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Since I'm a chemist IRL I thought I should bring up the case of the lab worker who contaminated all the case files

http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/201...pacted-case/ao7zjRS7G1MozQMSrpAjBI/story.html

Now she's out on a measly 10k bail with a nice curfew. Myself and others I work with are all pretty upset about this, because what she did is so completely unethical and unacceptable. I really am blown away by the low bail considering that she is facing effectively a life sentence in jail for this (which I doubt they will give her, even for this that seems a bit extreme).

What bothers me more than her actions, and the horrendous consequences of all the effective mistrials, is that something like this could have happened in the first place. It's very "Dexter", where the nerd in the lab coat turns out to be one of the most dangerous people you have in your office.

Opens up a whole can of worms. Now all lawyers defending cases where state evidence is used will be questioning methods to test the evidence, and the judges will probably have to let them. At best dragging trials on for longer than they should. At worst undermining prosecution enough that the guilty go free.

This sort of thing is not confined to Chemistry, unfortunately.

--Patrick

So, I'm a bit confused. Is she even a qualified chemist? Does she have her Master's? Did she lie about having one or just lied about her alma mater? She sounds like the Lindsey Lohan of chemistry. Her poor social life!

Necronic said:

Since I'm a chemist IRL I thought I should bring up the case of the lab worker who contaminated all the case files

http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/201...pacted-case/ao7zjRS7G1MozQMSrpAjBI/story.html

Now she's out on a measly 10k bail with a nice curfew. Myself and others I work with are all pretty upset about this, because what she did is so completely unethical and unacceptable. I really am blown away by the low bail considering that she is facing effectively a life sentence in jail for this (which I doubt they will give her, even for this that seems a bit extreme).

What bothers me more than her actions, and the horrendous consequences of all the effective mistrials, is that something like this could have happened in the first place. It's very "Dexter", where the nerd in the lab coat turns out to be one of the most dangerous people you have in your office.

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Man, that really sucks. I have no idea how you would go about fixing the systems so that even if something like this happens in the future (or is happening now) at other labs, it doesn't have a massive effect on court cases. I mean, you could require two independent tests for each sample, but the argument would be that that slows the system down and costs the taxpayers double. You can require stricter background checks on employees of the labs that are being used, but you can't test for sheer laziness. You can require more frequent internal reviews of all lab employees, but even if you catch someone who's been falsifying test results, you can't really know how much damage they've done without going back through all of the cases they've handled since their last review. In the end, I suppose we just have to accept that any time human beings interface with the legal (or any other) system, the system is going to be flawed. Computers, unfortunately, aren't any better, since a computer can only work as well as the human who designed it (and its software) built it to be. Robots are the same.

I can understand why you're concerned about the portion that I bolded, I can see a backlash against scientists/lab workers because of this. Sadly, though this case happened on a grander scale, it's really no worse than the officer from Tempe, AZ who hid evidence involving at least 10 separate cases in his garage over an eight year period, or the hundreds of thousands of rape kits that have gone untested in Dallas, or the thousands of crime guns that have gone untested in Spokane, WA, or the fact that some attorneys just aren't as good as others.

From the article:

Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said last week that 159 defendants statewide had been released to the streets so far in the drug lab scandal, and eight have been rearrested.

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They got released when they may or may not have been guilty, getting a second chance, and eight of them fuck it up within a week. Bravo, dumbfucks.

I'm just surprised it was that few.

As someone who isn't a chemist, what was she actually doing? The breaking chain of custody thing I get, and the falsifying of records I get, but what was she actually doing? Being lazy and covering it up? I'm just not sure what she was trying to gain.

And how does one get certified to work in a crime lab? It does seem that for something like crime chemistry they would actually double-check your credentials.

Do you remember all the fuss over the OJ trial nearly 20 years ago? About sloppy collection techniques, sloppy handling of samples and evidence?

Guess what - this lady was doing this big-time.

Yeesh.

So when is the episode of Law & Order?

SpecialKO said:

And how does one get certified to work in a crime lab?

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Punny one liners and a nice pair of shades I would imagine

SpecialKO said:

Yeesh.

So when is the episode of Law & Order?

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They've already done an episode on this kind of thing. Also, Law & Order isn't on the air anymore. It ended on it's 20th season because TNT wasn't interested in buying anymore episodes from NBC.

SpecialKO said:

As someone who isn't a chemist, what was she actually doing? The breaking chain of custody thing I get, and the falsifying of records I get, but what was she actually doing? Being lazy and covering it up? I'm just not sure what she was trying to gain.

And how does one get certified to work in a crime lab? It does seem that for something like crime chemistry they would actually double-check your credentials.

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It's more than just lazy. She was lazy/sloppy, but then put in a lot of effort to cover this up/lie about the records. I've also heard that she intentionally changed lab results on more than one occasion. I don't even know the reason behind that, I have a hard time believing it was simply a matter of malice.

AshburnerX said:

They've already done an episode on this kind of thing. Also, Law & Order isn't on the air anymore. It ended on it's 20th season because TNT wasn't interested in buying anymore episodes from NBC.

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Isn't SVU still on? They can make anything about sexual assault.

SpecialKO said:

Isn't SVU still on? They can make anything about sexual assault.

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SVU and Criminal Intent are still on because USA wants new episodes. That's basically all there is to it.

Necronic said:

It's more than just lazy. She was lazy/sloppy, but then put in a lot of effort to cover this up/lie about the records. I've also heard that she intentionally changed lab results on more than one occasion. I don't even know the reason behind that, I have a hard time believing it was simply a matter of malice.

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I wouldn't be surprised if people who have this low level of ethics wouldn't be easily persuaded to change results from certain interest groups. She didn't just fuck up some peoples lives, she could have been actively aiding terrorism.

Ooh, the "T" word finally gets thrown out there.

(Side note: is there a version of Godwin's Law that applies to terrorism?)

jwhouk said:

Ooh, the "T" word finally gets thrown out there.

(Side note: is there a version of Godwin's Law that applies to terrorism?)

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You know who else was a terrorist?

....

jwhouk said:

Ooh, the "T" word finally gets thrown out there.

(Side note: is there a version of Godwin's Law that applies to terrorism?)

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I mean that more along the lines she may have been lining her pockets by changing results terrorism, organized crime. Disgusting people like her...