Court upholds guilty plea for man convicted in one county for a crime in another

Of the state's 351 cities and towns, residents of 350 of them get to vote for their district attorney. Only voters in Bellingham don't get to vote for a DA - which might have made a difference in Scott Bolton's appeal of his sentence for unarmed robbery there if he lived in Bellingham, but he doesn't.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld Bolton's 6-to-8 year sentence for being the getaway driver in a 2011 bank holdup - which came after he agreed to a plea deal rather than face trial, where a conviction could have led to life imprisonment since he is a habitual offender.

Despite agreeing to the sentence, Bolton eventually appealed it, in part based on the unusual fact that while Bellingham is part of Norfolk County, its civil and criminal court cases are tried in Worcester County courts. A law passed in 1980 made the switch - a year after a similar law switched Athol from Worcester County courts to Franklin County and Northwestern District courts.

Bolton's attorney argued he'd been deprived of his rights because, unlike in Athol, the legislature didn't also give Bellingham residents the right to vote for their new district attorney and because the Worcester County grand jury only includes residents of Worcester County, which Bellingham is not part of.

The justices agreed it's a shame Bellingham residents aren't able to vote for an elected official who represents them in court or serve on its grand jury, but said that the legislature has the right to switch around court jurisdictions in general and that since Bolton didn't live in Bellingham at the time of the robbery, it's not really his concern, let alone an issue on which to toss his sentence:

Although it remains the case that for nearly four decades the voters of Bellingham have not had a say in electing the district attorney charged with administering the criminal law for their town, the defendant, who is not a Bellingham resident
or voter, lacks standing to assert a claim of disenfranchisement on their behalf. See McGlue v. County Commrs. of Essex, 225 Mass. 59, 60 (1916) ("It is a general principle that no one can question the constitutionality of a public act except one whose rights are impaired thereby"); Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts v. Commissioner of Rev., 423 Mass. 708, 715 (1996), quoting from Doe v. The Governor, 381 Mass. 702, 704 (1980) ("[O]nly persons who have themselves suffered, or who are in danger of suffering, legal harm can compel the courts to assume the difficult and delicate duty of passing upon the validity of the acts of a coordinate branch of the government").