State should do the right thing with tainted drug convictions

July 20, 2015

On Oct. 30, 2014, Northampton defense attorney Luke Ryan drove to Boston to have a court-ordered look at a box of papers state investigators recovered from the car of former drug lab chemist Sonja J. Farak after her arrest on evidence tampering and drug charges.
He had been told by state authorities there was nothing in the box that would be of use in his effort to clear his clients of criminal charges.
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Ryan was pursuing justice for several clients convicted of drug charges based on evidence that included Farak’s so-called drug test certifications. With a state police officer looking on, in about 90 minutes Ryan found among the roughly 280 pieces of paper in that box the proverbial smoking gun.