41,000 conviction cases. 24,000 are comprised. In ONE state.
Significant web-buzz is counter balancing the “Law and Order” industry’s (police, prosecutors, police crime labs, and various Crim Justice talking heads) howling that their self-assessed forensic integrity is just fine.
Well, let’s see what they say about this from Slate. I’m sorry its just a blog. (a hint for the Crime Lab “Congress.”
LEO responses draw little depth from their platitudes about outliers, wrongful conviction denials, etc. As shown in this Annie Dookhan crime lab disaster, corrections to her shredding the integrity of Massachusetts convictions had to be “solved” through ACLU directed litigation. The MA Conviction Integrity Unit (or its equivalent) as a “vanguard of criminal justice reform” must have been on vaca. In fact, I can’t find out if MA even has a CIU in any of its jurisdictions.
List of 20 CIUs up to 2015
The MA State Attorney General’s Appeals Division looks to be the closest thing, but its mandate seems to be rather pro-prosecution as it “defends convictions” within the state.
Proof of the all these matters is that public trust in the “CSI effect” is in major reversal mode. Shock is consistently coming from recent followups on the US AG Loretta Lynch and other law enforcement sounding like MS attorney General Jim Hood defending the “bitemark king” Michael West.
