Annie Dookhan, a laboratory technician employed by the State of Massachusetts, was sentenced to three to five years in prison for tampering with evidence that resulted in erroneous findings of guilt in several thousand cases, where several thousand innocent people were sentenced to prison based on the deceptive practices of Annie Dookhan.

In fact, her unethical methodology is said to have tainted physical evidence in more than 6,000 cases in which the evidence was instrumental in allowing juries to reach an erroneous finding of guilt.  Such a pall of corruption was cast over the justice system of Massachusetts that more than 21,000 cases were affected.

To call her methodology "unethical" hardly does justice to the conscienceless, sociopathic acts she committed, which disrupted the lives of thousands of innocent victims, some of whom still sit in prison, despite the clear knowledge by courts and prosecutors that Dookhan fabricated inculpatory evidence used to incarcerate them.

If justice were to be served in a case like Dookhan's, the penalty for disrupting so many lives, and for besmirching so many reputations, would have to be severe.  To sentence her to no more than a maximum of five years in prison for causing so much pain and suffering to so many defendants, and to their loved ones, is a major affront to all of them and to justice.

If 5,000 people suffered unjust incarceration as a result of Dookhan's falsification of evidence, and if she were sentenced to one week in prison for each of those 5,000 cases, Dookhan would never leave prison alive.  But the slap on the wrist for all of her egregious treachery means she will be out of prison before she turns 50.  Some of those wrongfully sentenced due to that treachery might still be in prison, waiting for red tape to be untangled, after she has already been released.

The thousands of crimes committed by Dookhan also cost the taxpayers of Massachusetts millions of dollars.  The state will have to pay restitution to thousands of victims of Dookhan's treachery, adding to the state deficit, adding to burdens placed on taxpayers, and reducing the revenues available for any state programs that might otherwise have benefited from them.

In addition, Dookhan defrauded jurists, prosecutors, juries, and the public at large, whose trust in the justice system must be forever debilitated.

If Dukhan were sentenced to two and a half days in prison for each of the presumed 5,000 victims (as mentioned in the example above), she would have to spend nearly 35 years in prison.  To sentence her to a maximum of five years is the equivalent of sentencing her to only about 8 hours in prison per offense.  This is not anything like justice.  And she could be released in three years.