• (1) The Massachusetts attorney general disclosed in May that state crime-lab chemist Sonja Farak (who was fired in 2013) worked "high" on drugs "every day" in the lab in Amherst, beginning around 2005. Among her preferred refreshments: meth, ketamine, ecstasy and LSD. (Farak worked at a different Massachusetts crime lab than Annie Dookhan, imprisoned in 2013 for improvising damaging lab results on at least 20,000 convicts.)
• (2) The U.S. Justice Department revealed in April that in the 20-year period ending about 2000, most FBI forensic unit examiners overstated hair sample "matches" in criminal trial testimony -- helping prosecutors 95 percent of the time. [Boston Globe, 5-3-2016] [Washington Post, 4-18-2016]