SJC to rule whether state's Dookhan investigation was adequate

In early February, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard a case that could expand the Hinton drug lab scandal beyond Annie Dookhan. This is among the cases starting to bubble up that both seek to link the Hinton and Amherst scandals and also cast wider doubt on the quality of all analysis coming out of either lab.

Justino Escobar, who pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking in December 2009, contends the state inadequately investigated Dookhan’s colleagues. The Commonwealth says this argument is clearly “baseless” given the “multi-agency” investigative effort following Dookhan’s arrest in 2012, including the criminal investigation by the state Attorney General’s office, the Massachusetts State Police, and the state Inspector General.

Following Escobar’s arrest in Boston, police sent white powder found in his car to the Hinton lab in Jamaica Plain for tests. The sample were analyzed by one of Dookhan’s co-workers. Escobar’s appeal hinges largely on the allegation that, if the state failed to spot potential misconduct by Farak during her time at the Hinton lab, it might also have missed misconduct by other analysts, including the chemists who analyzed Escobar’s samples. Escobar takes particular aim at the Inspector General’s determination that Dookhan was the “sole bad actor,” given that Farak very well may have tampered with evidence at the Hinton lab, as well.

A Superior Court judge denied Escobar’s dismissal motions, but granted his request for additional discovery about Hinton Lab chemists who tested samples from his case.

From the lower court’s ruling, which both Both Escobar and the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office appealed:

Trial judges are now faced with the undeniable reality that, twice over the past five years, the courts of Massachusetts have been asked to rely on representations by the Commonwealth that the tip of an obvious iceberg is not so menacing as it may seem, and that nothing more sinister lies underneath.

Twice this premise has been proven wrong, at the cost of due process to criminal defendants. In short, Dookhan and Farak were each responsible for potentially thousands of unfair criminal proceedings, and thus occasions of injustice, despite repeated assurances that their misconduct was isolated and contained. I frankly do not see why any trial judge or any defendant should be willing to rely purely on such government assurances yet again.

Read my coverage for the Boston Globe here.

The SJC docket is here, and you can watch the oral arguments here [or download the audio here (.zip)].