On November 13, 2020, Attorney Wood and a team from Foley Hoag including Attorney Christopher Hart filed an amicus brief urging the SJC to hold that defendants who were jailed but whose convictions were invalid should be allowed to ask judges to credit that time in jail against another conviction. This is particularly true for defendants convicted in the infamous Massachusetts drug lab scandals. The principle is simple: the government took more of someone’s life than it was entitled to, that should count for something if the person is validly punished later.
Emails Reveal New Evidence of Misconduct at Hinton Drug Laboratory
This week, the Boston Globe reported on a series of cases that Wood & Nathanson attorney Christopher Post has been working on for the past several years, along with parallel litigation by Attorney James McKenna. New information proves that misconduct at the Hinton Drug Lab was wider than previously known. This information came to light because of Attorney Post’s relentless push both to obtain the internal emails of the Office of the Inspector General (‘OIG’) and then his fight to make them public. Read the emails here.
Attorney Post in the News
Several news outlets have written articles about Attorney Post’s work, along with ACLU technologist Paola Villareal, in identifying defendants who were convicted of drug offenses without the Commonwealth ever notifying them that the substances in their cases tested negative for drugs. Articles in the Boston Globe, CommonWealth Magazine, and MassLive.com detailed efforts to vindicate 64 individuals wrongly convicted of 91 drug offenses. We are pleased to report that, in the wake of these revelations, several additional District Attorney’s offices have reached out to indicate their interest in helping correct the 278 additional wrongful convictions outside of Suffolk County that Attorney Post helped identify.
Attorney Post's Work Results In Dismissal of 91 Convictions for 64 Defendants
Wood & Nathanson is pleased to announce that, as a result of relentless, detailed work by Attorney Christopher Post, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office is moving to vacate and dismiss ninety-one additional drug convictions in sixty-four defendants’ cases that were tainted by the ever-growing Hinton Drug Lab scandal. In these cases, each of the defendants pleaded guilty to at least one drug offense despite the fact that laboratory testing subsequently proved that substances in question were not drugs at all. We are thankful that DA Rollins and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office chose to work proactively with Attorney Post to achieve a just result.
Attorney Post in the Boston Globe on Sonja Farak / Hinton Scandal
Attorney Christopher Post was quoted in today's Boston Globe regarding the Hinton Drug Lab scandal. The Inspector General essentially ignored or underplayed the misconduct of Sonja Farak while she was at Hinton, but she appears to have been worse than Annie Dookhan.
“Attorney Christoper Post ... said the number of drugs she analyzed should have been a red flag for the inspector general...she analyzed more drugs than anyone in the history of the lab 'It’s hard to see how they couldn’t have spotted it.'”