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DA won't fight efforts by 134 people with drug convictions due to misbehavior by another state chemist to clear their records

The Suffolk County District Attorney's office announced today it will not contest efforts by 134 people convicted of drug offenses in Boston, Chelsea, Winthrop and Revere to overturn their convictions, because their cases all involved drug analyses done by a chemist in a state lab in Amherst charged with turning samples forwarded by police into her own personal drug stash.

In a statement, DA Dan Conley said the decision affects cases that included drug-certification statements by chemist Sonja Farak between 2005 and 2012. Farak was assigned cases from Suffolk County due to overloading at the state's Jamaica Plain lab - where the now infamous Annie Dookhan made up results.

Conley said his office had filed information on the specific individuals with the Supreme Judicial Court, where he and other Massachusetts DAs are currently being sued by public defenders and two people convicted based on Farak's work.

Given the nature and extent of her misconduct, re-testing the substances at issue is unlikely to yield a reliable result. The most appropriate step is to notify the court that we will not pursue any further litigation in any of the identified cases.

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Comments

on the streets, including shootings and homicides, is guys locked up got out because of Dookhan, and they're reaserting themselves on the street.

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Is this comment based on any facts whatsoever?

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