Commonwealth v. Scott

• Decision Date: 05 March 2014
• Citation: 5 N.E.3d 530,467 Mass. 336
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Rakim D. SCOTT.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

467 Mass. 336

5 N.E.3d 530

COMMONWEALTH

v.Rakim D. SCOTT.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Submitted Oct. 10, 2013.

Decided March 5, 2014.

Vincent J. DeMore, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Amy M. Belger for the defendant.

Emma A. Andersson & Ezekiel R. Edwards, of New York; Emily A. Cardy & Eric Brandt, Committee for Public Counsel Services; & Matthew R. Segal & Elizabeth A. Lunt, for Committee for Public Counsel Services & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief.

Present: IRELAND, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, GANTS, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.

SPINA, J.

In this case, the defendant's motion to withdraw his admission to sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilty under Mass. R.Crim. P. 30(b), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001), was granted by a judge in the Boston Municipal Court.¹The Commonwealth appealed, and we granted the Commonwealth's application for direct appellate review.² This case is one of four in this posture before us as a result of the ongoing investigation into the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston and, specifically, the conduct of Annie Dookhan, an individual who was employed as a chemist in the forensic drug laboratory (Hinton drug lab or lab) from 2003 until 2012. See Commonwealth v. Torres, 467 Mass. 1007, 5 N.E.3d 560 (2014); Commonwealth v. Bjork, 467 Mass. 1006, 5 N.E.3d 559 (2014); Commonwealth v. Davila, 467 Mass. 1005, 5 N.E.3d 557 (2014). Among other things, that investigation led to the indictment of Dookhan on multiple counts of evidence tampering and obstruction of justice as well as on at least one count of perjury and one count of falsely claiming to hold a graduate degree, all relating to her handling and testing of samples at the Hinton drug lab. ³

In light of Dookhan's guilty pleas and the information gathered in the course of the investigation into her misconduct, we now hold that where Dookhan signed the certificate of drug analysis as either the primary or secondary chemist in the defendant's case, the defendant is entitled to a conclusive presumption that Dookhan's misconduct occurred in his case, that it was egregious, and that it is attributable to the Commonwealth. However, we vacate the order granting the defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, and we remand this matter for further proceedings and findings on the question whether the defendant can demonstrate a reasonable probability that knowledge of Dookhan's misconduct would have materially influenced his decision to tender a guilty plea.

1. Background on the Hinton drug lab investigation. Until 2012, the Hinton drug lab was overseen by the Department of Public Health (department). By statute, the department, and by extension the lab, was required to perform chemical analyses of substances on request from law enforcement officials. G.L. c. 111, §§ 12–13, repealed by St. 2012, c. 139, § 107. Chemists employed by the lab were responsible for testing substances according to lab protocols and for safeguarding evidence samples throughout the testing process, and they were expected to testify as expert witnesses in criminal prosecutions.

In July, 2012, as part of the Commonwealth's budget bill, the Legislature transferred oversight of the lab from the department to the State police. See St. 2012, c. 139, § 56 (replacing G.L. c. 22C, § 39); St. 2012, c. 139, § 107 (repealing G.L. c. 111, §§ 12–13). At that time, State police assigned to the Hinton drug lab became aware of a 2011 incident that first raised questions regarding Dookhan's conductin the lab. In June, 2011, a lab supervisor discovered that approximately ninety samples had been removed from the lab's evidence locker in violation of internal protocol. Lab supervisors conducted an informal investigation and concluded that Dookhan had removed the samples without authorization and subsequently had forged the initials of an evidence officer in the evidence log book in an attempt to hide her breach of protocols. As a result of this investigation, Dookhan was relieved of her duties in the lab effective June 21, 2011, and was assigned to perform administrative tasks outside the lab such as drafting policies and procedures. The informal investigation later triggered a formal inquiry by the Commissioner of Public Health limited to the incident involving the ninety samples. This inquiry ultimately led to Dookhan's resignation in lieu of termination proceedings in March, 2012.

In July, 2012, when the State police took control of the lab and became aware of the 2011 incident, the officers assigned to the lab asked the State police detective unit of the Attorney General's office to launch a broader formal investigation into lab practices and Dookhan to ensure that her misconduct was limited to the incident involving the ninety samples. As it turned out, this incident was the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

The State police investigation into the Hinton drug lab revealed numerous improprieties surrounding Dookhan's conduct in the lab. Perhaps most concerning, Dookhan admitted to “dry labbing” for two to three years prior to her transfer out of the lab in 2011, meaning that she would group multiple samples together from various cases that looked alike and then test only a few samples, but report the results as if she had tested each sample individually. Dookhan also admitted to contaminating samples intentionally, including turning negative samples into positive samples on at least a few occasions. Moreover, Dookhan has acknowledged to investigators that she may not be able to identify those cases in which she tested the samples properly and those in which she did not.

Additionally, Dookhan admitted to State police investigators that she deliberately committed a breach of lab protocols by removing samples from the evidence locker without following proper procedures and that she postdated entries in the evidence log book and forged an evidence officer's initials. The investigation also revealed that Dookhan falsified another chemist's initials on reports that were intended to verify the proper functioning of the machine used to analyze the chemical composition of certain samples (gas chromatography-mass spectrometer machine or “GC–MS”), and she falsified the substance of reports intended to verify that the GC–MS machine was functioning properly prior to her running samples through it. Dookhan also had an unusually high productivity level in the lab. She reported test results on samples at rates consistently much higher than any other chemist in the lab, starting as early as 2004, during her first year of employment. Indeed, she is estimated to have been involved in testing samples in over 40,000 cases. According to the Hinton drug lab internal inquiry report, dated November 13, 2012 (Hinton internal inquiry), “Dookhan's consistently high testing volumes should have been a clear indication that a more thorough analysis and review of her work was needed.”

Based on the information gathered in the investigation, Dookhan's misconduct appears to have taken place during both phases of testing conducted at the Hinton drug lab. According to the Hinton internal inquiry, Hinton drug lab protocols requiredchemists to execute two levels of testing on each substance submitted for analysis. “Primary” tests are “simple bench top tests” that include “color tests, microcrystalline analyses, and ultraviolet visualization.” These tests have only “moderate discriminatory power, and are not associated with data that can be memorialized with a[n] instrument-generated paper or computer trail and reviewed.” These tests were carried out by the “primary chemist,” who also prepared a sample of the substance for use in the secondary tests. The primary chemist was also responsible for the full evidence sample during the entire testing process. Next, secondary, or “confirmatory,” tests were conducted, which “utilize sophisticated instrumentation such as Mass Spectrometry, Infrared Spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography, have high discriminatory power, and ... produce instrument-generated documentation of test results.” These tests were carried out by another chemist, referred to as the “secondary” or “confirmatory” chemist. A chemist serving as a secondary or confirmatory chemist was responsible for carrying out the secondary tests and for verifying the proper functioning of the GC–MS machine prior to each “run” of samples through the machine. The secondary chemist then reported the results of the secondary tests to the primary chemist, and the two chemists conferred to ensure aligned results. When testing of a sample was complete, the primary chemist returned the sample to the lab's evidence officer, who prepared a document certifying the results of the tests and the chemical composition of the substances (drug certificate) for notarized signature by both chemists. ⁴

Thus, Dookhan's admitted wrongdoing in the form of “dry labbing” and converting “negatives to positives” likely took place while Dookhan was serving as the primary chemist responsible for those samples. Her failure to verify the proper functioning of the GC–MS machine, and her forgery of those reports to hide her wrongdoing, likely took place while Dookhan was serving as a secondary chemist. However, there is no suggestion in the investigative reports that Dookhan's misconduct extended beyond cases in which she served as either the primary or the confirmatory chemist. For example, the record does not indicate that Dookhan engaged in any wrongdoing in cases where she merely served as a notary public and certified the signatures of other chemists on drug certificates. Indeed, it appears that the motive for her wrongdoing was in large part a desire to increase her apparent productivity. Additionally, Dookhan stated in her interview with the State police that no one, including other chemists in the lab, was aware of, or involved in, her...