People whose drug convictions are set aside thanks to Annie Dookhan can't get court fees back

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that a Quincy man whose marijuana-possession conviction was set aside because the pot had been tested by infamous result forger Annie Dookhan can't get back the $830 in probation and victim-assistance fees he paid after he initially pleaded guilty.

Although state law allows judges to return fines to people whose convictions are overturned when they successfully appeal those convictions, the state's highest court ruled that the probation fees the man paid during his probation were just that, not fines, and the law doesn't cover the return of fees.

A similar situation applies to the $50 victim-assistance fee the man paid: The court said that while the law allows for its return if a person successfully appeals a conviction, it is silent when it comes to people who are allowed to withdraw guilty pleas and for whom prosecutors then just drop the case because of something like what Dookhan did:

The withdrawal of a guilty plea followed by an order vacating the conviction, does not constitute a conviction that was "overturned on appeal." ... Here, the defendant did not appeal from his conviction; rather, his conviction was vacated after a judge of the District Court granted postconviction relief. ...

The Legislature clearly intended to provide a refund for the § 8 assessment to a narrow category of defendants because it used the specific phrase "overturned on appeal." If the Legislature had intended to expand the pool of eligible claimants to those whose convictions were overturned through postconviction relief under Mass. R. Crim. P. 30, or other types of judicial relief, it could have stated that intention expressly.