Public defenders and the ACLU are asking the state’s highest court to throw out more than 24,000 drug convictions that may have been tainted by disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan — the latest salvo in an ongoing battle between prosecutors and civil rights attorneys.
“There is only one way to vindicate the due process rights of Dookhan defendants and to restore the integrity of the justice system. Their convictions should be vacated and dismissed,” the 71-page appeal filed yesterday with the Supreme Judicial Court states.
The American Civil Liberties Union and public defenders have argued for dismissal for months. State prosecutors, meanwhile, want to handle so-called “Dookhan defendants” on a case-by-case basis and on Sept. 1 sent notice to those affected, explaining their rights.
Dookhan — who worked at a state drug lab running evidence in criminal cases between 2004 and 2010 — pleaded guilty to a 27-count indictment that included charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and tampering.
Defense attorneys and the ACLU argued that a piecemeal approach would overwhelm the criminal justice system and that it would take 48 years to assign attorneys to each defendant affected by the drug lab crisis. Prosecutors called the estimate an exaggeration.
“After all, a handful of prosecutors have been handling these cases since day one,” said Jake Wark, spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office. “The notion that it would take 48 years to appoint defense counsel is either gross hyperbole or evidence of surprising dysfunction within the defense bar.”
The ACLU and public defenders also took aim at the notice sent by prosecutors, saying it “ominously told defendants that vacating their convictions would cause their cases” to become active again.
The notice tells Dookhan defendants that they can challenge their conviction, and that prosecutors “may decide to try you again on the vacated drug charge(s), but if you are tried and convicted again, you will not face any punishment greater than what you already received.”
Wark defended the notice, adding that the “ACLU forfeited the right to critique these notices when they refused to play a meaningful part in drafting and sending them.”
Compounding the problem, according to the brief, is a second lab scandal — involving former chemist Sonja Farak — which could affect 18,000 cases.
“The Commonwealth’s indigent defense system has no more capacity to litigate all these cases than it does to build a rocket ship and fly it to Jupiter,” the ACLU and public defenders wrote. “The DAs do not claim otherwise.”
