state and prosecutors only care about their conviction records and advancing the agenda.
If there was EVER A SITUATION that PROVED the WAR on DRUGS should be abolished THIS IS IT!
In a Sept. 4, 2008, e-mail, Nassif writes to an unidentified lab employee that she understands the worker’s frustration and that she had scheduled a meeting with “the Commissioner” and “Undersecretary Grossman” later that month to discuss the issues. While Nassif did not use their full names, she is apparently referring to state Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach, whose agency ran the drug lab until State Police assumed control this summer, and former undersecretary of public safety John Grossman. What, if any, solutions were discussed in that meeting remains unclear, but an e-mail a few weeks later to Nassif from an employee warns that staff shortages and lack of space to store evidence had become “desperate.”
“It is very discouraging,” the note concludes, “to watch the situation get worse month by month and hear of no plans to improve things.”
***************************************
Defense attorneys briefed by the Patrick administration on the lab scandal said that Dookhan, the chemist, allegedly ignored safeguards designed to ensure fair trials in drug cases and tampered with evidence in ways that may force dismissal of thousands of cases in Eastern Massachusetts.
Oh, all those convictions have to be revoked. There is simply no question about it. The evidence has been compromised, case closed.
In a letter to members of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, association president Max D. Stern said his group along with federal and state public defenders were given insights into why the State Police have notified prosecutors that 60,000 drug samples, representing 34,000 criminal cases, may now be tainted.
“The lab analyst in question had unsupervised access to the drug safe and evidence room, and tampered with evidence bags, altered the actual weight of the drugs, did not calibrate machines correctly, and altered samples so that they would test as drugs when they were not,’’ Stern wrote....
In other words, THROW IT ALL OUT!
Prosecutors in drug cases must be able to prove that substances seized by police are scientifically determined to be illicit drugs and have not been tampered with during the months, and often years, that pass between arrest and trial.
Seized drugs were taken by police to the Jamaica Plain lab, where they were supposed to be kept in a safe and signed out by chemists for testing. Afterward, the drugs were shipped back to police departments.
The impact of the scandal was highlighted Friday in Norfolk Superior Court, where Judge Mitchell Kaplan declined to rule on a request for freedom by David A. Danielli, who pleaded guilty this year to possessing 500 oxycodone pills. The evidence in Danielli’s case was tested in 2011 by Dookhan. Danielli’s case is among 90 Norfolk cases considered among the first wave of tainted prosecutions. The judge said his refusal was procedural and not based on the merits. He said Danielli, whose request for freedom has the support of Norfolk prosecutors, must go before the judge who accepted the guilty plea.
Kaplan’s ruling disappointed Danielli, who was sent back to the Norfolk House of Correction to serve more of his three-year sentence. “It was heartbreaking to see him sitting there,’’ said his daughter, Kristen Danielli. “I believe my dad was put in a position where he felt he needed to make that decision [to plead guilty] for the benefit of his family.’’
The state never does that to people.
Defense attorney John T. Martin said he would file papers in Suffolk Superior Court, where the judge who heard the case now sits, and ask that jurist to quickly grant Danielli a hearing. Martin applauded Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office for supporting the request.
Administration officials said Dookhan’s supervisors missed obvious signs of problems. In 2004, for example, Dookhan processed 9,239 samples while her peers tested an average of only 2,938 samples.
"Police chiefs, justice system brace for fallout from drug lab scandal" September 17, 2012|Mark Arsenault
Or not.
Law enforcement officials are grappling with revelations that Annie Dookhan, for nine years a chemist at a state drug lab, may have contaminated drug evidence, mixed samples from unrelated cases, and manipulated drugs to increase weight, thus stiffening defendants’ penalties.
Dookhan is believed to have handled about 60,000 samples, potentially affecting 34,000 criminal cases.
Legal specialists warn there may be more fallout to come: Immigrants convicted of drug charges may have already been deported. Property seized in drug cases may have already been sold off. And even jury selection in future drug trials could be affected.
“There are so many different avenues of collateral consequences,” said David J. Breen, a Boston University School of Law professor and former prosecutor in New York and Massachusetts....
Yes, and when you think of it, it is nothing the state can rectify -- other than taxpayers being forced to foot a bill for something they had nothing to do with. Once again, it is your state serving you, Massachusetts.
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Related:
I guess he is collateral damage, 'eh?
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Governor Deval Patrick named a prominent former prosecutor Thursday to lead a team of law enforcement officials and defense lawyers marshalled to investigate fears of widespread tampering at a state drug laboratory.
That announcement came shortly before two men were freed from prison because of concerns that evidence in their cases may have been tainted at the Jamaica Plain lab by a chemist who handled 60,000 drug samples during nine years.
David Meier, Patrick’s choice to lead the investigation, said he would approach the daunting task not as a prosecutor, defense attorney, or judge, but “as an advocate for fairness and due process on behalf of the criminal justice system.”
“The job of the office is to make sure no one falls through the cracks,” Patrick said at a Beacon Hill press conference with Meier, who spent 20 years as a Suffolk County prosecutor before entering private practice.
The alleged mishandling of drug samples by chemist Annie Dookhan at the lab, run at the time by the state Department of Public Health, may have jeopardized thousands of cases, officials fear.
If widespread tampering is confirmed, law enforcement officials and defense attorneys have said, thousands who were convicted of drug crimes or pleaded guilty to reduced charges to avoid long prison terms may be released early.
Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, which had begun an investigation of Dookhan’s actions, said Thursday that it would expand its investigation of the drug analysis unit at the lab. That review will focus on cases beyond those handled by Dookhan and will hire independent forensic experts to guide the inquiry.
“Our review is focused on whether any failures at the laboratory impacted the reliability of the results on cases beyond those handled directly by the chemist,” a top Coakley aide said in a letter to the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association and the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the public defender agency.
The consequences of the unfolding scandal were evident in Dedham Thursday, where David Danielli and Mark Troisi were released by judges with the backing of Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office. Prosecutors concluded drug evidence in the cases was so compromised by Dookhan’s alleged mishandling that they could not ethically support the continued imprisonment of Danielli and Troisi.
It sure is.
According to court records, Danielli pleaded guilty to drug possession this year after Quincy police in 2011 found 500 suspected oxycodone pills in a fake aerosol bottle in his car. Dookhan in June 2011 tested the pills, among 90 batches of samples initially identified as being mishandled by the chemist. State Police have since concluded she may have tainted drug samples dating to 2003, and the release of Troisi falls into that class of cases.
(Blog editor simply shakes his head)
According to court records, Dedham police obtained a search warrant for Troisi’s home, entering May 6, 2010. They allegedly found 25 pounds of suspected marijuana, 314 grams of cocaine, 58 diazepam pills, three digital scales, plastic baggies, and $7,796 in cash.
Dookhan tested those drugs in 2010, according to records. In January, Troisi pleaded guilty to drug charges and was sentenced to five years and one day in state prison. In court papers asking for Troisi’s release, defense attorneys said prosecutors notified them that Dookhan handled the evidence, and it was now “irreparably tainted.”
On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fishman vacated the guilty plea and allowed Troisi to walk out of the courthouse.
Both men still technically face charges, but cases relying on Dookhan-tested evidence are expected to unravel.
David Traub, a spokesman for Morrissey, said prosecutors are awaiting results from the Coakley’s criminal investigation before making a final decision in Dookhan-related cases. But until that investigation is complete, Traub said, “If we don’t have evidence, there shouldn’t be a liberty issue.’’
Patrick declined to answer directly at the press conference whether he is concerned about prisoners committing new crimes if released early.
“The general public wants justice to be done in given cases,” he said. “That means the evidence has got to be solid. It’s got to stand up. And in cases where the evidence doesn’t stand up, our system is about dealing with that.”
Those words sound so hollow.
**********************************
Meier will be paid $12,500 a month, the same as a Cabinet secretary. It is not clear how long his job will take, but Patrick said he expects the state will need to hire paralegals and other support staff and will need to seek additional funding from the Legislature.
Yup, and TAXPAYERS have to PICK UP the TAB for the corruption. How galling!
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"Drug defendants freed in lab scandal" September 23, 2012|Andrea Estes and Scott Allen
Suffolk County judges have freed at least 11 defendants facing drug charges, almost all with lengthy criminal records, since early September, in the first wave of potentially thousands of cases that have been gravely compromised by the burgeoning scandal at the state drug lab.
All the defendants were in jail awaiting trial on charges related to selling cocaine, heroin, or other drugs, but judges agreed to release them or drastically reduce their bail because evidence in their cases was analyzed by Annie Dookhan, the state chemist accused of altering test results and mishandling evidence. Charges against the defendants were not dropped, but defense attorneys say it is unlikely their clients can ever be convicted, based on evidence that could be tainted.
“We have an obligation to protect every defendant’s constitutional rights, and we embrace it,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said. “But we can’t lose sight of the massive public safety implications here. A large number of dangerous individuals could be released right back to our streets and neighborhoods.”
All the defendants were in jail awaiting trial on charges related to selling cocaine, heroin, or other drugs, but judges agreed to release them or drastically reduce their bail because evidence in their cases was analyzed by Annie Dookhan, the state chemist accused of altering test results and mishandling evidence. Charges against the defendants were not dropped, but defense attorneys say it is unlikely their clients can ever be convicted, based on evidence that could be tainted.
“We have an obligation to protect every defendant’s constitutional rights, and we embrace it,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said. “But we can’t lose sight of the massive public safety implications here. A large number of dangerous individuals could be released right back to our streets and neighborhoods.”
Some of the prisoners who could soon be released include “high-level dealers, violent felons, and armed gunmen,” Conley said.
I know it sounds horrible, but it is time to LEGALIZE!
A Suffolk County drug defendant who had already pleaded guilty, David Huffman, will ask a judge Monday to set him free because of Dookhan’s involvement. In Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, judges have already agreed to similar requests by two men serving time on drug charges, including David Danielli, who went free this week, 2½ years early, on charges related to selling oxycodone pills.
The releases begin as Attorney General Martha Coakley launches an investigation into whether the problems with the now-closed state lab, which was run by the Department of Public Health in Jamaica Plain, go beyond the alleged mishandling of up to 60,000 drug samples by Dookhan. Standard practice required that two chemists sign off on each analysis, raising questions about whether any of her co-workers failed to catch the errors or botched their own testing, said a source with direct knowledge of the lab’s operation.
Or it was a... gasp... conspiracy.
“This is one of the largest criminal [problems] in the history of the Commonwealth,” said Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey. “It will shake the entire foundation of the system. We’re faced with very difficult and complex decisions on thousands of cases. Our focus is on people who are wrongfully incarcerated, though I’m not suggesting they are not guilty. If you can’t use the evidence, a lot of the cases are going to be toast.”
Yup, because I NO LONGER BELIEVE the AUTHORITIES regarding ANY MATTER. The LIES and COVER-UPS have gone on for WAY TOO LONG!
Prosecutors and defense attorneys alike say that it is not yet clear how many cases may have been compromised and whether Dookhan’s mere signature on lab results will require the analysis to be thrown out. But sorting the issues out on a case-by-case basis, they say, will be time-consuming and potentially expensive.
“We’re giving each case and each defendant the attention they deserve, but with tens of thousands of samples potentially compromised, that approach won’t be sustainable for long,” Conley said. “That’s half our annual caseload.”
Dookhan resigned in March as state officials moved to fire her amid allegations that she had improperly removed drug evidence from the storage area. But in July, State Police investigators discovered that Dookhan’s potential misconduct was far greater than previously believed and that she may have deliberately altered the weight of drug samples and purposely mishandled samples for reasons that are still unclear.
The state lab has been closed since August, and a lab supervisor has been fired while Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach and a second lab supervisor have resigned over the failure of supervision. A third lab official, Dookhan’s direct supervisor, is facing civil service disciplinary proceedings. Dookhan, who has not been charged with anything yet, has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
But Dookhan’s alleged misconduct has cast a pall over thousands of drug convictions and pending drug trials across Eastern Massachusetts, especially in Boston.
In addition, a spokeswoman for US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said her office also sent samples to the Boston lab for testing and has begun a case-by-case review to determine whether Dookhan undermined those cases.
Oh, so FEDERAL CASES have also been COMPROMISED, huh?
“I don’t think it’s right to wait until the media got a hold of the issue in August and then act like you’re so concerned” about defendants’ rights, said attorney Susan Rayburn, who added that she was referring to senior prosecutors. “For months, we were fed little bits of information, always with an eye to minimizing” the misconduct by Dookhan, Rayburn said....
At least someone sees things with a sober eye.
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"Chemist admitted wrongdoing in lab scandal" by Brian Ballou and Andrea Estes | Globe Staff, September 26, 2012
The former chemist at the heart of the state drug lab scandal admitted that she altered test results, forged colleagues’ initials, and did not perform proper tests on drugs “for about two to three years,” according to a State Police report that lays out in detail what one prosecutor has called “one of the largest criminal snafus” in Massachusetts history.
The 100-page State Police report, obtained by the Globe Wednesday morning, makes it clear that Annie Dookhan’s colleagues were deeply suspicious of her shoddy work habits and extremely high output for years. But supervisors took little action for more than a year, even when confronted with evidence that she had lied on her resume and removed drug evidence without authorization.
Because they ONLY CARE ABOUT GETTING THOSE CONVICTIONS! They DON'T CARE about TRUTH, JUSTICE, or HONESTY!
When police finally questioned her in August, Dookhan said she alone was to blame for the rampant breaches of protocol that have jeopardized the reliability of drug evidence used in 34,000 cases during her nine-year career at the lab. Dookhan said she did not even tell her husband the details of her misconduct.
Yeah, it's always a lone whatever. Pffft!
“I messed up bad. It’s my fault,” said Dookhan, according to a summary of the Aug. 28 interview at her Franklin home. “I don’t want the lab to get in trouble.”
The police report, compiled by state troopers working for Attorney General Martha Coakley, for the first time offers Dookhan’s perspective on a crisis that has prompted closure of the state Department of Public Health drug lab, the resignation of the public health commissioner, and the disciplining or firing of several lab supervisors.
Perhaps farthest-reaching, the drug lab scandal has raised profound doubts about thousands of drug cases, including those of 1,141 inmates of state prisons and county jails who were convicted based on evidence analyzed by Dookhan. Already, judges have freed, reduced bail for, or suspended the sentences of at least 20 drug defendants in the scandal.
So far, no one is facing criminal charges for work at the lab, but Coakley is conducting a wide-ranging criminal investigation. Dookhan, like most of her colleagues, has remained silent, declining to talk to reporters.
The State Police report offers glimpses of why Dookhan, a 34-year-old mother of a young son, would have behaved so recklessly, mainly in the words of co-workers who described her as driven to do more. She would work overtime without extra pay, and she tested several times more drug samples per month than the average chemist.
At the same time, Dookhan apparently padded her resume to make herself look more impressive, falsely claiming to have a master’s degree in chemistry, to have graduated magna cum laude from Latin Academy in Boston, and to have taken additional courses with Spectros. The company said there is no record that she ever took courses there.
“Annie Dookhan was always trying to please people” including prosecutors, police, and bosses, said Hevis Lleshi, who trained to be a chemist under Dookhan in 2011. Lleshi said she tried to work at Dookhan’s pace, but her supervisors told her to “slow down,” adding that “you can’t work like her; it is against protocol.”
Oh, the poor girl (pfft).
Now, about all the LIVES SHE HAS RUINED!
Dookhan herself seems at times nonplussed by all the attention, telling her husband during the meeting with State Police that she does not need a lawyer and telling State Police that she doesn’t understand why reporters are asking so many questions.
At the end of the police interrogation in which she confessed to at least seven different major breaches of lab protocol, including deliberately claiming that negative drug tests were positive, the troopers said she could be seen walking the family dog.
At other times, Dookhan seems distressed, telling officers that she and her husband are having marital problems and starting to cry as she confessed that she had assessed numerous drug samples for two or three years without actually doing the required tests. She insisted she “would never falsify [results] because it’s someone’s life on the line,” though she later admitted that she had done just that.
Is this woman INSANE?
After the Aug. 28 interview, State Police were so concerned about Dookhan’s state of mind that Detective Lieutenant Robert Irwin asked Dookhan on the phone if she ever thought “bad thoughts.”
“She said that the harm she was causing people would go through her mind every now and then,” Irwin wrote in his report. “I then asked her if she had thought of harming herself. She said no.”
By the time police talked to Dookhan in late August, problems at the drug lab in Jamaica Plain had been festering for more than a year....
Or ten!
Dookhan attempted repeatedly to deny the allegations in her interview with police, but then confessed each time the police presented her with evidence....
Several of Dookhan’s co-workers had been raising concerns about Dookhan for months or even years to their supervisors and others, but little happened.
And I THINK WE ALL KNOW WHY!
One co-worker contacted a union lawyer, but a union official told him his fears were hearsay that could kill a young woman’s career....
How come every time you need a union they are never there?
One supervisor, Peter Piro, told police that he became concerned about Dookhan’s extraordinary testing output as early as 2007....
That was FIVE YEARS AGO!
Dookhan tearfully told Irwin in an Aug. 30 cellphone call that she never meant to hurt anyone.
“I told her I knew that and that she’d made a mistake, but that didn’t make her a bad person,” Irwin wrote in his report.
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"How chemist in drug lab scandal circumvented safeguards" by Kay Lazar Globe Staff / September 29, 2012
Thomas E. Workman, a criminal defense
lawyer who teaches courses on scientific evidence at the University of
Massachusetts Law School, would like to see cameras added to crime labs to record
screening tests, with footage available on the Internet to prosecutors
and defense lawyers to help ensure that proper procedures are followed.
Yeah, WTF?!?! They have them EVERYWHERE ELSE to MONITOR YOU and ME!
Use of cameras is not standard practice in crime labs, said Ralph Keaton, executive director of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, an agency that certifies hundreds of crime labs nationally, including those run by Massachusetts State Police.
WHY NOT?
Instead, well-run labs use quality managers who check daily to ensure that staff members have properly calibrated machines and that protocols are being followed, said Ralph Timperi, who stepped down in April 2005 after 18 years as director of the Jamaica Plain state lab complex, which included the drug testing lab.
“There are different kinds of checks and balances, and a supervisory one is critical,” Timperi said. “You need someone walking around and observing what people are doing and looking for problems.”
Except they WERE NOT DOING THAT!
It is not clear whether the drug lab continued to use quality managers after Timperi’s departure. Alec Loftus, a Patrick administration spokesman, declined a request for a copy of the lab’s policy and procedures manual, saying it was protected as part of the criminal investigation of the lab by State Police and Attorney General Martha Coakley.
But that possibility, Workman said, would call into question a much larger universe of drug tests beyond the 60,000 Dookhan is believed to have run during her tenure....
Yeah, like, ALL of 'EM!!
While colleagues were suspicious of her shoddy work habits and unusually high output and reported concerns to supervisors, little action was taken for more than a year, according to the police inquiry....
Because of the complexity, and lack of cameras recording the preliminary tests, Justin McShane, a Pennsylvania criminal defense attorney and senior instructor in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry at the American Chemical Society, a trade group of more than 164,000 chemists, said it is possible for an unscrupulous chemist to dupe colleagues and prosecutors and defense lawyers, who depend on the work but are rarely given more than a simple card that indicates whether the evidence was positive or negative for illicit drugs.
Yeah, it was a rogue chemist that supervisors didn't want to deal with. They must think we are on drugs if they think we will believe this horse shit. It looks to me like they LIKED the RESULTS she was giving and DIDN'T WANT TO QUESTION IT!
McShane said he routinely hears “horror stories” from chemists he trains about unrelenting pressure to test more samples. Dookhan allegedly confessed to State Police that she forged colleagues’ initials and contaminated samples to “get more work done,” according to their report.
“You are judged by numbers in the lab,” McShane said. “There is a culture of pressure to get it done with no new resources. But there is no excuse for [cheating] at the end of the day.”
Yeah, WTF?!?! They have them EVERYWHERE ELSE to MONITOR YOU and ME!
Use of cameras is not standard practice in crime labs, said Ralph Keaton, executive director of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, an agency that certifies hundreds of crime labs nationally, including those run by Massachusetts State Police.
WHY NOT?
Instead, well-run labs use quality managers who check daily to ensure that staff members have properly calibrated machines and that protocols are being followed, said Ralph Timperi, who stepped down in April 2005 after 18 years as director of the Jamaica Plain state lab complex, which included the drug testing lab.
“There are different kinds of checks and balances, and a supervisory one is critical,” Timperi said. “You need someone walking around and observing what people are doing and looking for problems.”
Except they WERE NOT DOING THAT!
It is not clear whether the drug lab continued to use quality managers after Timperi’s departure. Alec Loftus, a Patrick administration spokesman, declined a request for a copy of the lab’s policy and procedures manual, saying it was protected as part of the criminal investigation of the lab by State Police and Attorney General Martha Coakley.
But that possibility, Workman said, would call into question a much larger universe of drug tests beyond the 60,000 Dookhan is believed to have run during her tenure....
Yeah, like, ALL of 'EM!!
While colleagues were suspicious of her shoddy work habits and unusually high output and reported concerns to supervisors, little action was taken for more than a year, according to the police inquiry....
Because of the complexity, and lack of cameras recording the preliminary tests, Justin McShane, a Pennsylvania criminal defense attorney and senior instructor in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry at the American Chemical Society, a trade group of more than 164,000 chemists, said it is possible for an unscrupulous chemist to dupe colleagues and prosecutors and defense lawyers, who depend on the work but are rarely given more than a simple card that indicates whether the evidence was positive or negative for illicit drugs.
Yeah, it was a rogue chemist that supervisors didn't want to deal with. They must think we are on drugs if they think we will believe this horse shit. It looks to me like they LIKED the RESULTS she was giving and DIDN'T WANT TO QUESTION IT!
McShane said he routinely hears “horror stories” from chemists he trains about unrelenting pressure to test more samples. Dookhan allegedly confessed to State Police that she forged colleagues’ initials and contaminated samples to “get more work done,” according to their report.
“You are judged by numbers in the lab,” McShane said. “There is a culture of pressure to get it done with no new resources. But there is no excuse for [cheating] at the end of the day.”
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Related:
"The new assessment raises the stakes as law enforcement and court officials scramble to resolve what has grown into a nightmare for the criminal justice system."
What about the NIGHTMARE for the FALSELY ACCUSED and IMPRISONED VICTIMS?
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You may want to test some of these:
Drug evidence in thousands of cases may have been destroyed; convictions may be overturned
Defense attorneys raise questions following crime lab closing
Impact of state drug lab scandal detailed
Drug lab chemist accused of lying
Special courts to hear load of cases in drug lab scandal
Bail set at $10,000 after arraignment of Annie Dookhan, chemist in state drug lab scandal
State drug lab inquiry explores links to chemist
Roxbury mother freed amid state drug lab scandal
Police brace for release of violent convicts in drug cases
Prosecutors to seek $10m a year to resolve drug cases
Is that tax money that can really be afforded for malfeasance when budgets are still be cut?
DA says 300 to 500 inmates could be freed in drug lab scandal
You gotta let 'em all go. How much would that cost?
Chemist pleads Fifth in drug case
Boston girds for prisoners freed in drug lab scandal
Another unfolding scandal:
"Framingham pharmacy is suspected in meningitis deaths" by Carolyn Y. Johnson and Kay Lazar | Globe Staff, October 03, 2012
State and federal health officials have identified a Framingham pharmacy as the source of injectable steroids that may have infected more than 25 people, four fatally, with a rare form of fungal meningitis.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health released a statement Wednesday night saying the agency is collaborating with the FDA, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and public health officials in other states to identify the cause of the three-month-old outbreak of aspergillus meningitis that has sickened people in Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia....
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"Meningitis outbreak widens; Mass. company suspected" by Liz Kowalczyk, Kay Lazar and Carolyn Y. Johnson | Globe Staff, October 04, 2012
Federal health officials said Thursday that they found a vial of an injectable steroid contaminated with fungus at a Framingham pharmacy, strengthening suspicions that it is the source of a widening nationwide outbreak of a rare meningitis that has infected dozens of people.
The discovery led the government to expand a recall of the steroid to include all injectable spinal drugs made by New England Compounding Center and to urge health care providers across the country to immediately discard all products from the company out of “an abundance of caution.’’
The hardest hit state so far is Tennessee, where officials said Thursday afternoon that they had identified seven new cases in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total there to 25 people infected. Three have died....
That's enough to make the babies cry.
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"13,000 may be at risk of meningitis; Patients in 23 states given steroid from Mass. that is tied to outbreak" by Kathy McCabe | Globe Staff, October 09, 2012
US health officials said Monday that 13,000 patients in 23 states, including Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, have been injected with a potentially tainted steroid treatment made by a Framingham pharmacy and linked to a national outbreak of meningitis.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave its sweeping estimate of the reach of the crisis as it reported 14 new cases of the disease, and another death in Tennessee, which appears to be the hardest hit among the states where the rare and serious form of fungal meningitis has been confirmed....
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Also see:
Supervision of pharmacies is questioned
Framingham pharmacy recalls all its drugs
Doctors split on value of low-back injections
14,000 at risk from tainted steroids
Pharmacy linked to meningitis outbreak broke rules, Patrick says
Where were the state or federal regulators?
Brown backed letter on behalf of compounding pharmaciesOh.
Framingham pharmacy hit with lawsuit
Updates: State’s in trouble; where’s Patrick?
