Annie Dookhan

Annie Dookhan (* 1977 in San Fernando , Trinidad as Annie Sadiyya Khan ) is a chemist who falsified evidence in up to 34,000 cases at the forensic Hinton State Laboratory Institute on Jamaica Plain , Boston .

biography

Annie Khan is the only child of her parents. In about 1989 her family moved with her to the United States and she obtained citizenship. Her father founded a lead remediation and heating company in 1990, and her mother worked in a hospital as a data analyst.

Khan attended the Boston Latin Academy. She was a member of the yearbook team and of the National Junior Classical League, an organization for classical languages ​​and classical studies . 1996 Khan made the degree ( English graduation ). She later stated that she graduated summa cum laude . However, this grade does not exist at the Boston Latin Academy.

Khan began studying chemistry at Regis College in Weston in 1996 . In 1998 she moved to the University of Massachusetts Boston with a major in biochemistry. She was able to complete her studies in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science and the result cum laude .

From spring 2002 she worked in chemical quality control at the vaccine manufacturer MassBiologics Laboratory in Jamaica Plain . In 2003 she was hired as a chemist at the Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Jamaica Plain.

Annie Khan married in 2004 and took the married name Dookhan.

Falsification of evidence

In June 2011, a forensic laboratory worker discovered that Dookhan had tested 95 samples without correctly labeling them. Further investigation revealed that she had forged another employee's signature on her laboratory diary. She was then released from work. However, she continued to appear as an expert witness in courts of law until February 2012, when all Boston area prosecutors were notified of the policy violation and Dookhan's dismissal was announced. She resigned in March 2012.

During the decade Dookhan worked in the Hinton laboratory, it was operated by the Massachusetts Department of Health's Office of Human Services . To save costs, the laboratory was assigned to the Massachusetts State Police Forensic Department by the Massachusetts General Court in 2011 . The State Police stepped up the investigation into the Dookhan case. The investigation revealed that Dookhan's supervisors had ignored several warnings around them prior to 2011. For example, she reportedly examined more than 500 samples a month - five times more than normal - although a supervisor said, “ never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope ” (German: “he never saw her on a microscope”). Another colleague said: “ Dookhan would submit a cocaine sample, and it would come back heroin or vice versa ” (German: “Dookhan could submit a cocaine sample and it came back as a heroin sample and vice versa”). Moreover Dookhans productivity remained stable, although the workload significantly increased after the Supreme Court of the United States in the case Melendez-Diaz vs. Massachusetts had ruled that chemists who conduct drug tests on criminal cases can be summoned in person as witnesses. According to an independent data analysis by the Boston radio station WBUR , Dookhan's average processing time actually decreased from 2009 to 2011 despite the increased workload. After the extent of their misconduct became clear, it was judged so serious that Governor Deval Patrick ordered the laboratory to be closed.

In August 2011, police interrogated Dookhan at her home in Franklin, Massachusetts, admitting that they modified and faked test results to hide their common forgeries and that they examined samples "visually" without actually testing them. She even went so far as to add cocaine to samples that had previously not been in cocaine. She said she had falsified samples for three years. At some point she broke down and said, “ I messed up, I messed up bad. I don't want the lab to get in trouble ”(German:“ I screwed it up, I totally screwed it up. I don't want the lab to get into trouble ”).

Accuse

On September 28, 2012 Dookhan was arrested and because of obstruction of justice accused of academic fraud and title. The latter charge was brought because, on her application and under oath, she held a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts Boston. University officials revealed that Dookhan did not hold such a degree and had never taken a master's degree there.

On December 17, 2012, Dookhan was formally charged on 27 counts - 17 cases of fraud, 8 cases of forgery of evidence, and 1 case of perjury and forgery of academic titles. Prosecutors alleged that whenever a second test failed and did not confirm the results of the first test, Dookhan tampered with the tubes to confirm the original results of their defective samples. She was also charged with misconfirming test results that she knew were compromised ; these confirmations were used as evidence in court.

Imprisonment

On November 22, 2013, Dookhan was sentenced to three to five years' imprisonment and two years probation by Judge Carol S. Ball at the Suffolk Higher Regional Court after she pleaded guilty to falsifying drug tests. That was more than the one year imprisonment her defense proposed but less than the five to seven years the prosecution had requested. Judge Ball said the higher sentence was due to the effects of Dookhan's wrongdoing. Ball wrote: “ Innocent persons were incarcerated, guilty persons have been released to further endanger the public, millions and millions of public dollars are being expended to deal with the chaos Ms. Dookhan created, and the integrity of the criminal justice system has been shaken to the core. "(German:" Innocent people have been jailed, guilty people have been released and continue to endanger the public, millions and millions of public money must be spent to deal with the chaos that Ms. Dookhan wreaked, and the integrity of the criminal justice system has been maintained right up to the Core shaken. ")

Dookhan, inmate F81328 in Massachusetts, was serving her sentence in Framingham Prison. She was released on parole in April 2016.

Effects

The vast majority of judgments based on their flawed investigations have not been overturned. About 20 people face new charges. People charged with offenses based on evidence in Dookhan's hands seek civil proceedings for violating their right to a fair trial.

In January 2015, Benjamin Keehn, a prominent defense attorney on the Committee for Public Counsel Services, said that about 40,000 people may have been falsely accused as a result of Dookhan's actions.

In May 2015, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that defendants whose convictions for drug offenses were based on evidence potentially compromised by former state chemist Annie Dookhan could seek retrial without facing further charges and increased sentences.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Sally Jacobs: Annie Dookhan chased renown on a path paved with lies . In: The Boston Globe . February 3, 2013, ISSN  0743-1791 (English, bostonglobe.com [accessed October 11, 2016]).
2. ^ ^{A b} Martha Coakley: Annie Dookhan Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Evidence, Obstruction of Justice. In: The Official Website of the Attorney General of Massachusetts. November 22, 2013, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters / Landov: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Mass. Legal System In Turmoil. In: NPR.org. March 14, 2013, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Bad Chemistry. Annie Dookhan And The Massachusetts Drug Lab Crisis. WBUR , accessed on October 11, 2016 . 
5. ^ ^{A b} Martha Coakley, Anne K. Kaczmarek: Commonwealth vs. Annie Dookhan. Commonwealth's Statement of the Case. (PDF; 874 kB) December 20, 2012, accessed on October 11, 2016 (English). 
6. ↑ ^{a b} Elaine Quijano: Massachusetts lab tech arrested for alleged improper handling of drug tests. In: CBS News. September 28, 2012, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
7. ↑ Chris Amico: With More Work, Less Time, Dookhan's Tests Got Faster. In: badchemistry. May 15, 2013, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
8. ↑ Karen Anderson: I-Team: State Drug Lab Chemist's Actions Could Affect Thousands Of Cases. In: CBS Boston. August 30, 2012, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Interview summary of Annie Dookhan. (PDF; 892 kB) December 22, 2011, accessed on October 11, 2016 (English). 
10. ↑ Mark Arsenault, Milton J. Valencia, John Tlumacki and John R. Ellement: Arrest warrants issued for chemist at heart of state drug lab scandal. (No longer available online.) In: The Boston Globe . September 28, 2012, archived from the original on August 6, 2016 ; accessed on October 11, 2016 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Denise Lavoie: More Charges For Mass. Chemist In Drug Lab Scandal. In: wbur. December 17, 2012, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
12. ↑ ^{a b} Bob Salsberg: Mass. chemist pleads guilty in drug lab scandal. Associated Press, November 22, 2013, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
13. ^ ^{A b} Milton J. Valencia, John R. Ellement, Martin Finucane: Annie Dookhan, former state chemist who mishandled drug evidence, sentenced to 3 to 5 years in prison. In: boston.com. November 23, 2013, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
14. ↑ Annie Dookhan, former state chemist who mishandled drug evidence, agrees to plead guilty . In: Boston.com . ( boston.com [accessed October 11, 2016]).
15. ↑ Inmate information ( Memento of the original dated December 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from Vinelink and Massachusetts Department of Correction. 
16. ↑ John R. Ellement: Annie Dookhan, key figure in state lab scandal, released from prison. In: The Boston Globe . April 12, 2016, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
17. ↑ Philip Marcelo: ACLU argues for drug-crime defendants in Annie Dookhan saga. In: The Boston Globe . January 9, 2015, accessed October 11, 2016 . 
18. ↑ Rebecca Trager: Thousands of US Convicts Can Get New Trials Because of Rogue Drug Lab Chemist. In: Scientific American . May 29, 2015, accessed October 11, 2016 .