Commonwealth v. Bolton (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-144-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 16-P-960 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. SCOTT JOSEPH BOLTON. No. 16-P-960. Worcester. October 18, 2017. – November 16, 2017. Present: Massing, Kinder, & Ditkoff, JJ. Jurisdiction, Of crime. District Attorney. Constitutional Law, Place of trial. Practice, Criminal, Place of trial, District Attorney, Plea, New trial. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on November 18, 2011. Motions for relief from unlawful restraint and for a new trial, filed on March 24, 2016, were considered by James R. Lemire, J. Michael J. Hickson for the defendant. Donna-Marie Haran, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. MASSING, J. In 1980 the Legislature decreed that the town of Bellingham, which is located within Norfolk County, “shall be considered to be within the jurisdiction of Worcester county” “[f]or the purpose of all civil and criminal matters.” St. 1980, c. 550, § 3. After pleading guilty in Worcester County Superior Court to an indictment issued by a Worcester County grand jury for an unarmed robbery that he committed in Bellingham, the defendant, Scott Joseph Bolton, filed a motion for relief from unlawful restraint seeking to vacate the conviction and dismiss the indictment on the grounds that the district attorney for the middle district[1] lacked authority to prosecute, and that the Worcester County grand jury lacked jurisdiction to return indictments with respect to, crimes alleged to have occurred in Bellingham. The judge who had accepted the guilty plea having denied his motion, the defendant appeals.[2] Concluding that the Legislature validly transferred jurisdiction over crimes committed in Bellingham to Worcester County, and that the defendant’s indictment and prosecution in Worcester County by the district attorney for the middle district did not violate his constitutional rights, we affirm. Jurisdiction of criminal matters related to Bellingham. A Worcester County grand jury issued a five-count indictment charging the defendant with unarmed robbery as a habitual offender and four misdemeanor violations of the automobile laws. The robbery took place in a Bellingham bank; the defendant was the getaway driver. Accepting an agreed-upon recommendation, a Superior Court judge sitting in Worcester County sentenced the defendant to a term of six to eight years with respect to the unarmed robbery charge, the Commonwealth agreed to dismiss the habitual offender component of the indictment, and the remaining guilty pleas were placed on file. […]