Samuel Britt v. Elwood S. McKenney

ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge.

On this appeal five plaintiff appellants seek to maintain a class action for a declaratory judgment to the effect that Massachusetts criminal defendants who are unable to afford stenographers or other means to record the testimony at probable cause hearings, Mass. G.L. c. 276, §§ 38, 42, have been constitutionally deprived by the Commonwealth’s failure to create a transcript. They are faced at the outset with a claim that jurisdiction for declaratory relief does not exist. If none of the named plaintiffs may maintain this action on their own behalf, they may not…