Montana Prosecutors Drop Death Penalty Against Mentally Ill Defendant

Lloyd Barrus (pic­tured, left) will not become the first per­son sen­tenced to death in Montana this cen­tu­ry, after pros­e­cu­tors dropped their pur­suit of the death penal­ty for the killing of a sher­if­f’s deputy. In a motion filed July 19, 2018, Broadwater County Attorney Cory Swanson (pic­tured, right) wrote that, ​“after exten­sive analy­sis of the Defendant’s his­to­ry of … men­tal ill­ness,” the state would no longer seek the death penal­ty in the case. Doctors at the Montana State Hospital had diag­nosed Barrus with mul­ti­ple men­tal health dis­or­ders, includ­ing a delu­sion­al dis­or­der, that led Judge Kathy Seeley to find him incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al and to com­mit him to a men­tal hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. Medical records doc­u­ment­ed Barrus’s his­to­ry of men­tal health issues dat­ing to 2000, and Swanson did not con­test the diag­noses. The pros­e­cu­tion’s notice to with­draw the death penal­ty acknowl­edged that Barrus’s men­tal ill­ness was poten­tial­ly a ​“suf­fi­cient­ly mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stance” for the court to choose a life sen­tence over the death penal­ty. Swanson said he believes the men­tal health treat­ment plan ordered by the court will restore Barrus’s com­pe­ten­cy to be tried, that he ​“expects to try this case before a jury, and believes the court will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hold the Defendant account­able through a just sen­tence, which includes up to impris­on­ment for life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.” With the death penal­ty off the table, Montana will con­tin­ue its 21-year streak with­out a death sen­tence. The last time the state sen­tenced a defen­dant to death was 1996. Just two peo­ple remain on Montana’s death row, and the state’s last exe­cu­tion was in 2006. Several states have con­sid­ered bills in recent years that would exempt peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness from the death penal­ty, but no state has imposed such a ban.

(Thomas Plank, Prosecutors no longer seek­ing death penal­ty in case of slain Broadwater County deputy, Independent Record, July 20, 2018; Eric Jochim, Death penal­ty no longer sought in killing of MT deputy, KPAX, July 20, 2018; Eric Jochim, Man charged in killing of Montana deputy found unfit to stand tri­al, MTN News, June 7, 2018.) See Mental Illness and Sentencing.