A Decade's Worth Of Meth Convictions Overturned Due To Drug Lab Employee's Misconduct

from the putting-'crime'-back-into-'crime-lab!' dept

Massachusetts prosecutors are seeing a bunch more Drug War wins turned into losses by drug lab misconduct. Annie Dookhan, a drug lab technician, falsified countless tests, ultimately resulting in the overturning of more than 20,000 convictions. Dookhan was valued for her productivity, but no one above her bothered to wonder why she was able to process samples so quickly. Turns out tests go much faster when you don't actually perform the tests.

If that were it, it would have been more than enough indication the nation's crime labs need more oversight and auditing. But it isn't. Another tech at another Massachusetts drug lab is erasing thousands of convictions. Chemist Sonja Farak, an 11-year veteran of the Amherst drug lab, apparently spent much of that time using the substances she was supposed to be testing, turning in falsified test results that landed people behind bars.

The Farak investigation uncovered the drug lab's lack of standards, which included more than allowing an employee to use drugs while on the clock for at least eight of the eleven years she was employed. There's no way of telling how many drug tests might be tainted, not just by employee malfeasance, but by a lack of best practices, like running blanks through testing equipment to ensure new tests weren't tainted by residue left behind by previous tests.

The total number of convictions expected to be thrown out due to Farak's abuse is currently sitting at 7,690 cases. But this won't be the final total. Zach Huffman of Courthouse News Service reports an entire decade's-worth of convictions is being examined.

Expanding relief for a class of drug defendants whose cases crossed paths with a now-disgraced chemist, the highest court in Massachusetts agreed Thursday to throw out nearly a decade’s worth of meth convictions plus all cases from the chemist’s last four years on the job.

The state wants the bleeding to stop at 8,000 cases -- covering only those where Farak signed the drug certificate. But as the court points out in its order [PDF], this isn't just about Farak. It's about the drug lab that protected Farak and the prosecutors that protected the drug lab -- the latter of which included hiding evidence of misconduct from accused drug offenders.

The respondent Attorney General contests the petitioners' proposed remedy, as well as the result suggested by the district attorneys. The Attorney General proposes a different remedy. Based on Farak's admission that she began to tamper with other chemists' samples in the summer of 2012, the Attorney General contends that those defendants whose drug samples were tested between June, 2012, and Farak's arrest in January, 2013, should be offered the opportunity to obtain relief under the protocol established by this court in Bridgeman v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 476 Mass. 298, 316-317 (2017) (Bridgeman II).

We conclude that Farak's widespread evidence tampering has compromised the integrity of thousands of drug convictions apart from those that the Commonwealth has agreed should be vacated and dismissed. Her misconduct, compounded by prosecutorial misconduct, requires that this court exercise its superintendence authority and vacate and dismiss all criminal convictions tainted by governmental wrongdoing.

The AG's suggested fix is completely inadequate. The court's final decision covers far more than the limited one-year window of adjacent convictions the AG was willing to toss.

The class of "Farak defendants" includes all defendants who pleaded guilty to a drug charge, admitted to sufficient facts on a drug charge, or were found guilty of a drug charge, where (i) Farak signed the certificate of analysis; (ii) the conviction was based on methamphetamine and the drugs were tested during Farak's tenure at the Amherst lab; or (iii) the drugs were tested at the Amherst lab on or after January 1, 2009, and through January 18, 2013, regardless of who signed the certificate of analysis.

It is impossible this is the only state where this sort of misconduct has occurred. Testing drug samples is like any other job -- people will cut corners. But it also offers something for those with drug problems and those seeking to personally profit from their employment. Something other jobs don't offer: unfettered access to controlled substances. People will be people and drugs will disappear and results will be faked. The problem is this employee misconduct costs people their freedom. And from what's been observed in two major cases in Massachusetts, the entities overseeing these labs don't care about the collateral damage until a court forces them to.

Filed Under: annie dookhan, drug lab, massachusetts, meth convictions, misconduct, sonja farak

More Drug Lab Misconduct Results In Massachusetts Court Tossing Nearly 12,000 Convictions

from the one-drug-habit;-exponential-damage dept

If everything keeps falling apart in Massachusetts, there won't be a drug conviction left in the state. The eventual fallout from the 2012 conviction of drug lab technician Annie Dookhan was the reversal of nearly 21,000 drug convictions. Dookhan was an efficient drug lab worker -- so efficient she often never performed the tests she was required to. The state moved much slower, dragging its feet notifying those possibly affected by Dookhan's lab misconduct until a judge told it to stop screwing around. There still could be more reversed convictions on the way as the state continues to make its way through a 40,000-case backlog.

Those numbers alone are breathtaking. But there are even more conviction dismissals on the way. Another drug lab technician convicted for stealing samples to feed her own drug habit has tainted thousands of additional drug prosecutions. A judicial order related to her questionable drug tests is erasing a whole bunch of prosecutorial wins.

The Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) of Massachusetts said Thursday an estimated 11,162 convictions in 7,690 cases tainted by former state drug lab chemist Sonja Farak were ordered for dismissal by Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Frank Gaziano.

Farak apparently used whatever drugs she came across during her decade-plus with the Amherst, MA drug lab. This lab was inspected in 2012 by state police, shortly after the Boston lab was shut down following the discovery of Annie Dookhan's misconduct. This apparently cursory inspection turned up nothing, and the police who can smell drugs the moment they pull over a car apparently couldn't tell Farak had smoked crack just prior to her interview with state police inspectors. Her misconduct wasn't discovered until 2013 -- nearly eight years after Farak began using drug lab drugs regularly.

By 2010, Farak was snorting, smoking and swallowing not only the lab “standards” but also the police-submitted evidence, frequently siphoning from the powder cocaine. In one case in 2012, where police in Chicopee, Mass., had seized a kilo of cocaine, Farak “took approximately 100 grams from the same and used it to manufacture base cocaine” — crack — “at the Amherst Lab.” She also began seeking treatment for her addictions, the report states, creating another source of records about her drug use. Soon she began stealing from her co-workers’ samples as well, and manipulating the computer databases so that wasn’t noticed. Finally, a colleague looking for some of Farak’s lab samples found they had been tampered with, and she happened to get caught in January 2013.

Once this was uncovered, the state attorney general's office released a regrettable statement claiming Farak's eight years of drug use wouldn't "undermine any cases. Three years later, a full report showed Farak's abuse of her position affected nearly 8,000 cases. It also uncovered a complete lack of standards in the Amherst lab. According to the AG report [PDF], lab security was almost nonexistent. The running of "blanks" through testing equipment (to clear residue from previous drug tests) was supposed to happen after every test to avoid tainting new tests with previously-tested substances. In reality, this only happened "every 5 to 10" tests and was wholly at the tester's discretion.

The exposure of additional drug lab misconduct is more than concerning. It's terrifying. Based on results from labs subject to minimal standards, security precautions, and state oversight, people were being incarcerated. Drug sentences are notoriously harsh. Stealing from people is treated as a less severe violation than selling someone drugs they want to purchase. So is rape, assault, and a number of other crimes where no consensual transaction takes place. And yet, the evidence in these cases -- the ones capable of delivering 25-year-minimums and life sentence-equivalents -- is treated carelessly by the labs testing substances and the government overseeing them.

Filed Under: aclu, drug lab, massachusetts

UK Drug Lab Misconduct Calls 10,000 Convictions And Prosecutions Into Question

from the limited-oversight,-unlimited-damage dept

UK prosecutors are looking at the possibility of having a whole bunch of convictions overturned, thanks to misconduct by a lab service contracted by the government. Malfeasance at Randox Testing Service, which handles toxicology tests for UK law enforcement, first came to light earlier this year when two of its employees were arrested.

Hundreds of cases could be reviewed after two men who work at a laboratory used by police to test drug samples were arrested.

Randox Testing Services (RTS) is used by forces across the UK to analyse samples used in prosecutions.

Police chiefs said it had been told 484 cases handled by the firm since November 2015 may have been affected.

The men, 47 and 31, were arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and bailed, police said.

At the time, Randox offered to re-run tests handled by the two employees and provided law enforcement with a list of cases affected. The bogus tests affected far more than run of the mill driving under the influence charges. In a few cases, convictions for vehicular homicide were placed under review.

About 50 prosecutions have so far been dropped in what BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw described as "the biggest forensic science scandal in the UK for decades".

Matthew Bravender is appealing against his conviction after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving while over the legal limit for a prescribed drug.

[...]

Also challenging his conviction is Anderson Ward, 39, who was jailed for causing the death of his girlfriend in a crash while he was high on drugs.

Since then, the estimate of affected cases has skyrocketed. The original estimate of 484 cases is now 10,000 and prosecutors have begun dropping prosecutions rather than go toe-to-toe with judges unsympathetic to their requests for extensions. It's now apparent the retests won't be completed until sometime in 2018. To make matters worse, some of the tainted tests can't be retested because the samples have been destroyed or are no longer viable.

And it's no longer just about driving under the influence charges. Randox, which has since seen its contracts with UK police forces suspended, also handled rape kits and investigations of suspicious deaths.

To make matters worse, another government contractor is being investigated for similar misconduct.

Potential data manipulation at a different facility, Trimega Laboratories, is also being investigated by Greater Manchester Police, said the NPCC.

In these incidents, child protection and family court cases could be affected.

Nick Hurd, the minister for policing, fire and criminal justice, said all tests carried out by Trimega between 2010 and 2014 were currently being treated as "potentially unreliable".

He also said due to "poor record-keeping practices", it may not be possible to identify all the customers affected.

This is far more than problematic. It's devastating. It mirrors multiple forensic lab issues uncovered here in the United States. Obviously, law enforcement agencies don't have the manpower to handle testing in-house. So, these are turned over to third parties. This wouldn't be an issue if there were any direct oversight. But there doesn't appear to be anything like that in place. When misconduct is finally uncovered, it has taken place for years and tainted thousands of cases.

If government agencies are sincere in their expressed concerns for public safety, these failures to head off problems before they affect 10,000-20,000 cases are inexplicable. It undermines legitimate convictions, putting criminals back on the street. It dead-ends investigations because lab results are no longer trustworthy.

Worse, it has the potential to land innocent people in jail. Faked results and mishandled tests are used as evidence in criminal trials, "proving" guilt when none exists. This is a problem everywhere, but it seems authorities are more interested in post-debacle damage control than rigorous oversight that could prevent this from happening in the first place.

Filed Under: drug lab, evidence, misconduct, prosecutors, toxicology, uk
Companies: randox testing service

Prosecutors Overturn More Than 21,000 Drug Convictions In Wake Of Massive Drug Lab Misconduct

from the you're-free-to-go-x-21k dept

Back in 2012, it was discovered that a Massachusetts state drug lab technician had falsified thousands of tests submitted as evidence in criminal cases. Technician Annie Dookhan was able to "produce" three times as many test results as her coworkers, mostly by never actually testing the submitted substance -- something that went unquestioned for far too long. Dookhan went to jail for three years, but many of those convicted on faulty evidence spent far more time locked up.

Dookhan's prolific fakery resulted in a list of 40,000 cases possibly tainted by her work. This list was turned over to prosecutors, who managed over the next few years to trim it down to 23,000 possibly-tainted convictions. Faced with the daunting task of sorting this all out and notifying former defendants, the district attorney's office decided the best approach was to do as little as possible.

First, with an unbelievable amount of hubris, it argued that those who had already served time for bogus convictions likely didn't care whether or not they'd been exonerated post facto. It can't be that the prosecutor's office doesn't know drug convictions keep people unemployed/underemployed and/or car-less/homeless. It appears the office simply has no empathy for those it's helped convict.

Then it did as little as it could to inform those who had been possibly wrongfully convicted. It sent out poorly-targeted mass mailings that looked like government junk mail, rather than the life-changing exonerations they possibly were. No research was performed to ensure current addresses were used and the letter itself didn't inform recipients of their legal rights and remedies.

A court finally stepped in and ordered the DA's office to come up with a plan of adequately addressing this backlog of 21,000 possibly-wrongful convictions. These plans would have to be approved by the court, which obviously felt the DA's office would mount another half-hearted effort without direct supervision.

Faced with having to lift a few fingers to locate and inform citizens of their rights, remedies, and their chance to un-fuck their lives, the DA's office has opted again to do as little as possible. However, in this case, the minimum of effort is probably the course of action it should have taken in the first place.

On April 18, nearly five years after Dookhan’s confession, prosecutors submitted lists of about 21,587 tainted cases with flawed convictions that they have agreed to overturn. The state’s highest court must still formally dismiss the convictions.

Once that happens, many of the cleared defendants will be freed from the collateral consequences that can result from drug convictions, including loss of access to government benefits, public housing, driver’s licenses and federal financial aid for college. Convicted green card holders can also become eligible for deportation, and employers might deny someone a job due to a drug conviction on their record.

The very small number of cases the state isn't dismissing -- 320 of them, according to prosecutors -- shows how heavily the state relies on drug lab evidence to secure convictions. These cases are ones prosecutors feel would still hold up in court even without drug lab evidence. Possibly there are other cases with similarly strong evidence once Dookhan's fakery has been excised, but the DA's office has had zero desire to reexamine most of the 23,000 cases Dookhan's work affected.

Odds are, there are a great many people who wrongfully served more jail time than Dookhan rightfully did. The fallout from this is going to cost Massachusetts taxpayers a whole lot of money. Not only did they pay Dookhan to not perform her duties for several years, but they'll be on the hook for the inevitable lawsuits this mass exoneration will produce.

Filed Under: annie dookhan, drug convictions, drug lab, evidence, massachusetts

Man Calls Cops To Turn In Drug Paraphernalia He Found, Gets Home Placed On Federal 'Drug Lab' Watchlist For 2 Years

from the helping-out,-getting-hurt dept

"If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear," right? Here's how that works in reality. (via Reason)

On Jan. 5, 2012, Paul Valin called the police to report he'd found a backpack containing what he believed to be meth-making equipment. That simple act of good citizenship landed his and wife Cindy's house on the National Clandestine Laboratory Register [NCLR], the federal Drug Enforcement Agency's list of meth labs.

Valin spotted a backpack in a river while kayaking. He took it home and opened it up looking for some identification that might point to its owner. Instead, he found tubing and chemicals. Being a good citizen (with nothing to hide), he called local law enforcement who came and removed the backpack… and then put him on a federal list that put his house in the same category as property where drugs had been seized (you know, as opposed to voluntarily and proactively given to police officers).

The NCLR's website openly admits that no federal agency verifies the information being forwarded to it. Valin's house was added to this list by local law enforcement, who filled out a standard form that failed to note that Valin had found the backpack and at no point had the "drug lab" ever crossed the threshold of his house (it had been in the back of Valin's pickup the entire time).

Once Valin was made aware of his home's placement on this list by a local TV reporter, he contacted the DEA in hopes of being delisted.

Valin sent an email to the DEA explaining the facts of his case and asking that his address be removed from the NCLR. The reply he received three weeks later was not encouraging.

An unsigned email from NCLR@doj.gov explained that Valin's address had been listed because of a Clandestine Laboratory Seizure form the DMPD submitted to the DEA following the collection of the backpack.

According to the email, the DMPD officer who filled out the report had checked the boxes for "abandoned lab" and "boxed lab," but didn't include any other information, such as where and how Valin found the backpack.

The email also stated that the DEA was only the "caretaker" of the NCLR site and, again, pointed out that it doesn't perform any sort of verification of submitted forms. According to the email, Valin had a couple of options: persuade the Des Moines, IA police department to contact the DEA and straighten out its paperwork error or have a local health agency declare his home free from drug contamination.

Unsurprisingly, the DEA's suggestions were both dead ends.

The second option isn't possible. No local or state health agencies in Iowa conducts such inspections. The state hasn't even set any standards for what constitutes meth-related contamination.

Valin hasn't had much luck with the first option, either. He's still waiting for a reply to the voicemails he left at the DMPD phone number he was told to call.

The good news is that someone finally decided to do something about this error. Special Agent Eric Neubauer of the El Paso branch of the DEA took the Des Moines Police Dept. investigative report (which detailed the whole chain of events) provided to him by Iowa Watchdog and used that info to delist Valin's home. The DMPD still hasn't explained why the details on its internal investigative report failed to make their way onto the form sent to the DEA -- an omission that put Valin's home on a national "drug lab" watchlist for two years.

Filed Under: dea, drug lab, good deeds, nclr, police, watch list