Title: Commonwealth v. Simmons

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-13114 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  RICKY SIMMONS & another.1 
 
 
July 28, 2021. 
 
 
Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. 
 
 
 
The Commonwealth appeals from a judgment of a single 
justice of this court denying its petition pursuant to G. L. 
c. 211, § 3.  We affirm. 
 
 
Background.  In 2008, defendant Ricky Simmons pleaded 
guilty in the Superior Court to several drug crimes.  In 
December 2020, he filed a motion for a new trial seeking to 
withdraw his guilty pleas on the basis that chemist Sonja Farak 
analyzed the drugs in question while she was employed at the 
William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute (Hinton lab.  
Similarly, defendant Israel Cedeno-Martinez pleaded guilty in 
the Superior Court to a drug crime in 2008, and the drugs in his 
case were also analyzed by Farak while she was employed at the 
Hinton lab.  On that basis, Cedeno-Martinez filed, in September 
2020, a motion for discovery in anticipation of filing a motion 
for a new trial.  In both cases, the defendants pointed to 
rulings made by a Superior Court judge in another case that also 
involved drugs analyzed by Farak during her time at the Hinton 
lab, Commonwealth vs. Sutton, Middlesex Super. Ct., No. 0481-CR-
00986, in support of their respective postconviction motions. 
 
In the Sutton case, Sutton had filed both a motion to 
vacate his convictions and a motion for discovery based on 
Farak's role in analyzing the drugs relevant to his convictions.  
In the course of the ensuing proceedings, the judge issued 
 
1 Israel Cedeno-Martinez.  The Commonwealth also avers that 
there are hundreds of other similarly situated defendants. 
2 
 
several detailed rulings related to the district attorney's 
obligations to review the facts related to Farak's performance 
at the Hinton lab and to disclose any exculpatory information to 
the defendant.  Essentially, pursuant to the judge's rulings, 
the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) produced to the 
district attorney the files from its review of the Hinton lab 
that related to Farak, amounting to more than 141,000 pages of 
documents in hard copy and more in electronic form.  The 
district attorney, in turn, proposed to turn over all of the 
documents to Sutton without first reviewing them herself.  Both 
the OIG and Sutton objected to this "open file" discovery 
approach, and the judge rejected it, concluding that, for a 
variety of reasons, the district attorney's "passive" approach 
would be inadequate. 
 
The Commonwealth thereafter filed a petition pursuant to 
G. L. c. 211, § 3, seeking review of, and relief from, the 
judge's discovery orders, arguing that the judge erred in 
ordering the district attorney to review the OIG's "massive 
file" related to its investigation of the Hinton lab.  The 
single justice denied the petition on the merits.  The 
Commonwealth did not appeal from that decision to the full 
court, as it could have done. 
 
Rather, in the trial court, the Commonwealth conducted the 
required review of the OIG's files and produced responsive 
documents to Sutton.  The judge subsequently determined, 
however, that the district attorney still had an unfulfilled 
duty to conduct her own investigation of Farak's work at the 
Hinton lab.  In short, the judge concluded that the Commonwealth 
could not simply rely on the OIG's investigation of the Hinton 
lab and that the district attorney needed to conduct her own 
independent review.  The judge then allowed Sutton's motion for 
a new trial, which the Commonwealth, at that point, did not 
oppose.  The Commonwealth did not seek review of that ruling 
either via G. L. c. 211, § 3, or by requesting that the judge 
report the ruling to an appellate court.  Instead, the 
Commonwealth voluntarily nol prossed the charges against Sutton.  
That was the conclusion of that case. 
 
In their respective motions in the trial court in the 
present case, Simmons and Cedeno-Martinez sought relief similar 
to Sutton and relied on the judge's rulings in that case to 
support the requested relief.  Simmons, like Sutton, sought a 
new trial on the basis of Farak's alleged misconduct.  Cedeno-
Martinez, in turn, in his motion for postconviction discovery, 
specifically sought the same discovery that was provided to 
3 
 
Sutton.  In response, the Commonwealth filed the G. L. c. 211, 
§ 3, petition that is currently before us.2 
 
Discussion.  Significantly, the single justice denied the 
Commonwealth's petition without prejudice.  He acknowledged that 
the allegations of Farak's misconduct at the Hinton lab are 
serious, and that this court in time may be required to decide 
the issues that the Commonwealth had raised in its petition.  He 
concluded, however, that relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, 
was not required in the procedural circumstances in which the 
petition was brought before him.  Among other things, he noted 
that there were no specific rulings in either the Simmons case 
or the Cedeno-Martinez case (or in any other active prosecution) 
being challenged in the petition.  The only trial court rulings 
that the district attorney appeared to question in the petition 
were the rulings previously made in the Sutton case; as stated, 
however, that case concluded when the Commonwealth voluntarily 
nol prossed the charges against Sutton. 
 
The Commonwealth has now filed what purports to be a 
memorandum and appendix pursuant to S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as 
amended, 434 Mass. 1301 (2001).  The rule does not apply in this 
situation, however, where the Commonwealth is not challenging 
interlocutory rulings of the trial court in any active case.  
Indeed, that was one of the very reasons why the single justice 
denied the petition.  Although the rule does not apply, it is 
nonetheless clear that the Commonwealth is not entitled to 
review as of right pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, in these 
circumstances. 
 
The Commonwealth's petition is, in a word, premature.  The 
Commonwealth argues that a "global resolution" on the issue 
whether it can rely in the pending cases on the OIG 
investigation as far as Farak's conduct at the Hinton lab is 
concerned, or whether it must conduct an investigation of its 
own, is necessary to prevent piecemeal litigation on the issue, 
with potentially divergent results, as there are numerous 
 
2 The Commonwealth has not yet responded in the Superior 
Court to Simmons's motion for a new trial, and the proceedings 
in that case have been stayed pending the outcome of this 
appeal.  In Cedeno-Martinez's case, the Commonwealth did provide 
at least some of the requested discovery, prior to filing its 
G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition.  There is no indication that the 
proceedings in that case have been stayed, and while the matter 
has been pending in this court, Cedeno-Martinez has sought 
additional discovery. 
4 
 
defendants similarly situated to Simmons and Cedeno-Martinez.  
In the Commonwealth's view, this compels the court to address 
the issue now under our extraordinary power of general 
superintendence.  The single justice was well within his 
discretion in declining to employ our superintendence power in 
these circumstances, where the Commonwealth has not actually 
been required in any of the pending cases to do that which it 
challenges.  The single justice was mindful that it is not our 
role -- indeed, we have no authority -- to superintend the 
district attorney or to provide "guidance" (as she requested) on 
how to proceed in the circumstances.  He correctly determined 
that the resolution of these issues is best left to a situation 
where they have been litigated in a pending case in the trial 
court and an order has issued or, at least, where a judge has 
presented us with a properly reported matter. 
 
 
The Commonwealth correctly notes that this court has 
exercised its power of superintendence in other cases involving 
misconduct at both the Hinton lab and the State Laboratory 
Institute in Amherst, in which the parties sought, as the 
Commonwealth does here, a "global remedy."  See, e.g., Committee 
for Pub. Counsel Servs. v. Attorney Gen., 480 Mass. 700, 701, 
703 (2018); Bridgeman v. District Attorney for the Suffolk 
Dist., 476 Mass. 298, 300 (2017).  Those cases arrived before us 
on a very different footing, however, with the particular issues 
raised therein at the forefront of the disputes in active cases, 
and, very significantly, unlike here, with the single justices 
in those cases having exercised their discretion to reserve and 
report the matters to the full court. 
 
 
To be clear, nothing that the single justice said was an 
adjudication on the merits of the Commonwealth's claims or 
forecloses the Commonwealth from litigating these issues in 
either of the two underlying cases or in any other case 
involving a similarly situated defendant, or from seeking review 
by this court if need be, if and when the issue arises, just as 
it did in the Sutton case. 
 
Conclusion.  Our holding, like the single justice's 
judgment on the G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition, is limited to the 
procedural posture of the petition.  The single justice did not 
err or abuse his discretion in denying relief under G. L. 
c. 211, § 3, in these specific circumstances. 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
5 
 
 
The case was submitted on the papers filed, accompanied by 
a memorandum of law. 
 
Marian T. Ryan, District Attorney for the Middlesex 
District, for the Commonwealth. 
 
J. Gregory Batten for Ricky Simmons. 
 
Christopher K. Post for Israel Cedeno-Martinez.