ACLU asks court to dismiss every case tied to drug lab scandal

BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) – The ACLU is asking the state's highest court to dismiss every criminal case tied to the Annie Dookhan drug lab scandal.

There are more than 40,000 cases tied to the scandal. The ACLU says they are making the request because the state has allegedly failed to properly come up with a plan to handle the huge caseload over the past two years.

According to the Boston Globe, under the ACLU recommendation, prosecutors would only be able to pursue the drug lab cases if they decided to do so within a 90-day window following the court's decision and the case was wrapped up within six months.

Prosecutors said Dookhan admitted "dry labbing," or testing only a fraction of a batch of samples, then listing them all as positive for illegal drugs, to "improve her productivity and burnish her reputation." Dookhan was sentenced to three to five years in prison, followed by two years' probation, after pleading guilty to charges in the case in November 2013.

For more: BostonGlobe.com

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