Montana

In a year of declin­ing death-penal­ty usage across the United States, nowhere was the ero­sion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as sus­tained and pro­nounced in 2019 as it was in the west­ern United States. Continuing a wave of momen­tum from Washington​’s judi­cial abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in October 2018, one state halt­ed exe­cu­tions and dis­man­tled its death cham­ber, anoth­er cleared its death row, two cut back on the cir­cum­stances in which the death penal­ty could be sought and imposed, and the entire region set record lows for new death sen­tences and executions.

Bills to repeal and replace the death penal­ty with non-cap­i­tal pun­ish­ments have gained new trac­tion across the United States in 2019 as a result of oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty among ide­o­log­i­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors. That move­ment – buoyed by fis­cal and pro-life con­ser­v­a­tives, con­ser­v­a­tive law-reform advo­cates, and the deep­en­ing involve­ment of the Catholic Church in death-penal­ty abo­li­tion – has led to unprece­dent­ed suc­cess­es in numer­ous hous­es of state leg­is­la­tures and moved repeal efforts clos­er to fruition in a num­ber of deeply Republican states. In 2019, con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors are lead­ing the…

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,…

“Over time lethal injec­tion has become only more prob­lem­at­ic and chaot­ic,” Deborah W. Denno, a pro­fes­sor at Fordham Law School, told the New York Times, sum­ma­riz­ing the ongo­ing bat­tles that have led states to adopt new drug sources or alter­na­tive meth­ods of exe­cu­tion. Several states have obtained or sought drugs using sources that may vio­late phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­u­la­tions. For the exe­cu­tion of Alfredo Prieto, Virginia obtained pen­to­bar­bi­tal from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which pur­chased it from a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy whose iden­ti­ty is shield­ed by the state’s secre­cy law. ​“Even…

On October 6, Montana District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock (pic­tured) held that the state’s pro­posed lethal injec­tion pro­to­col vio­lat­ed state law, which requires that an ​“ultra fast-act­ing bar­bi­tu­rate” be used in exe­cu­tions. Judge Sherlock said the pro­posed bar­bi­tu­rate, pen­to­bar­bi­tal, does not qual­i­fy as such a drug.

Several state leg­is­la­tures have recent­ly tak­en action on bills relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In Arkansas, a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a voice vote. Bill spon­sor Sen. David Burnett, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor and judge who both sought and imposed the death penal­ty, said, ​“It’s no longer a deter­rent. It’s a pun­ish­ment that’s actu­al­ly bro­ken. It does­n’t work. And it costs a huge amount of mon­ey to try and pros­e­cute those cas­es.” Arkansas last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 2005. A sim­i­lar bill in…

On February 18, the Montana House Judiciary Committee vot­ed (11 – 10) to advance HB 370, a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a max­i­mum sen­tence of life with­out parole. The same com­mit­tee had reject­ed sim­i­lar bills sev­er­al times in recent years. The bill will now move to the full House. Republican bill spon­sor Rep. David Moore (pic­tured) said he thought the bill had a decent chance of pass­ing in the House. Rep. Clayton Fiscus, one of two Republican mem­bers of the Judiciary Committee who sup­port­ed the bill, said, ​“Our death…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Great Falls Tribune in Montana out­lined some of the key prob­lems with the death penal­ty as the state leg­is­la­ture con­sid­ers its repeal. The edi­tors expressed con­cerns about the risks of mis­take with exe­cu­tions: ​“There is no way to take back an exe­cu­tion. That rea­son alone pro­vides good cause to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty in Montana.” The paper also not­ed that vic­tims’ fam­i­lies wait for decades for exe­cu­tions to be car­ried out, with the defen­dants receiv­ing most of the atten­tion: “[D]uring the long peri­ods before their…

A bipar­ti­san group of leg­is­la­tors in Montana will intro­duce a bill to replace the state’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. The spon­sors include two Republicans and two Democrats. A coali­tion of con­ser­v­a­tive law­mak­ers, reli­gious groups, and human rights groups sup­port the repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Republican Sen. Matthew Rosendale (pic­tured), a mem­ber of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said his stance on the death penal­ty did not cost him votes. ​“People know where I stand on the death penal­ty and I still got elect­ed by…

According to a recent arti­cle in the Wall Street Journal, some long-time sup­port­ers of the death penal­ty have recent­ly shift­ed their posi­tions, ques­tion­ing whether the occa­sion­al exe­cu­tion is worth the costs incurred by tax­pay­ers at a time when bud­gets are strained. Gil Garcetti (pic­tured), the for­mer dis­trict attor­ney of Los Angeles County, which is respon­si­ble for rough­ly one-third of California​’s 727 death-row inmates, recent­ly remarked, ​“I was a sup­port­er and believ­er in the death penal­ty, but I’ve begun to see that this sys­tem does­n’t work and it isn’t func­tion­al. It…