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In August 2012, Massachusetts officials closed the Hinton state drug lab in Jamaica Plain because a then-obscure chemist allegedly “failed to follow testing protocols” while testing drugs related to criminal cases. That chemist is no longer obscure: Annie Dookhan is now frequently mentioned by lawyers, judges, police and criminal defendants who refer to the cases she handled as “Dookhan cases.”
Dookhan has been criminally charged with deliberately manipulating drug tests at the lab, compromising at least 34,000 cases. Authorities allege:
that Dookhan did not test all drug samples (yet claimed she had);
that she deliberately tainted drug evidence;
that she mixed evidence so it would test positive for drugs when it was actually clean;
and that she forged signatures on drug testing paperwork.
Read the charges against Dookhan here.
State Attorney General Martha Coakley has said Dookhan’s actions “corrupted the integrity of the entire criminal justice system.”
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CBS News) Massachusetts authorities are warning of a possible crime wave because of a scandal in a state crime lab.
Hundreds of convictions have been thrown out because the evidence was probably tainted.
Mass. Lab Scandal: Nearly 200 prisoners released as result of allegedly faked drug test results
Already, at least eight defendants who were released have been re-arrested on new charges.
And there's a lone chemist who allegedly triggered it all.
Annie Dookhan, a former Massachusetts crime lab chemist, allegedly tampered with evidence -- and the integrity of the state's entire criminal justice system.
"The implication, at least based upon our investigation, is that she faked the results," Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.
Over nine years, Dookhan tested more than 60,000 drug samples and gave expert testimony in court. But investigators say test results used as evidence in 34,000 drug cases she worked on is now suspect, and 1,100 convicted criminals may have to go free.
Bernard Grossberg, a criminal defense attorney, said, "It's incalculable for the harm that has been done to the integrity of the criminal justice system. While we don't like some of these guys getting released, that's what the law requires."
Dookhan lied about having a master's degree in chemistry, lied in court as an expert witness, and allegedly lied in the lab, mishandling evidence and forging signatures.
Referring to the term "rogue chemist" -- how Dookhan has been described -- Coakley said, "She developed a practice of what we call 'dry labbing,' of substituting drugs she knew would test positive for the drugs she was looking for."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50.....p; 
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