District Attorney Rollins Asks for Hinton Drug Cases to go to SJC for “Systemic Remedy”

Filing in Escobar case says global solution is needed to end and remedy drug lab malfeasance

        BOSTON, July 9, 2021 — District Attorney Rachael Rollins late yesterday filed a motion asking Superior Court Judge Michael D. Ricciuti to send to the state’s Supreme Judicial Court a request for global resolution of thousands of cases tainted by egregious misconduct and significant management lapses at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute.

        As part of her Hinton Lab Initiative, DA Rollins has pledged to vacate Suffolk County drug convictions for any individual whose drug certification was completed at the Jamaica Plain facility between May 2003 and August 2012, the entire period of time in which either now disgraced and convicted chemists Annie Dookhan or Sonja Farak worked at the facility, and up until it was closed by Governor Deval Patrick due to abject failure of oversight at the lab.  Yesterday’s filing is part of that effort.

        The filing is in response to a motion for a new trial for Justino Escobar, whose 2009 plea resulted from testing at the Hinton Lab by a chemist who was neither Dookhan nor Farak.  “This case is unfortunately one of too many where the integrity of the conviction is now suspect due to the notorious mismanagement that plagued the state’s main forensic testing facility, the Hinton Lab, for nearly a decade,’’ DA Rollins said in the filing.

        In all, chemists working at Hinton during the nine year period analyzed and certified some 82,800 samples from Suffolk County. More than 7,800 of those cases were already reviewed and vacated with prejudice as part of the Supreme Judicial Court’s 2017 ruling in Bridgeman and others v. District Attorney for the Suffolk District and others. But there are some 70,000 Suffolk County certifications that were not reviewed and they will be the subject of the proposed global resolution. Since one certification can be used for multiple defendants or one defendant can have multiple certifications, the precise number of defendants is still to be determined.

        “We now know that there has been criminal misconduct by multiple chemists in the Commonwealth, each of whom worked for a period at the Hinton Lab. That, coupled with the documented gross mismanagement of the entire Lab does not and should not instill confidence in any of the work product coming from Hinton,’’ said DA Rollins in the filing. “As the government, we should be held to the highest of standards. When we fail, we must admit that failure and immediately implement changes to assure we don’t make the same mistakes twice. We should also make it easier, not harder, for the public to be made whole when we fail them.  Piecemeal solutions do not get us there.”

        The three questions the Commonwealth is asking the SJC to consider are:

• Whether defendants whose convictions were supported by drug certifications created in the Hinton Lab with Sonja Farak as the primary or secondary chemist are entitled to the conclusive presumption of egregious government misconduct and thus should be granted new trials.

• Whether defendants whose convictions were supported by drug certifications created in the Hinton Lab, regardless of the chemist that conducted the analyst, are entitled to the conclusive presumption of egregious government misconduct because the gross mismanagement of the Lab as identified by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in his 2014 report and thus should be granted new trials.

• Whether the Commonwealth may address outbreaks of misconduct with global resolutions for a class of defendants impacted by identified misconduct, or whether Mass. R. Crim. P. 30 should be amended to allow for such global resolution?

        The filing argues that a series of reported questions, “is the most direct and efficient way to address the need for global resolution and equitable justice for all of the defendants whose convictions were secured and rest on tainted Hinton Lab certifications. The full recognition of the huge impact of the wide-spread and systemic misconduct in the Hinton Lab can only be made at the appellate level.”

        Without a systemic solution or global resolution, DA Rollins’ Hinton Lab Initiative will have to proceed on a one-by-one case basis.

        “Systemic problems require systemic solutions. Forcing individual parties impacted by egregious and extensive governmental misconduct to litigate just resolutions in approximately 70,000 separate cases each infected with evidence from the Hinton Lab is grossly inefficient, patently unfair, and demonstrably inequitable. It is beyond dispute that the vast majority of the defendants impacted by the Hinton Lab misconduct are people of color, specifically Black and brown men,” the filing states.

        While the cases are all old, this is hardly an academic exercise. Collateral consequences of a criminal conviction can have life-long impacts on an individual’s capacity to gain employment, attend college, secure housing, and use government benefits, as well as many other opportunities. Prior convictions can result in longer sentences for an individual who may be found guilty in a subsequent offense. DA Rollins’ Office is the first in the state to take such broad affirmative action on all Hinton cases.

        “This shameful chapter of our history will take dedication and perseverance to undo,’’ said DA Rollins. “The public deserves to have faith in the government. If we continue to refuse to acknowledge our failures and misdeeds at the Hinton Lab, or cling to being right for fear of ‘opening the floodgates’ regarding the tens of thousands of impacted cases and individuals, we will have lost a tremendous opportunity to show true leadership and reconciliation.” She thanked participants in the Hinton Lab Initiative, including members of the criminal defense bar in general and Attorney Luke Ryan, in particular for their determination, dedication, and relentless pursuit in bringing all of the corruption at the lab to light.

        The motion in the Escobar matter was filed by Assistant District Attorney Donna Patalano, DA Rollins’s General Counsel and Co-Director of the Office’s Hinton Lab Initiative.

Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ office serves the communities of Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop, Mass. The office handles some 20,000 cases a year. More than 160 attorneys in the office practice in nine district and municipal courts, Suffolk Superior Court, the Massachusetts Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial Court, and the Boston Juvenile Courts. The office employs some 300 people and offers a wide range of services and programs to serve anyone who comes in contact with the criminal justice system. This office is committed to educating the public about the services we provide, our commitment to crime prevention, and our dedication to keeping the residents of Suffolk County safe.