No defense for this
Five years after the misdeeds of state drug lab chemist Annie Dookhan were exposed, civil libertarians and defense lawyers are back pushing for their preferred resolution to thousands of tainted cases. But global absolution for the remaining Dookhan defendants remains as nutty an idea today as it was when it was first proposed.
The ACLU of Massachusetts and the state public defender agency have asked the Supreme Judicial Court to essentially wave a judicial wand and vacate all 24,000 convictions that were tainted by Dookhan’s involvement, but that so far have not been challenged.
“These defendants would have to wait decades for justice through case-by-case litigation,” said Matthew Segal, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, in releasing the plaintiffs’ brief that seeks to dismiss the charges.
The plaintiffs argue there aren’t enough resources to devote to the cases, that it would take 48 years to assign attorneys to all 24,000 defendants. And without a blanket settlement, they argue, “the majority of (the cases) will never be challenged.”
That assumes a level of indifference, ignorance or carelessness on the part of defendants — and their lawyers — that simply isn’t reasonable.
In 2015 the court rejected the first request for dismissal of all Dookhan-related cases, but agreed that defendants were entitled to challenge their convictions without the possibility of facing harsher penalties (some defendants had agreed to plea bargains, for example, in which they admitted guilt to lesser charges).
Since then prosecutors have compiled lists of all “Dookhan defendants” and earlier this month sent individual notices advising them of their right to challenge their convictions. The plaintiffs say that notice contained misleading information.
This case is particularly important because the concerns, sadly, aren’t limited to Dookhan cases. There are a possible 18,000 cases tainted by the misdeeds of a second chemist, Sonja Farak. Now comes word of cases potentially tainted by the mishandling of evidence by the Braintree Police Department.
The court has options for ensuring that justice is served that stop short of blanket dismissal. That solution would set a dangerous precedent.