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Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

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Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#101
post #95
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forensic science in general is an absolute joke. It makes a mockery of the very concept of science. There are a few isolated pockets where the techniques and procedures used are sound, but for the most part the scientific method and rigor are nowhere to be seen.

Care to cite anything about this? From a Biochemist's perspective, when done properly, chemical analysis is extremely accurate and provides a great deal of information.

Forensic science encompasses a broad range of things, including bullet-lead analysis, arson investigation, handwriting analysis, fingerprinting, etc. Various techniques have bordered or even crossed into pseudoscience, others have wildly erratic error bars that are never properly considered. There are so many problems because the entire field does not treat their discipline as scientists do, they are too close to law enforcement for that. Techniques are used for decades before anybody bothers to properly figure out if the technique actually works.

Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#102
post #92
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse: >"We tell them, 'Listen, we know what you were doing before and we're watching you. And if you go back into the life, that Dookhan's not there anymore. So when you go [back] in on this charge, it's gonna stick,'" Davis says. So, Ed Davis is sending officers to threaten people who, from a legal perspective, have not been convicted of a crime and have been erroneously jailed for years. Lovely. That's really icin…

How is he threatening them? He was telling repeat offenders that the police are going to be keeping a close eye on them. That's their job, isn't it? Or would you rather he tell them that the police will be away on holiday all next week, "but please call our support centre if you plan on committing any crime and we'll get our duty officer to log a ticket"?

That's their job isn't it?

No. That's called harassment. They need to focus on actual crimes being committed.

Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read some of the other articles in this thread, there is specific mention of a recent supreme court case ruling in 2009, "Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts", where it was found that the accused are entitled to face expert witnesses as their accusers. This means forensic analysts are forced to appear in court more often. The forensic analysts are government employees. This means that they are almost always providi…

>What if her behavior correlates to the DEA's program of parallel construction using inadmissible evidense collected by the NSA and shared with the DEA, thus provoking a premature conclusion of guilt, where the court case was then reversed engineered to align with the illicit intelligence? that would explain why she went down without talking to FBI/etc and taking down all the DAs with (or even instead of :) her (as t…

What is a farm?

Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about serving the sentences she was responsible for? Even if she served 1 day for every sentence that was a result of her intentional tampering of the evidence, she would be serving life.

Justice is about more than retribution.

You're right, it's also about deterrence, incapacitation, and reparation to the victim, in addition to punishment.

Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#105
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DA resigned when it became known he regularly communicated with the chemist.

Has he been indicted? The overall impact here is enormous, on a scale like the "cash for kids" judge. He ought to be in prison.

Seems like a mistake, not a criminal offense.

Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#106
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has he been indicted? The overall impact here is enormous, on a scale like the "cash for kids" judge. He ought to be in prison.

Seems like a mistake, not a criminal offense.

I'd want to see their emails before taking such a generous point of view. All the emails between this lab tech, police, and DAs should be released, and a special prosecutor brought in to review them.

Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#107
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a mistake, not a criminal offense.

I'd want to see their emails before taking such a generous point of view. All the emails between this lab tech, police, and DAs should be released, and a special prosecutor brought in to review them.

Never put down to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.

Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#108
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want to see their emails before taking such a generous point of view. All the emails between this lab tech, police, and DAs should be released, and a special prosecutor brought in to review them.

Never put down to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.

Conclusive evidence is available. Let's see it.

Re: Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Massachusetts Legal System In Turmoil

#109
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never put down to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.

Conclusive evidence is available. Let's see it.

Isn't it normal to see that evidence before declaring he should be indicted?
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