Massachusetts’ Highest Court Finally Says “Enough” to Shortcut Drug Lab Testimony

For more than a decade, Massachusetts has been living with the fallout from the state’s drug lab scandals. Chemists Annie Dookhan and Sonja Farak falsified or tainted drug evidence in tens of thousands of cases, shaking public confidence in the criminal justice system and forcing courts to dismiss huge numbers of convictions.

 

You might think that after all of that, prosecutors would be extra careful when it comes to drug evidence.

Yet even after the Dookhan and Farak scandals, many prosecutors in Massachusetts continued to push drug cases to trial without calling the actual lab analyst who tested the substance. Instead, they tried to rely on “substitute” experts—lab workers who didn’t do the testing themselves but would testify anyway that the material was a controlled substance.

 

Recently, in Commonwealth v. Gordon (SJC-13735), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) finally put a stop to that practice in a major way.

This decision matters to anyone facing drug charges in Massachusetts today.

A Quick Refresher: The Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal

Between 2003 and 2011, state chemist Annie Dookhan admitted to tampering with evidence and falsifying drug test results at a state drug lab in Jamaica Plain. Her misconduct jeopardized more than 20,000 cases and ultimately led to the dismissal of thousands of drug convictions.

 

At another Massachusetts lab in Amherst, chemist Sonja Farak was using and tampering with drug samples for years. Courts eventually dismissed more than 24,000 convictions in over 16,000 cases tied to Farak’s work.

 

These weren’t small technical mistakes. Innocent people were convicted and jailed; guilty people sometimes went free because the evidence was unusable. The scandals exposed a simple truth:

If you can’t trust the lab work, you can’t trust the conviction.

What Prosecutors Were Still Doing After the Scandals

Even after all that, many prosecutors in Massachusetts continued to avoid calling the actual chemist who handled the drug evidence.

Instead, they tried to use what’s called a “substitute analyst” or “substitute expert”:

• The original chemist tests the substance and writes notes.

• That chemist doesn’t testify in court.

• A different lab employee—who did not perform or witness the testing—takes the stand.

• The substitute expert reviews the original analyst’s paperwork and then tells the jury, “In my opinion, this was cocaine / heroin / Suboxone,” etc.

Prosecutors argued that this substitute expert was simply giving an “independent opinion.” In reality, the opinion often depended completely on what the non-testifying analyst wrote down.

 

That raises a major constitutional problem: the Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against you. If the key evidence in your case is a lab result, you have the right to cross-examine the person who actually did the work.

Commonwealth v. Gordon: The SJC Draws a Line

In Commonwealth v. Gordon, the defendant—a lawyer—was accused of passing strips of Suboxone to a client in a county house of correction.

At trial:

• The original analyst was the one who actually tested the strips.

• But the prosecution did not call that analyst as a witness.

• Instead, they called a substitute expert, who had only reviewed the lab file and data and then told the jury that the strips were Suboxone.

The defense objected, arguing that this violated the defendant’s right to confront the actual analyst whose work was being relied on.

 

The case eventually made its way to the SJC, and the court looked closely at a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Smith v. Arizona (2024). In Smith, the Supreme Court made it clear that prosecutors can’t sidestep the Confrontation Clause by using a substitute expert to simply repeat the conclusions of a non-testifying analyst.

 

What the SJC Held

In Gordon, the SJC concluded:

• The substitute expert’s testimony depended on the truth of the original analyst’s notes and statements.

• Her opinion was not truly independent —it “merely replicated” what the absent analyst had already concluded.

• Allowing that testimony violated the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against her.

Because this was a constitutional error affecting a key piece of evidence, the SJC ruled that the mistake was not harmless and vacated the conviction, sending the case back for a new trial.

 

Just as important, the SJC made clear that this rule applies to other cases that are not yet final—meaning it’s not just about one defendant. It’s a warning to prosecutors across Massachusetts:

If you want to use drug lab evidence at trial, bring in the analyst who actually did the work.

Why This Matters If You’re Facing Drug Charges

If you or someone you care about is charged with a drug crime in Massachusetts, you cannot assume:

• that the lab work is airtight,

• that the prosecutor will play fair, or

• that the judge will automatically see the problem.

In many cases, the lab result is the heart of the prosecution’s case. If they can’t prove the substance was actually an illegal drug beyond a reasonable doubt, they don’t have much of a case.

After Commonwealth v. Gordon:

• Prosecutors should no longer rely on “substitute experts” to paper over missing witnesses.

• Defense attorneys have stronger grounds to challenge lab evidence when the real analyst doesn’t take the stand.

• Courts must look carefully at whether expert testimony is truly independent—or just a conduit for someone else’s out-of-court statements.

But the court is not going to raise these issues for you. Your lawyer has to do that.

You Need a Lawyer Who Actually Fights These Battles

The Gordon decision is a reminder of something experienced defense lawyers already know:

The system does not fix itself. You have to make it.

If you are charged with a crime in Massachusetts—especially a drug offense—you are up against:

• seasoned prosecutors,

• complex forensic evidence,

• and a court system that has already lived through massive drug lab scandals and still, for years, allowed shortcut testimony.

You need an attorney who:

• knows the history of the Dookhan and Farak scandals,

• understands how to challenge questionable lab evidence,

• keeps up with new appellate decisions like Commonwealth v. Gordon, and

• appears in Massachusetts courts week in and week out, arguing these issues in real cases.

Talk to Attorney Chris Fiorentino at Fiorentino Legal, P.C.

 

Attorney Christopher Fiorentino of Fiorentino Legal, P.C. is a Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor who appears in courts across the Commonwealth several times a week.