Annie Dookhan: Massachusetts; Bulletin: Major Development: State's highest rules that people convicted on drug charges in cases that involved the disgraced state chemist can seek new trials..."“Regardless whether a defendant pleads guilty to a drug offense or is found guilty at trial . . . the evidence is still potentially tainted by Dookhan’s misconduct,’’ Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants wrote for the court. “The taint is still attributable to the government [because] it may be impossible for the defendant to prove [their] case . . . was actually tainted by Dookhan’s misconduct.’"..."Dookhan worked in a Department of Public Health lab in Jamaica Plain from 2003 to 2012, testing suspected drugs. She admitted to tampering with samples, forging results in favor of law enforcement. Her actions may have compromised 24,000 cases. She served a three-year sentence for perjury and evidence tampering."

 

"The state’s highest court said Wednesday that people convicted on drug charges in cases that involved a disgraced state chemist, Annie Dookhan, can seek new trials. Last year, the Supreme Judicial Court gave special permission to people to undo their pleas if they had pleaded guilty to drug charges in Dookhan-related cases. On Wednesday, it ruled that the same protection must be extended to some defendants who went to trial. “Regardless whether a defendant pleads guilty to a drug offense or is found guilty at trial . . . the evidence is still potentially tainted by Dookhan’s misconduct,’’ Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants wrote for the court. “The taint is still attributable to the government [because] it may be impossible for the defendant to prove [their] case . . . was actually tainted by Dookhan’s misconduct.’’ Dookhan worked in a Department of Public Health lab in Jamaica Plain from 2003 to 2012, testing suspected drugs. She admitted to tampering with samples, forging results in favor of law enforcement. Her actions may have compromised 24,000 cases. She served a three-year sentence for perjury and evidence tampering.........In Wednesday’s ruling, the court threw out the 2006 Suffolk Superior Court drug trafficking conviction of Daniel Francis. The court made clear that Boston police and prosecutors were not aware of Dookhan’s misdeeds at the time. Francis’s appellate attorney, David J. Rotondo, called the ruling a positive development for his client and for others like him who went to trial but never challenged the key forensic evidence used against them — the drugs. He said Francis served at least five years in state prison, was deported to his native Jamaica, and may now have a chance to return to the United States and clear his name.........Matthew Segal, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement that “relitigating these tainted cases is inconsistent with the glaring need to restore integrity to the Commonwealth’s justice system.” Instead, he said, drug cases tainted by Dookhan should be dropped.Segal also noted that many Dookhan-related defendants have not yet gotten justice, despite the passage of five years since she was caught. During that time, he noted, another drug lab scandal emerged, involving another disgraced state chemist, Sonja Farak, who worked for eight years at a now-shuttered drug lab in Amherst. Farak allegedly ingested the drugs she was supposed to be testing nearly every day of her career. Defense lawyers are pushing for the courts to revisit those drug convictions, too. Luke Ryan, one of the attorneys leading the push in Western Massachusetts, said the new standard in the Dookhan SJC case may ultimately apply to trials connected to Farak. “It fills an important gap. It answers an unknown,” Ryan said of Wednesday’s decision."

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/20/sjc-rules-people-convicted-drug-charges-involving-annie-dookhan-can-seek-new-trial/uwR21mrKpjbIRQCGWYBc6K/story.html