Patrick vows to help obtain funds to address legal mess caused by state drug lab irregularities

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Governor Deval Patrick says he’ll work with the state’s district attorneys and the Legislature to get funding for efforts to straighten up the legal mess caused by the mishandling of evidence of evidence at a state drug-testing laboratory.

Patrick said in a letter to Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. and Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe, the president and vice president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, respectively, that he was “committed to working with you and the Legislature to obtain the necessary resources.”

“The first thing to do, it seems to me, is agree on a course of corrective action and then, based on an agreed plan, seek whatever supplemental funding may be needed,” he said in the letter, which was dated today.

Patrick also said in the letter that he “could not agree more about the potential miscarriage of justice arising” from the problems at the Deparment of Public Health lab in Jamaica Plain.

Patrick said he agreed that efforts should focus on the cases of people currently incarcerated who may have been incarcerated based on tainted drug evidence.