Title: Commonwealth v. Nieves
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-12906
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: October 23, 2020

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revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 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-12906 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  NANCY NIEVES. 
 
 
October 23, 2020. 
 
 
Controlled Substances.  Parole.  Practice, Criminal, Parole, 
Request for fees and costs. 
 
 
 
In 2008, Nancy Nieves pleaded guilty to possession with 
intent to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to violate a drug 
law.  She was sentenced to from three to five years on the 
possession offense, and the conspiracy conviction was placed on 
file.  After serving three years, Nieves was released on parole, 
and while on parole, she paid parole supervision fees of $400 to 
the parole board. 
 
 
In 2018, pursuant to the protocol established in Bridgeman 
v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 476 Mass. 298 
(2017), both of Nieves's convictions were vacated and the 
charges against her were dismissed with prejudice due to the 
misconduct of Annie Dookhan, a chemist at the William A. Hinton 
State Laboratory Institute.  Dookhan had analyzed the substances 
seized in Nieves's case.  Nieves thereafter filed a motion in 
her criminal case, seeking a refund of the parole supervision 
fees that she had paid as a result of the invalidated 
convictions and a waiver of the remaining balance that she owed.1  
See Nelson v. Colorado, 137 S. Ct. 1249 (2017).  A Superior 
Court judge initially deferred action on the motion, so that 
notice of the motion could be given to the parole board.  Nieves 
eventually filed a second motion seeking a refund, accompanied 
by an affidavit and documentation from the parole board 
                     
 
1 The parole board has since waived Nieves's balance of 
unpaid parole supervision fees, amounting to $480. 
2 
 
 
 
 
confirming that she had made five payments to the board totaling 
$400.  After a hearing, the judge denied Nieves's motion on the 
basis that a motion filed in the criminal case was not the 
correct way to seek a refund of parole fees.  Nieves appealed, 
and we allowed her application for direct appellate review.. 
 
 
On appeal, the Commonwealth concedes that the parole 
supervision fees must be refunded in these circumstances.  After 
considering the issue independently, see Commonwealth v. Watt, 
482 Mass. 1031, 1032 (2019), citing Commonwealth v. Poirer, 458 
Mass. 1014, 1015 (2010), we agree.  Under the principles 
described in Commonwealth v. Martinez, 480 Mass. 777 (2018), 
"the State is obligated under the due process clause of the 
Fourteenth Amendment [to the United States Constitution] to 
refund monies where three elements are satisfied:  (1) the 
monies were 'exacted from the defendant' upon conviction and as 
a consequence of the conviction; (2) the amounts 'exacted' were 
actually paid by the defendant; and (3) the conviction has been 
'invalidated by a reviewing court and no retrial will occur.'"  
Id. at 784-785, quoting Nelson, 137 S. Ct. at 1252.  Each of 
those of those elements is present here. 
 
 
With respect to the first Martinez element, parole 
supervision fees, like the probation fees at issue in Martinez, 
are "taken from [a defendant] solely on the basis of a 
conviction," albeit at the time the individual is paroled, and 
are directly attributable to the sentence for the conviction.  
Martinez, 482 Mass. at 785, quoting Nelson, 137 S. Ct. at 1257.  
See Watt, 482 Mass. at 1033, quoting Martinez, supra at 784 
("'exacted from the defendant' upon conviction and as a 
consequence of the conviction").  In Nieves's case, parole fees 
would not have been incurred by her but for her conviction of 
possession with intent to distribute and the term sentence she 
received for it.  Once her conviction was invalidated, however, 
the Commonwealth no longer had any plausible claim of right to 
that money, because it was "paid solely as a consequence of 
[the] subsequently invalidated conviction[]."  Martinez, supra, 
quoting Nelson, 137 S. Ct. at 1257.  Unlike inmate account fees 
and property that has been civilly forfeited, which need not be 
refunded or returned, see Watt, supra; Martinez, supra, parole 
supervision fees, again being akin to probation fees, arise 
directly out of the underlying criminal conviction and are a 
consequence of the sentence that is imposed. 
 
3 
 
 
 
 
 
With respect to the second Martinez element, there is no 
factual dispute that Nieves actually paid $400 in parole 
supervision fees.  And with respect to the third Martinez 
element, there is no denying that her convictions were legally 
invalidated with no chance of a retrial, within the meaning of 
Nelson and Martinez. 
 
 
Having established that Nieves is entitled to return of the 
parole fees she paid, we turn to the mechanics of the remedy.  
As we said in Martinez, 480 Mass. at 796: 
 
"It continues to be the responsibility of the courts to 
order the refund of fines, fees, and court costs where due 
process so requires.  And the source of payment for such 
refunds continues to be the Commonwealth, generally its 
general fund.  We will not attempt to specify the means by 
which such payment is accomplished; it suffices to say that 
the court must order the refund and the Commonwealth must 
timely comply with that order by providing the defendant or 
juvenile with the money to which he or she is entitled." 
 
 
In this case, Nieves filed her motion for a refund in the 
same criminal case in which her convictions had been 
invalidated.  That approach "provides a fair, prompt, and 
efficient means of resolving a defendant's claim."  Commonwealth 
v. Sacco, 401 Mass. 204, 208 (1987).  In Martinez, 482 Mass. at 
792-795, we outlined the process a claimant should follow when 
seeking refund of other categories of fees after a conviction 
has been invalidated.  The process begins with the defendant 
filing a motion for refund "in the court where he or she was 
convicted."  Id. at 793.  That same process should be followed 
when seeking return of parole supervision fees. 
 
 
Conclusion.  We need go no further.2  The order denying 
Nieves's motion for refund of parole supervision fees is 
vacated, and the case is remanded to the Superior Court for 
further proceedings on the motion consistent with this opinion. 
 
                     
 
2 As in Commonwealth v. Martinez, 480 Mass. 777, 797 (2018), 
we refrain from attempting to craft a global remedy for the 
refund of fines, fees, and costs in all of the cases tainted by 
Annie Dookhan and Sonia Farak.  We respect the parties' ongoing 
efforts to resolve the matter globally in litigation that is 
pending in the Federal District Court. 
4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered. 
 
 
 
The case was submitted on briefs. 
 
Benjamin H. Keehn, Committee for Public Counsel Services, & 
Susan F. Damiano for the defendant. 
 
Randall E. Ravitz, Assistant Attorney General, for the 
Commonwealth.