Title: Commonwealth v. Claudio

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-12786 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  LUIS CLAUDIO. 
 
 
 
Hampden.     December 9, 2019. - February 28, 2020. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, 
& Kafker, JJ. 
 
 
Controlled Substances.  Practice, Criminal, Plea, Sentence, 
Conduct of government agents.  Supreme Judicial Court, 
Superintendence of inferior courts. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on November 21, 2013. 
 
 
A motion for protections from harsher punishment in 
conjunction with a motion to withdraw a guilty plea was heard by 
Mark D. Mason, J., and a question of law was reported by him to 
the Appeals Court. 
 
 
The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for 
direct appellate review. 
 
 
 
Andrew P. Power for the defendant. 
 
John A. Wendel, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
David Rangaviz, Committee for Public Counsel Services, 
Anthony D. Mirenda, Caroline S. Donovan, Christopher E. Hart, 
Samuel C. Bauer, Emily J. Nash, & Rachel Davidson, for 
Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, amicus 
curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
2 
 
 
 
 
BUDD, J.  This is yet another in a series of decisions in 
which we contend with the consequences of the evidence tampering 
committed over the course of several years by Sonja Farak, a 
chemist at the State Laboratory Institute at the University of 
Massachusetts at Amherst (Amherst lab).  Here, we address one of 
the ripple effects generated by the Amherst lab scandal:  a 
guilty plea negotiated by a defendant who qualified for an 
enhanced sentence due to a subsequently vacated predicate 
offense that had been tainted by Farak's misconduct (Farak-
related predicate offense).  We are asked to determine whether 
such a defendant may challenge the guilty plea without being 
exposed to a harsher sentence than that which he received in 
exchange for his plea, given that the Farak-related predicate 
offense has been vacated.  We conclude that the answer is yes.1 
 
Background.  1.  Facts and prior proceedings.  In 2013, the 
defendant, Luis Claudio, was indicted on two counts alleging 
aggravated statutory rape pursuant to G. L. c. 265, § 23A.  In 
addition, he was indicted as a habitual criminal pursuant to 
G. L. c. 279, § 25 (a), with two drug offenses on his prior 
record as the predicate convictions.  General Laws c. 279, § 25 
(a), the habitual criminal statute, "requires that a 'habitual 
                     
 
1 We acknowledge the amicus brief submitted by the 
Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. 
3 
 
 
criminal' -- a defendant who has been convicted of a felony and 
has two prior convictions resulting in State or Federal prison 
sentences of three years or more -- be sentenced to the maximum 
term provided by law on the underlying conviction."  
Commonwealth v. Ruiz, 480 Mass. 683, 683-684 (2018).  As G. L. 
c. 265, § 23A, carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, the 
defendant was exposed to a mandatory life sentence for a 
conviction on the aggravated rape charges.  In 2015, the 
defendant accepted a negotiated plea agreement under which he 
pleaded guilty to lesser charges2 without the habitual offender 
enhancements, and received a prison sentence of from six to 
eight years followed by ten years of probation. 
 
In 2018, the defendant was identified as a so-called "Farak 
defendant."3  His conviction of possession with intent to 
distribute heroin, based on certificates of drug analysis (drug 
certificates) signed by Farak, was, therefore, dismissed with 
prejudice.  As the vacated conviction was one of the two 
                     
2 The defendant pleaded guilty to statutory rape pursuant to 
G. L. c. 265, § 23, and indecent assault and battery on a child 
under fourteen years of age pursuant to G. L. c. 265, § 13B. 
 
3 Farak defendants are those who were convicted on a drug 
charge where Farak signed a certificate of drug analysis; the 
conviction was based on methamphetamine that was tested during 
Farak's tenure at the Amherst lab; or the drugs were tested at 
the Amherst lab between January 1, 2009, and January 18, 2013, 
regardless of who signed the certificate of analysis.  Committee 
for Pub. Counsel Servs. v. Attorney Gen., 480 Mass. 700, 734-735 
(2018). 
4 
 
 
predicate offenses relied on for application of the habitual 
criminal enhancement, the defendant no longer qualified as a 
habitual criminal. 
 
Before seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, which was 
negotiated in circumstances that now no longer exist, the 
defendant requested a preliminary ruling from the Superior Court 
judge that if he were to succeed in withdrawing his plea, he 
would not be subject to a harsher punishment as the result of a 
reprosecution of the rape charges than the prison sentence that 
he received pursuant to the plea agreement.4  The Superior Court 
judge subsequently reported the following question to the 
Appeals Court, pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 34, as amended, 442 
Mass. 1501 (2004):  "Do the protections from harsher punishment 
established for 'Dookhan defendants'[5] in [Bridgeman v. District 
Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 471 Mass. 465 (2015) (Bridgeman 
                     
 
4 The two aggravated rape charges each carry a minimum 
mandatory sentence of ten years which could be imposed 
consecutively.  See G. L. c. 265, § 23A. 
 
 
5 Annie Dookhan was a chemist who engaged in widespread 
evidence tampering at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory 
Institute in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston (Hinton lab).  
The evidence tampering affected tens of thousands of defendants 
with drug convictions based on evidence tested at the Hinton 
lab.  See Bridgeman v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 
476 Mass. 298, 301-303 (2017) (Bridgeman II). 
 
 
Dookhan defendants include those whose drug convictions 
relied on drug certificates signed by Dookhan as a primary or 
secondary chemist.  See Commonwealth v. Scott, 467 Mass. 336, 
354 (2014). 
5 
 
 
I),][6] apply to 'Farak defendants' who are challenging pleas 
based upon Farak-related grounds relating to G. L. c. 279, [§ 25 
(a)], predicate offenses?"  We allowed the defendant's 
application for direct appellate review and now broaden the 
question to include any Farak-related predicate offenses that 
resulted in enhanced sentences on subsequent convictions.  See 
Commonwealth v. Martinez, 480 Mass. 777, 783 (2018), quoting 
McStowe v. Bornstein, 377 Mass. 804, 805 n.2 (1979). 
2.  Overview of the remedies for the misconduct of Dookhan 
and Farak.  Because the reported question involves a Farak 
defendant and references a remedy provided to qualifying Dookhan 
defendants, to answer it we must review the remedies provided to 
each category of defendants.7 
a.  Remedy for Dookhan defendants.  Dookhan, whose 
wrongdoing at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute 
in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston (Hinton lab) was first 
discovered in June 2011, was found to have engaged in egregious 
                     
6 As discussed infra, in Bridgeman I, 471 Mass. at 477, we 
held that defendants who were granted a new trial based on 
Dookhan's misconduct would not be faced with a more serious 
offense or be given a more severe sentence than he or she 
initially received. 
 
7 We previously recounted details of the wrongdoing in 
connection with Dookhan and Farak.  See, e.g., Committee for 
Pub. Counsel Servs., 480 Mass. at 705-720; Bridgeman II, 476 
Mass. at 301-303.  We will not repeat them here except to the 
extent necessary to explain the difference between the remedies 
offered to Dookhan defendants and Farak defendants. 
6 
 
 
misconduct over the course of two to three years by, among other 
things, making "a number of affirmative misrepresentations by 
signing drug certificates and testifying to the identity of 
substances in cases in which she had not in fact properly tested 
the substances in question."  Commonwealth v. Scott, 467 Mass. 
336, 348 (2014).  In fashioning a remedy for Dookhan defendants 
(who numbered in the thousands), we ultimately declined to 
vacate their convictions wholesale, reasoning that as "serious 
as [Dookhan's conduct] was, [it] did not result in irremediable 
harm" to defendants' opportunities to obtain fair trials 
(quotation and citation omitted).  Bridgeman v. District 
Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 476 Mass. 298, 322 (2017) 
(Bridgeman II).  Further, "given the absence of any evidence of 
misconduct by a prosecutor or an investigator, [we did not] 
place Dookhan's misconduct in the category that requires a 
stronger deterrent than a new trial to avoid the risk of 
repetition."  Id. 
Instead, using our general power of superintendence, we 
developed a framework to ascertain whether a Dookhan defendant 
was entitled to a new trial on his or her drug conviction.  See 
Scott, 467 Mass. at 352.  Ordinarily, a defendant is entitled to 
withdraw a guilty plea by demonstrating that (1) egregious 
government misconduct took place in connection with the 
defendant's case and preceded the entry of the guilty plea; and 
7 
 
 
(2) the misconduct was material to the defendant's decision to 
plead guilty.  Id. at 346, citing Ferrara v. United States, 456 
F.3d 278, 290 (2006).  We determined that given the nature of 
Dookhan's misconduct, Dookhan defendants would be able to 
establish the first prong of the Ferrara analysis simply by 
furnishing a drug certificate that she signed.  Scott, supra at 
353.  These defendants still would have to meet the second prong 
of the test, that is, to demonstrate that the misconduct 
influenced the decision to plead guilty.  Id. at 354. 
As discussed in more detail infra, we also held that any 
Dookhan defendant who succeeded in securing a new trial could 
not be charged with a more serious offense, nor receive a longer 
sentence than originally imposed (Bridgeman cap).  Bridgeman I, 
471 Mass. at 477. 
 
b.  Remedy for Farak defendants.  The Amherst lab scandal 
was larger in scope than Dookhan's wrongdoing at the Hinton lab.  
Over the course of more than eight years, among other misdeeds, 
Farak stole from the Amherst lab's stock of known 
methamphetamine "standards" used for comparison with alleged 
drugs.  Committee for Pub. Counsel Servs. v. Attorney Gen., 480 
Mass. 700, 706-707 (2018).  She then turned to tampering not 
only with drug samples assigned to her, but also with other 
chemists' samples, stealing illegal narcotics submitted to the 
Amherst lab for testing to fuel her own drug habit.  Id. at 707-
8 
 
 
709.  She also manipulated evidence and reports to conceal these 
activities.  Id. at 708-709.  This misconduct was compounded by 
the wrongful actions of members of the Attorney General's 
office, who failed to investigate thoroughly Farak's wrongdoing 
and later deliberately withheld information.  Id. at 711-720. 
Consequently, in contrast to the remedy created for Dookhan 
defendants, we determined that for Farak defendants the "very 
strong medicine of dismissal with prejudice [was] required."  
Id. at 725.  We therefore again exercised our broad powers of 
superintendence to vacate and dismiss with prejudice thousands 
of drug convictions that relied on evidence tested at the 
Amherst lab during Farak's tenure there based on certain 
criteria.  Id. at 729. 
Discussion.  Although the convictions based on Farak's 
misconduct (Farak convictions) have been dismissed with 
prejudice, there is a category of Farak defendants for whom the 
dismissed convictions nevertheless continue to have an adverse 
effect.  That is, there are some defendants, like the defendant 
here, for whom a Farak conviction was counted as a predicate for 
enhanced sentencing on subsequent charges prior to its 
dismissal.  As such, the now vacated convictions exposed this 
category of defendants to enhanced penalties.  We conclude that 
such a result cannot stand. 
9 
 
 
In Bridgeman I, 471 Mass. at 475, we acknowledged that 
"[i]n the ordinary course, when a defendant withdraws [a] 
[guilty] plea after sentencing, [the defendant] may receive a 
harsher sentence than was originally imposed" (citation and 
quotations omitted).  However, we also recognized that, in the 
circumstances of the so-called Dookhan cases, "[a] return to the 
status quo ante would mean ignoring the egregious misconduct of 
Dookhan and disregarding its impact on criminal defendants whose 
drug samples she analyzed."  Id.  In exercising our powers of 
superintendence to hold that any potential sentence for a 
Dookhan defendant who was granted a new trial would be capped at 
the sentence originally imposed, we reasoned that without such a 
cap, a Dookhan defendant would be forced to bear the burden of 
the government's misconduct.  Id. at 475-476.  That is, the 
Dookhan defendant would be placed in the untenable position of 
either accepting a tainted conviction, or successfully 
withdrawing a guilty plea and risking a greater punishment in so 
doing.  Id. 
In addition, we recognized that a Dookhan defendant who 
pleaded guilty and subsequently sought to withdraw a plea in 
favor of moving for a new trial should not lose the benefit of 
the agreement that the Dookhan defendant had made where 
government misconduct would be the reason for seeking a new 
trial in the first place.  Id. at 477.  In essence, without a 
10 
 
 
cap in place, the Commonwealth would have the advantage of 
getting a "second bite at the proverbial apple in its efforts to 
convict" a Dookhan defendant who won a new trial.  Id.  We 
ultimately concluded that it would be wrong for Dookhan 
defendants to bear the burden "of a systemic lapse that, in the 
circumstances of the Hinton drug lab, we have said is entirely 
attributable to the government, even though there is no 
indication that prosecutors had actual knowledge of Dookhan's 
misconduct during their prosecutions of the Dookhan defendants."  
Id. at 476. 
In comparison, the government misconduct associated with 
the Amherst lab occurred over a longer period of time, affected 
more defendants, and, unlike the Hinton lab scandal, did include 
wrongdoing by prosecutors.  See Committee for Pub. Counsel 
Servs., 480 Mass. at 725.  The remedy that we determined was 
required as a result -- dismissal of the affected convictions 
with prejudice -- was unprecedented in its scope. 
Because the Farak convictions were dismissed with 
prejudice, the sentencing cap that we created for Dookhan 
defendants (who can be retried) is not applicable.  However, 
just as we concluded that a cap on subsequent charges and 
sentences was appropriate for Dookhan defendants who are retried 
on dismissed drug charges, we now conclude that a similar cap is 
required in the case of Farak defendants who have been 
11 
 
 
negatively affected, albeit indirectly, by the use of the 
convictions, tainted by Farak, as predicates for enhanced 
sentencing. 
There is no principled reason why a Farak defendant who has 
been collaterally affected by more egregious government 
misconduct should have to choose between accepting an outcome 
based on a conviction that no longer exists and exposing himself 
or herself to a harsher punishment than initially was imposed.8  
The Appeals Court has recognized, in the context of the Ferrara-
Scott standard for obtaining new trials, that misconduct in 
obtaining a conviction can taint the validity of subsequent 
pleas predicated on the original misconduct.  See Commonwealth 
v. Williams, 89 Mass. App. Ct. 383, 389-390 (2016) ("To the 
extent the defendant's plea resulted from a desire to avoid [an 
elevated] sentence that would not have been permitted after the 
[Dookhan-related] predicate offense was vacated, the defendant's 
decision to plead guilty was not a correctly informed one").  
See also Commonwealth v. Wallace, 92 Mass. App. Ct. 7, 12 (2017) 
                     
 
8 The sentencing cap for a defendant who succeeds in 
withdrawing a guilty plea where a Farak-related predicate 
offense exposed the defendant to an enhanced sentence will only 
apply in a case where Farak's misconduct had a significant, 
nonattenuated impact on the subsequent plea.  This is because, 
as discussed supra, one of the prongs a defendant must satisfy 
to withdraw a guilty plea based on government misconduct is that 
such misconduct was material to the decision to plead guilty.  
See Scott, 467 Mass. at 346. 
12 
 
 
(acknowledging that "governmental misconduct in one case could 
contaminate another case"). 
We cannot allow the damaging effects of the government's 
egregious misconduct in Farak-related cases to live on, even as 
the tainted convictions have been vacated, in the form of 
predicates for enhanced sentences on subsequent charges.  For 
much the same reasons we created the Bridgeman cap for Dookhan 
defendants who withdraw their pleas to Dookhan-related 
convictions, we here apply an analogous cap to Farak defendants 
who succeed in withdrawing guilty pleas where they were charged 
with enhanced sentences predicated on now-vacated Farak 
convictions. 
We further conclude that this cap must be applied 
retroactively for defendants who have already withdrawn such 
pleas and subsequently pleaded guilty to more serious charges, 
who were convicted of more serious charges at a trial, or who 
received longer sentences than they had for their first pleas.  
See Commonwealth v. Camacho, 483 Mass. 645, 650-651 (2019) 
(applying Bridgeman cap retroactively in discretionary exercise 
of superintendence powers).  Just as we observed with respect to 
Dookhan defendants, those Farak defendants who already may have 
moved to withdraw their guilty pleas should not be placed "in a 
substantively worse position" than those who withdraw their 
pleas after this case is released.  See id. at 651. 
13 
 
 
Conclusion.  In Scott, 467 Mass. at 352, we recognized that 
Dookhan's misconduct "cast a shadow over the entire criminal 
justice system."  In comparison, the government misconduct 
committed by Farak and members of the Attorney General's office 
cast a shadow even longer and darker.  In a continuing effort to 
remedy that misconduct, we conclude that any potential sentence 
on retrial for a defendant for whom a Farak conviction served as 
a predicate offense for an enhanced penalty must be capped at 
the sentence originally imposed when the defendant initially 
pleaded guilty.9 
The case is remanded to the Superior Court for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered. 
                     
9 Should the defendant here move to withdraw his plea, the 
motion would require independent analysis.  We express no 
opinion as to the merits of such a motion.  See Scott, 467 Mass. 
at 346.