. . . instead of finding drugs where none existed, the chemist turned in false negative results. How long would it take the authorities to step in?
I only mention this because the Governor proposed to take away indigent defense from independent attorneys, and put them under the control of the executive and prosecutors. I don’t know if this proposal was ever implemented but if it was it should be reversed. And if it wasn’t implemented it should be dropped permanently.
Two things are obvious from looking at the state lab scandal. First, proper supervision is often lacking. Second, a bad situation can go on for a long time if the government is comfortable with the results. Why would anyone want the same people who mismanaged the state labs to supervise indigent attorneys?
She wouldn’t have lasted a month if she was faking it in the other direction- even if it was just a fraction of the tests she was able to fake in favor of the authorities for years.
I agree that this stinks to high heaven, and I agree that this would have been stopped in a heartbeat had the fraudulent results been going the other way. I also agree that somewhere between Ms. Dookhan and the corner office there is almost surely one or more people who worked very hard to continue this travesty for as long as possible.
Where we may part company is that I am not, for the moment, ready to lay this on Deval Patrick. My own personal bias is that police departments and prosecutors have been corrupt and out of control in Massachusetts for GENERATIONS, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, despite valiant efforts to combat it.
After all, the similarly corrupt housing authority racket has been going on for a similar period. We KNOW that Governor Patrick tried HARD to reform that nest of vipers, and the legislature loudly slapped him around for doing so — and refused to pass the needed legislation.
In my view, the culture of corruption in Massachusetts politics is pervasive and deep-rooted. I think it’s nearly impossible to blame it on one party or another. If we assume that Democrats and Republicans are equally likely to be corrupt, then simple arithmetic shows that the political affiliation of corrupt public officials will be overwhelmingly Democratic so long as the Democratic Party holds an overwhelming majority of the legislature. During the long period when the GOP held the corner office, the corruption in gubernatorial officials was dominated by members of the GOP.
These travesties will continue so long as we tolerate corruption in EITHER party.
but I think the operation of state facilities is the responsibility of the Governor in two ways. First, the people he chooses to run those agencies should be competent, and vigilant. Like we expect the people who inspect the big did tunnels to be vigilant.
But the Governor also sets the tone. What kind of message does it send when this administration advocates putting defense attorneys under the supervision of prosecutors?
I still think that Patrick is the best governor we’ve had in a long time (faint praise). But I think he has made a calculation that it’s safer politically to ignore defendants than to upset prosecutors and police departments. I’d like him to recalculate.