The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld the armed-robbery conviction of a man who pleaded guilty to a 2011 gunpoint holdup in Mattapan, even though the drug convictions that stemmed from the same arrest had earlier been overturned because the drugs had gone through the tainted hands of state chemist Annie Dookhan. Read more.

After several years of ruling on individual drug convictions possibly tainted by disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan, the Supreme Judicial Court today issued rules for dealing with the more than 20,000 remaining drug convictions she had something to do with. Read more.

The Supreme Judicial Court today ordered a new trial for Daniel Francis, whom a jury found guilty of trafficking crack in 2005 because a key part of the evidence against him was certification from the disgraced chemist that the substance police found in his car - and in the mouth of a man who'd just left his car - was crack. Read more.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that people seeking to overturn drug convictions based on the work of disgraced state chemist Annie Dookhan still have to prove that was the overriding reason they agreed to plead guilty.

In several rulings today, the court agreed that Dookhan's thousands of falsifications represented an "egregious" ethical and legal breach and that lawyers for defendants would not have to spend any time trying to prove that.

But as in earlier cases involving work by state chemists and technicians, the court said that by itself that doesn't mean an automatic reversal of a guilty plea or finding.

Ultimately, a defendant's decision to tender a guilty plea is a unique, individualized decision, and the relevant factors and their relative weight will differ from one case to the next. ... Moreover, a particular case may give rise to consideration of additional relevant factors not identified (in earlier cases), such as whether the defendant was indicted on additional charges and whether the drug-related charges were a minor component of an over-all plea agreement.

The court detailed its reasoning in the case of a Boston man who had originally admitted to sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilty on possession of crack in 2011, only to have his case continued without a finding on condition he stay out of trouble for a year. When he was arrested on an assault-and-battery charge, he was also charged with violating probation for the drug charge.

Rakim Scott then moved to have the drug plea revoked, because Dookhan had certified the substance he was found with was crack. A lower-court judge agreed, but Suffolk County prosecutors appealed.

The court sent the case back to a lower court for a hearing on whether Scott's decision to admit to sufficient facts was based on factors other than Dookhan's work:

[W]e conclude that because Dookhan signed the drug certificate as an assistant analyst in Scott's case, and because Scott offered the signed drug certificate in support of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea, Scott is entitled to a conclusive presumption that Dookhan's misconduct was egregious, is attributable to the government, and occurred in his case. However, we vacate the order allowing the defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, and we remand this case for findings on the question whether there is a reasonable probability that the defendant would not have pleaded guilty had he known of Dookhan's misconduct at the Hinton drug lab.

• Complete ruling, Commonwealth vs. Rakim D. Scott

A man sprung from prison thanks to disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan was charged with heroin possession after he tried to evade a routine traffic stop in Hyde Park, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Pedro Hernandez, 46, of Lawrence, had a five-year heroin sentence stayed last year because Dookhan processed some of the drug evidence against him. According to the DA's office, police found him with "four tightly bundled sticks of heroin weighing approximately 41 grams" following an attempted traffic stop on West Street near Summer Street:

Boston Police report that when six drug dealers got into a loud, angry argument inside a Blue Hill Avenue apartment early Saturday, somebody called police. Arriving officers surrounded the building and arrested them all - but only after three tried to escape by climbing on the roof of the neighboring building and then jumping back on the roof of the building they'd just fled.

A man released on $250 bail for his fourth drug-trafficking conviction because the drugs in the case were tested by alleged disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan was back in court today after prosecutors said undercover officers bought some crack off him near Tufts Medical Center on Saturday.

Louis Anthony Williams, 30, of Roxbury was ordered held on $15,000 bail on the new charge - and had his bail on a previous case revoked - the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Williams had been released Oct. 22 during a hearing on a 2011 coke-distribution conviction. According to the DA's office:

A man released from prison thanks to possible tampering of the evidence against him by former state chemist Annie Dookhan is scheduled for arraignment today on a new charge of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Torrie Haynes, 30, of Dorchester, was arrested near East Berkeley Street and Harrison Avenue Friday afternoon, the DA's office says:

At the time of his most recent arrest, Haynes was wearing a GPS monitoring device as a condition of a stay of his sentence on the earlier conviction.

Innocent, etc.