Commonwealth v. Martin (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-183-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-12056 COMMONWEALTH vs. PIERCE A. MARTIN. Norfolk. September 7, 2016. – November 25, 2016. Present: Gants, C.J., Botsford, Lenk, Hines, Gaziano, Lowy, & Budd, JJ. Practice, Criminal, Costs, Fees and costs, Probation. Complaint received and sworn to in the Quincy Division of the District Court Department on October 19, 2010. A motion to withdraw a guilty plea, filed on October 3, 2012, was heard by Mary Hogan Sullivan, J., and motions for the return of seized property, filed on November 21, 2012, and July 22, 2013, were heard by Mark S. Coven, J. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court. Ilse Nehring for the defendant. Susanne M. O’Neil, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. HINES, J. In October, 2011, the defendant, Pierce A. Martin, pleaded guilty in the Quincy Division of the District Court Department to possession of a class D substance (second offense). At sentencing, the plea judge imposed a one-year term of probation and, as mandated by statute, the probation supervision fees (G. L. c. 276, § 87A) and the victim-witness assessment (G. L. c. 258B, § 8). In October, 2012, after the revelation of misconduct at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute (Hinton laboratory), a judge granted the defendant’s unopposed motion to withdraw his guilty plea on the ground that Annie Dookhan,[1] the subsequently discredited analyst at the center of the misconduct allegations, performed the analysis of the substances seized during the defendant’s arrest. See Commonwealth v. Scott, 467 Mass. 336 (2014). The Commonwealth entered a nolle prosequi on the underlying complaint. Thereafter, the defendant filed a motion for return of property, including probation supervision fees ($ 780) paid during the term of probation and the victim-witness assessment (fifty dollars), claiming a right to recoup these amounts where the conviction, in the defendant’s view, was vacated on constitutional grounds.[2] The judge denied the motion, and the defendant appealed. We transferred the case from the Appeals Court on our own motion. We conclude that there is no statutory authority for the return of the probation supervision fees and the victim-witness assessment paid by the defendant. Therefore, we affirm the denial of the defendant’s motion for return of property. Background. We summarize the relevant facts from the record. On […]