Criminal – ‘Farak’ defendant – Plea

Listen to this article

Where a defendant who pleaded guilty qualified for an enhanced sentence due to a prior conviction that was vacated on the basis of misconduct by a chemist at the State Laboratory Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the defendant may challenge the guilty plea without being exposed to a harsher sentence than that which he received in exchange for his plea.

“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. …

“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. 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’ in [Bridgeman v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 471 Mass. 465 (2015) (Bridgeman I),] apply to ‘Farak defendants’ who are challenging pleas based upon Farak-related grounds relating to G.L.c. 279, [section25(a)], predicate offenses?’ …

“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. …

“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 [Annie] 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. … 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. …

“In [Commonwealth v. Scott, 467 Mass. 336, 352 (2014)], 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.”

Commonwealth v. Claudio (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-038-20) (13 pages) (Budd, J.) 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. Andrew P. Power for the defendant; John A. Wendel for the commonwealth; David Rangaviz, Anthony D. Mirenda, Caroline S. Donovan, Christopher E. Hart, Samuel C. Bauer, Emily J. Nash and Rachel Davidson, for Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, amicus curiae, submitted a brief (Docket No. SJC-12786) (Feb. 28, 2020).

Click here to read the full text of the opinion.