Chemist's Credibility Questioned, Doubt Cast Over Thousands of Criminal Cases
More questions are being raised over the credibility of a chemist whose alleged conduct has already cast doubt over thousands of criminal cases that passed through the Massachusetts drug lab during her nine-year tenure.
The Associated Press reports that Annie Dookhan testified in a 2010 case that she obtained a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts, but that the school says it has no such record of an advanced degree or that she even took graduate classes there.
‘If, in fact, she falsified her education or qualifications, we are even more deeply concerned about what she might have done in terms of testing the drugs,” Anne Goldbach, the forensics services director for the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services, is quoted saying.
Dookhan, who resigned from the lab in March, is being investigated for possibly deliberately mishandling drug samples, according to the Associated Press. While she was at the drug lab, she was reportedly responsible for handling some 60,000 drug samples involving 34,000 defendants.
The AP notes that Dookhan hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing and that state police haven’t revealed what they think she did wrong at the lab.
