[chimeracoder]

> "It's unsettling and maddening, because you're now going to have a lot of people get released to the street prematurely," says Middlesex County District attorney Gerry Leone, one of many hoping the state supreme court will curb the releases.

That's a pretty bad way of looking at this, because it assumes that those people deserved to be behind bars to begin with, and ignores those that didn't.

How about, "It's unsettling and maddening, because we now realize we have a lot of people behind bars without the [proper] due process they deserved"?

[lvs]

Worse:

>"We tell them, 'Listen, we know what you were doing before and we're watching you. And if you go back into the life, that Dookhan's not there anymore. So when you go [back] in on this charge, it's gonna stick,'" Davis says.

So, Ed Davis is sending officers to threaten people who, from a legal perspective, have not been convicted of a crime and have been erroneously jailed for years. Lovely. That's really icing on the cake.

I'm not happy about putting potential dealers back on the street, but we are a nation of laws, and these people will be freed by our courts. You can't have the police commissioner sending people to threaten them.

[marrs]

How is he threatening them? He was telling repeat offenders that the police are going to be keeping a close eye on them. That's their job, isn't it? Or would you rather he tell them that the police will be away on holiday all next week, "but please call our support centre if you plan on committing any crime and we'll get our duty officer to log a ticket"?

[Shivetya]

they aren't repeat offenders if the evidence used against them was fraudulent. If that evidence was the basis of their conviction they should be free and this prosecutor should be out of a job for such threats.

Look, he only does this because his position is mostly safe for him to abuse. He has already declared all these people guilty, sadly I bet he is more upset the chemist was caught than the possibility people were wrongfully convicted.

[chris_wot]

That's their job isn't it?

No. That's called harassment. They need to focus on actual crimes being committed.

[chris_wot]

In other words, all you need to say to the officer is - "Actually, you don't know what I was doing. Because it was nothing".

[scotch_drinker]

At the risk of painting with a very wide brush, DAs aren't incentivized to make sure people get due process. They are incentivized to convict as many people as possible. In multiple cases here in Texas where later DNA evidence overturned rape and murder charges, the DA argued right up until the moment of reversal that they believed totally in the guilt of the accused. They have to, it's their job and to have public doubt in the people they are trying will only result in them looking for a new job pretty quickly.

Not saying it's right, just how it is.

[Zigurd]

How likely this went on as long as it did without the collaboration of prosecutors?

[Elrac]

Collaboration? AFAICT we have lots of reason to suspect that it happened at the _instigation_ of the prosecutors!

By all means, throw the book at the dishonest chemist, but I want to see heads on pikes (or at least a legal equivalent) for the justice-perverting rat finks that set her up to it.

[chris_wot]

The DA resigned when it became known he regularly communicated with the chemist.

[Zigurd]

Has he been indicted? The overall impact here is enormous, on a scale like the "cash for kids" judge. He ought to be in prison.

[chris_wot]

Seems like a mistake, not a criminal offense.

[Zigurd]

I'd want to see their emails before taking such a generous point of view. All the emails between this lab tech, police, and DAs should be released, and a special prosecutor brought in to review them.

[girvo]

That is not how the police work nor think about cases, though. One of the many reasons I dislike them.

[drjesusphd]

He's not a cop though, he's a district attorney.

[girvo]

Potato, potahto.

Actually, DA's are even worse as far as I'm concerned. Funny to think I actually studied Law.

[ensignavenger]

All suspects a guilty, period. Or else they wouldn't be suspects, now would they?

[Taniwha]

no, all suspects are innocent until proven guilty - the problem here is that the proving has been done in error so they are still innocent until proven guilty

[weixiyen]

or both?