Sonja Farak was an accomplished student athlete before this all happened. She was incredibly bright, played football as a woman, and was employed by a crime lab at UMass Amherst. So, why did she tamper with evidence?
First of all, the lab she worked at in Amherst was severely underfunded. Too much pressure was being put on the technicians. They were being severely overworked and underpaid. This pushed Sonja to the edge. One day, she tried a sample of meth that was coming through the lab. Because of this one time, she got hooked. She continually stole samples of crystal meth from the lab and took them to get through the day. Not only was this directly taking from and tampering with evidence, but it is making all of her work faulty and untrustworthy.
As a result of her actions, the state had to dismiss thousands of convictions which went through her lab. Because she tampered with evidence, the cases that she worked on are no longer proven beyond a reasonable doubt due to all of the misconduct that she committed. Many likely guilty people were freed from prison. However, as a silver lining, because she falsified so many tests, she likely put many innocent people behind bars – meaning they also got to be free.
Of course, Sonja is to blame for her actions, and there is simply no excuse. However, Sonja did not have a specific agenda against anyone. Maliciousness is not what drove her to do what she did – exhaustion is. She was so exhausted to the point where she would do anything to get through her day and her job. It begs the question, what was working at that crime lab like? Did it exactly foster a healthy and safe working environment, which is essential for such an important job?Is it all her fault? (308)
I think the overall picture is very important, as you mentioned. She seemed to be a normal person who is athletic and simply wanted a normal job at a crime lab. However, the circumstances that surrounded her caused her to act irrationally and led to severe consequences. I also think the idea that guilty people were freed, along with truly innocent people, is a tough moral line to dance around, because what do you value more?
I like the optimistic voice in this post. Farak is not an inherently malpracticing drug addict. Rather, she’s a woman who was dealt a bad hand with her circumstances and bent until she broke with that first hit of meth. This became a slippery slope that probably zapped any control she had over the situation. Like you said, its a sad truth about the working conditions for some of these folks.