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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 <\/em>her fault? (308)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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, … Continue reading