Angiulo: Drug Lab Scandals, Improper Convictions, & the Consequences

Monday, May 16, 2016

Leonardo Angiulo, GoLocalWorcester Legal Contributor

Recent disclosures have revealed that a chemist, employed by the state to test drugs, was allegedly consuming seized evidence and tainted thousands of cases. Reports have also indicated she was allegedly under the influence of narcotics while testifying against defendants in her official capacity. This, however, is only one of the parties who has, in recent years, manipulated evidence in drug cases. One chemist formerly employed by the Hinton Drug Lab has also admitted to falsifying tests that were used to convict people in the courts of the Commonwealth.

As reviewed in prior columns, these falsified results are a tremendous assault on our court system. They challenge the belief that members of the government will testify in good faith. It shakes the notion that justice means a person will be held accountable for what the evidence proves rather than what someone thinks they have done.

Some people out there may disagree with this. They may start with the assumption that if you are arrested on a drug charge, the chances are that the substance you are found with really is the illicit substance police think it is. The logic goes that, therefore, a couple of rogue state chemists are a shame, but aren't the end of the world.

Lofty notions of due process, government accountability, and the difference between right and wrong might not set the hook for you. If you are in this category, consider this: all those cases that need to get reopened are going to be incredibly time consuming and expensive for the courts, the prosecution, and the defense. Most of the cost is going to fall on tax payers.

Whether the average person cares, or not, does not change the fact that the falsified drug tests will require many, many drug cases to be reopened, retried, and in some cases dismissed. Due process violations are meaningful in the courts of the Commonwealth and the United States. What this means is that cases that were once convictions are now either not guilties or dismissals. This has a domino effect that is just as important as the due process violations that got us here.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court case of Commonwealth v. Williams addresses this issue. As many people know, criminal convictions carry many consequences beyond the risk of incarceration. Among those consequences are heightened penalties of subsequent criminal charges. Take for example, the charges in the Williams case involving firearm possession with three prior convictions for serious drug offenses or violent crimes. When charged with this crime as a level three armed career criminal, known by the acronym “ACC 3”, a person faces a minimum term of incarceration of 15 years.

In Williams, the defendant followed a series of steps to vacate drug convictions on his record that were invalidated because of tainted forensic work by a state chemist. The defendant argued that, in turn, opened the question of whether his ACC plea was valid. The Appeals court agreed that the subsequent charge conviction must also be reviewed because it could not be meaningfully seperated from the tainted drug cases resultingin the subsequent indictment.

All of this means more work for a prosecutor, defense attorney and the court system. To be clear this is work that must be done. These cases must be reviewed because our system of justice has a clear prerequisite: due process. What the drug lab scandals mean, more than anything, is that we must always question evidence as thoroughly as possible.

This questioning does not need to happen to prevent the guilty from being convicted. It must happen to ensure a verdict is true and just. It must happen to ensure our court system is, in fact, working for the people.

Leonardo Angiulo is an Attorney in the city of Worcester handling legal matters across the Commonwealth. He can be reached by email at [email protected] and found on the web at www.angiulolaw.com