BOSTON, Jan. 18, 2017–Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley today released the following statement on the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in Bridgeman v. District Attorney, aka “Bridgeman II,” stemming from former chemist Annie Dookhan’s wrongdoing at a Department of Public Health drug testing facility:

“Today’s SJC decision is consistent with an uninterrupted series of rulings that prosecutors are best situated to assess the viability of their cases.  Since the Scott decision in 2013, the high court has rejected mass dismissal as a remedy to Annie Dookhan’s misconduct, and it has done so once again.  In the weeks to come, we’ll consider the quality of the evidence, the availability of our witnesses, and the relative seriousness of each specific case in terms of public safety, public health, and public policy.  But that approach is not a new one: it’s our practice every day, in every case, in every courthouse in Suffolk County.”

Today’s decision followed the 2015 decision in Bridgeman I, in which the SJC declined to order the mass dismissal of Dookhan-related cases and established that defendants who challenged their convictions on those cases would not face harsher penalties or sentences if and when they are re-convicted after doing so.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.