But I saw it on CSI!!!
Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Mass. Legal System In Turmoil. Pretty significant that:
A scandal in a Massachusetts crime lab continues to reverberate throughout the state’s legal system. Several months ago, Annie Dookhan, a former chemist in a state crime lab, told police that she messed up big time. Dookhan now stands accused of falsifying test results in as many as 34,000 cases.
As a result, lawyers, prosecutors and judges used to operating in a world of “beyond a reasonable doubt” now have nothing but doubt.
It’s in MA. But in TX:
The Department of Public Safety has discovered errors with the analysis of drug evidence conducted by one forensic scientist in our Houston Regional Laboratory. He has been suspended from casework pending an internal investigation. In reanalyzing evidence in one hundred of his most recent cases, we identified errors in two other cases. Because of this discovery, we believe it prudent to review his entire body of work since he began examining evidence in early 2006 – specifically on any cases pending prosecution or which resulted in a conviction or deferred adjudication. Attached is a list of cases from your jurisdiction.
March 18th, 2013 at 7:40 pm
Part of the overthrow of the U.S. is demoralizing the population. Part of demoralizing the population is having incompetent buffoons in critical positions, such that we lose trust in the system. Eventually, so the idea goes, we’ll be so fed up and disgusted that we’ll cry out for a “strong man” who will “do something” by getting past all the politics and red tape, i.e. a dictator.
March 18th, 2013 at 7:51 pm
Pathetic… once again…
March 19th, 2013 at 2:18 am
Or perhaps maybe it is time we ended the senseless
“war on intoxication”.
March 19th, 2013 at 1:25 pm
i’m somewhat familiar with how the labs this lady worked in are supposed to operate. that she was able to falsify evidence in even a half dozen cases really calls the management of the entire lab into question. there is supposed to be somebody double check at least some of the testing to say “yup, there’s the evidence of the thing.”
and even if the government lab itself doesn’t, the defendants should be getting their own testing done. private labs that do this stuff exist.
defense testing has been what found problems with at least a few other governmentally operated labs.