Criminal – Drug lab – Guilty plea

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Where the petitioner moved to vacate her guilty plea and set aside her conviction on the basis of the now infamous misconduct by former drug chemist Annie Dookhan at the William F. Hinton Laboratory, her petition must be denied because there is no reasonable probability that she would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial if she had known about the scandal.

“The petitioner’s arguments are meritless. The Hinton Laboratory scandal had nothing to do with her conviction. The government’s case was based on telephone intercepts of conversations between the petitioner and other members of the drug conspiracy evidencing specific instances of negotiations and agreements to sell and deliver heroin. In neither the prosecutor’s summary of facts supporting a conviction at the petitioner’s guilty plea colloquy nor the statement of offense conduct presented in the probation officer’s presentence report is there any mention of, much less reliance on, Hinton drug tests.

“Significantly, the petitioner admitted her factual guilt, and does not now assert factual innocence. … Apart from her admission, the government’s wiretap and surveillance evidence was strongly inculpatory. To the extent that identification of seized contraband as heroin was in question, the question was answered by testing done not at the Hinton Laboratory but at a federal Drug Enforcement Agency (‘DEA’) facility. Specifically, the government asserts without contradiction from the petitioner that of the thirty-eight samples seized in the course of the investigation (none directly from the petitioner), thirty-six were tested by the DEA and attested to be heroin. Her argument that information about the Hinton Laboratory scandal would have given her significant impeachment evidence that could have been used to her benefit at trial is, therefore, fanciful.

“Moreover, the petitioner gained a substantial sentencing benefit by pleading guilty. By pleading guilty and by making a related ‘safety valve’ proffer to the government, she avoided the imposition of an otherwise applicable statutory mandatory minimum five-year sentence. Her actual sentence was forty percent lower than that.

“For these reasons, there is no ‘reasonable probability’ that she ‘would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial’ if she had known about the Hinton Laboratory scandal. …

“Monteiro also argues that the government’s failure to disclose Dookhan’s misconduct amounts to a violation of the government’s duty to disclose exculpatory information under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). Assuming arguendo that Monteiro can raise a Brady claim with respect to her guilty plea, the claim nevertheless founders. First, as noted above, the information was not exculpatory in her case because the government did not intend to rely on any evidence from the Hinton Laboratory. Even successful impeachment of Hinton results would have been irrelevant at her trial. Second, and relatedly, Monteiro has failed to demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that, had she been aware of Dookhan’s misconduct, she would have insisted on going to trial. …”

United States v. Monteiro (Lawyers Weekly No. 02-180-16) (3 pages) (O’Toole, J.) (USDC) (Crim. No. 10-10434-GAO) (April 29, 2016).

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