Supreme Court Rules on 'Dookhan Defendants'; Numerous Tainted Cases to be Dismissed

BOSTON, MA — Massachusetts' highest court on Wednesday declined to throw out the more than 20,000 cases potentially tainted by a rogue state chemist, opting instead to adopt a new version of its case-by-case protocol as the state's judiciary faces an unprecedented volume of potential litigation.

Dookhan admitted to tampering with drug samples in 2012 at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Jamaica Plain, raising questions about the integrity of the testing performed at the lab.

Already, hundreds of defendants have successfully appealed their convictions based on Dookhan’s involvement in their cases, according to The Boston Globe.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has argued the state should dismiss the estimated 24,000-plus cases impacted by Dookhan's actions, while prosecutors argue the remaining cases should each be addressed individually.

Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday effectively compromised.

The SJC rejected the calls to dismiss all impacted cases, instead issuing a judgment that called on district attorneys to winnow down the number of potential cases, dismissing any they "would not or could not reprosecute." From there, they must issue clear notification to those whose cases remained and respond in court on a case-by-case basis. If the number of remaining cases is so high that each person cannot obtain legal assistance, then a justice of the court will be tasked with finding another solution, which could still include dismissing those drug convictions without prejudice.

That first step must be done in 90 days.

In its opinion outlining the order Wednesday, the SJC concedes the difficult burden this places on district attorneys, the courts and other services.

"But we also recognize that Dookhan's misconduct at the Hinton lab has substantially burdened the due process rights of many thousands of defendants whose convictions rested on her tainted drug analysis and who, even if they have served their sentences, continue to suffer the collateral consequences arising from those convictions," the justices wrote. "The remedy we order, challenging as it is to implement, preserves the ability of these defendants to vindicate their rights through case-by-case adjudication, respects the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, and maintains the fairness and integrity of our criminal justice system in the wake of a laboratory scandal of unprecedented magnitude."

The ACLU of Massachusetts hailed Wednesday's decision as a success, saying in a statement from legal director Matt Segal:

"Today's ruling is a major victory for justice, fairness, and tens of thousands of people in the Commonwealth who were wrongfully convicted of drug offenses. The Court has called on prosecutors to dismiss the drug charges against most of the Dookhan defendants and to provide meaningful notice to the remaining defendants, all by fixed deadlines. It is now time for the DAs to step up and finally allow Massachusetts to turn the page on the worst drug lab scandal in our nation's history, especially because the Amherst drug lab scandal involving chemist Sonja Farak has called into question thousands more drug convictions."

The Suffolk County District Attorney's office, too, weighed in on the decision, also casting the SJC's as an affirmation of its practices so far:

“Today’s SJC decision is consistent with an uninterrupted series of rulings that prosecutors are best situated to assess the viability of their cases. Since the Scott decision in 2013, the high court has rejected mass dismissal as a remedy to Annie Dookhan’s misconduct, and it has done so once again. In the weeks to come, we’ll consider the quality of the evidence, the availability of our witnesses, and the relative seriousness of each specific case in terms of public safety, public health, and public policy. But that approach is not a new one: it’s our practice every day, in every case, in every courthouse in Suffolk County.”

Dookhan, meanwhile, has served her three-year sentence, and was released on parole this April.

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