IT SOUNDS LIKE one of the least appealing jobs ever: Sift through tens of thousands of state and federal drug cases, determine which ones may be compromised by tainted evidence, help shepherd them through a knotty legal system, and then bring some measure of justice to those denied a fair trial. The time frame? Indefinite. The size of the problem? It’s a sprawling mess. The stakes? High. The chances of broad public recognition or gratitude? Low.
Which is to say, it’s just the kind of offer David Meier couldn’t turn down. With an abiding — some might say almost masochistic — commitment to the integrity of the criminal justice system, Meier, a veteran prosecutor now in private practice, was the natural choice when Governor Deval Patrick needed a skilled hand to repair one of the biggest law enforcement scandals in Massachusetts: the alleged widespread misconduct of a chemist at a state drug lab and the serious oversight lapses that allowed it to happen.
Comments
Very good article -- David Meier sounds like a "good guy". But, remember, the problem was caused by management's lack of supervision. It went on for years, as I understand it. What if a chemist just made a mistake in an analysis? It's clear there is no redundant testing of samples, no double blind testing. The chemists know or can know what case they are testing for, and if they make a mistake, or a "mistake" in their otherwise reliable results NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW. THAT, my friends, IS A CRIME IN AND OF ITSELF. So, this case is NOT primarily about Annie Dookhan, it's about the lack of a fail-safe process, it's about a lack of management. And the potential cost to clean it up is UNACCEPTABLE. How can you say, well, we can't afford reliable testing, we can't afford testing that catches mistakes, we can't afford or don't have the focus to even be able to catch manipulated results, and then be willing to waste taxpayers money to the tune of $332 million? That is, not including the cost of incarceration at maybe $50k per year. David Meier may be a wonderful guy with impressive skills and the best motives, but the problem here is THE SYSTEM, and David will not be changing that at all. I say, spend the money on something more productive than re-jiggering old cases. After all, with THE SYSTEM being the same it will not make much difference, anyway, in the long run.