Two alleged drug dealers to get new trials because they couldn't cross examine the experts who declared the substances found with them to be cocaine

The Supreme Judicial Court today set aside two more drug convictions under a Supreme Court decision last year that Massachusetts drug suspects have the right to ask questions of technicians hired to determine the nature of substances police seize from them.

Although both the Supreme Judicial Court and the lower Massachusetts Appeals Court have upheld other convictions involving certificates, they ruled the circumstantial evidence in cases involving Springfield and Brockton men was not strong enough to render the lack of cross-examination "harmless" in their convictions.

In the Springfield case, the justices ruled that even though police found "a scale, rubber bands, a substantial amount of cash, sandwich bags, and a walkie-talkie" in the man's apartment, which was barricaded and guarded by several men and even though the man had an accomplice hand over a bag filled with a white substance after an undercover cop asked for "an eight ball," the fact that none of the cops who testified were certified drug experts meant there was enough doubt to warrant a new trial: "Mistaken identification of cocaine by trained and experienced law enforcement personnel is not unknown in the annals of our law."

Commonwealth vs. Jorge Vazquez.
Commonwealth vs. Peterson Charles.