Friday, May 5, 2017

We need more women in science?

Why is that, again, exactly?
Up to 23,000 current prisoners are expected to be released from the Massachusetts State Prison system because the female lab chemist handling evidence in their cases lied, forged colleague’s signatures, and purposefully contaminated evidence.  Here is the story of Annie Dookhan, nicknamed “Superwoman” for her record productivity at the state crime lab.

Annie Dookhan, a female born in Trinidad & Tobago in 1977, moved to the United States as a child, became a chemist, and took a job at the state crime lab in Massachusetts, where she earned the nickname “Superwoman” due to her speed and efficiency running lab tests, primarily on criminal drug cases.  Her productivity was so high, she was processing four times the work of the average government lab worker.  Or was she?

Annie’s secret was to not test the samples at all, but to take the short cut by lying and confirming that whatever substance police told her to check for was present, or to contaminate evidence, or forge co-worker’s signatures guaranteeing the chain of custody of evidence.

In the aftermath, a state crime lab was shuttered, 5 workers were fired for failure to properly supervise this rogue employee, up to 23,000 prisoners are expected to be released from prison, and Annie plead guilty to falsifying drug tests.
Pretty impressive, even by female fuck-up standards. I'm sure the fact that she was a) diversity, and b) kind of cute when she was younger had absolutely nothing to do with her ability to skate by without ever actually doing her job.

14 comments:

Midnight Avenue J said...

Fake Masters too apparently. No record of her ever taking Masters level courses.

May have had an affair, in any case her personal association with the D.A. was inappropriate to say the least.

Suffered miscarriage. Furthering her insanity.

Husband said she's a chronic liar.

So sure, parole after two years sounds about right. :->

Harambe said...

She should have to serve all those sentances she caused innocent people to serve.

Dexter said...

If you encounter an apparently super-competent, super-productive female... Be careful, ask questions, chances are she is neither.

Bike Bubba said...

There's a bigger problem here. If I'm a defense lawyer, and the prosecution simply calls the witness to the stand, I'm going to ask for the test results--graphs with time/sample/etc.. there. So we would conclude that (a) defense lawyers in Massachusetts are completely incompetent and (b) this is likely only the tip of the iceberg in terms of fraud. If the system allows people to cheat, they will....

zAuthor said...

If a male bricklayer was laying FOUR TIMES the number of bricks as his coworkers, would your reaction be:

1. Call him Superman

2. Make sure he isn't cutting corners, because superman doesn't exist and if a brick wall falls over due to shoddy construction there will be hell to pay.

zAuthor said...

Missing from the story is her complete lack of morality.

She blithely sent men to prison, with no care if they were guilty or innocent, simply to further career.

How many women would destroy a life simply to help advance her career aspiations?

Robert What? said...

@Otto Lamp,

"How many women would destroy a life simply to help advance her career aspiations?"

While women can have sympathy, empathy is primarily a male characteristic.

B-Rex said...

On top of the false convictions, you know other honest forensic tech's careers suffered when they were passed over for promotion or not hired because they already had their afirmative actiom superwoman

Fenton Wood said...

Director of the lab: Dr. Linda Han.
Dookhan's direct supervisor: Julie Nassif.

So much diversity. I'm willing to bet the entire staff looked like a state DMV.

Aeoli Pera said...

Diversity is a gift that just keeps on giving.

Hammerli 280 said...

Otto has a point. A competent supervisor would have caught this years ago. She has to go back.

liberranter said...

if you encounter an apparently super-competent, super-productive "diverse" female... Be careful, ask questions, chances are nearly 100 percent she is neither.

Fixed.

Days of the Broken Arrows said...

They gave her a wrist-slap, legally speaking. Hopefully, some of the men she imprisoned can band together and file a massive class action suit against her.

She has accomplished one thing, though. She's made Elizabeth Holmes look good by comparison. Holmes might be a charlatan, but she never had any men jailed on bullsh*t evidence, much less thousands of them.

inthemountains said...

Can someone explain to me why this is an argument against having women in science? That seems to be your implication, but it's just one story of someone doing something very wrong.

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