2 weeks Ago
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Montana’s compensation program for people who have been wrongfully imprisoned appears to have been short-lived. It’s the first time the Legislature failed to pass or renew the program since its creation in 2021. And while agreement on compensating people who were wrongfully convicted remains in the state Capitol, the parties involved have in recent years drifted apart on the terms of how to accomplish that goal.
House Bill 93, sponsored by Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, R-Billings, carried the compensation program this session. The bill passed the Legislature in both of the last two sessions but failed on the Senate floor on Saturday in a 24-26 vote.
Lawmakers’ and stakeholders’ goal this session was to revive the program after it died in a procedural fiasco at the end of the 2023 session. But in the final weeks before legislators adjourn until 2027, the program’s strongest advocates say the program might now be dead for good. Only one person ever applied for the compensation and received none.
Popular hot springs resort in Bitterroot Valley listed for sale at nearly $6 million Hamilton woman dies in Teton County crash near Fairfield, MHP says Bitterroot's bighorn sheep see 'significant' mortality over winter Judge dismisses injunction request for Florence four-day school week No state has axed its income tax on wages in 45 years. Now 2 Southern states are on a path to do so Montana FWP reports killing of grizzly bear in first fatal encounter of year Bitterroot Health Athletes of the Week: Jude Widmer and Annalise Lewis Bitterroot-based climbing legend Skip Horner wraps career with 33rd Kilimanjaro ascent Daines, Downing, Zinke, Sheehy defend Trump's tariff strategy despite volatile markets The Victor Park Board prepares for first election in over 10 years Hamilton Christian Academy adding preschool, expanding campus International students at MSU and UM have visas revoked by federal government Cuts to Humanities Montana budget will be felt in rural areas Medical aid in dying can continue in Montana after bill to ban it fails Florence debating change to weighted GPA, valedictorian selection The program has had a whiplash life cycle since its first introduction in 2021, when the Legislature and governor’s office were often at odds over how much of the compensation should be shouldered by the state versus the counties where the conviction occurred. The Legislature voted to remove the program’s sunset in 2023, but that bill died when lawmakers suddenly adjourned without a resolution to a second stalemate with Gov.
Greg Gianforte over its terms, although the one active case was allowed to proceed. Lawmakers took another swing at the compensation program this session and advanced HB 93 last month with broad support in the House, where it passed 96-3. “There’s been a lot of emotions, a lot of ‘nonstarters,’ a lot of, ‘That won’t work,’” said Sen.
Barry Usher, a Yellowstone County Republican who carried the bill on the Senate floor last week. “Lawsuits could take years. They can take lots of years; we all know how this goes.
This option gives them the option to take this.” Sen. Barry Usher, R-Yellowstone County, speaks during a floor session of the Montana Senate on Feb.
20 in the state Capitol. THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record The program offered $60,000 per year of imprisonment and $25,000 for every additional year served on parole or probation. Gianforte, a Republican, would have vetoed the program’s creation in 2021 unless counties were on the hook for a share of that compensation.
The final version of the program also required the applicant to abandon any other legal actions against the state in order to receive payment through what was supposed to be a quick process that avoids protracted litigation. But when Cody Marble filed for that compensation, the state and Missoula County defended against the matter all the way to trial. Years earlier, a judge overturned Marble’s conviction and prosecutors dismissed their pursuit of a new trial, saying the earlier case lacked integrity.
The victim recanted their claims against Marble, but had waffled on that statement and later died, leaving Marble with no irrefutable evidence to prove that he did not commit the crime at the moment he was seeking a claim. After a weeklong trial last year relitigating Marble’s innocence, a jury found that Marble was not entitled to any compensation. Usher was involved early in the program’s development with criminal justice advocates and a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
He told the Montana State News Bureau on Tuesday the Marble case “exposed the flaws” of the program that made compensating people a more difficult task than initially thought. Cody Marble offers testimony at the Missoula County Courthouse on Thursday afternoon. Marble, 39, whose conviction for raping another boy in the juvenile detention center when he was 17 was overturned in 2017, is attempting to secure compensation for his wrongful conviction.
BEN ALLAN SMITH, Missoulian Marble’s case turned out to be the only test balloon. Before Richard Raugust was exonerated, he spent 18 years in prison while falsely accused of killing his friend outside a bar in Trout Creek. Disposing of his lawsuit and taking up the state’s compensation program could have delivered him $1.
4 million. Instead, he maintained his case and in 2022 settled with Sanders County for $5 million. SK Rossi, a lobbyist for the ACLU of Montana and the Montana Innocence Project, has also been involved in developing the program since 2019 as a member of the state Criminal Justice Oversight Counsel.
Rossi said despite the high-dollar settlement for Raugust, a compensation package is more ideal to the claimant and the state than a federal civil rights case. “The claimant doesn’t — theoretically — have to go through another legal process and can be compensated at, honestly, a much lower level than they would be if they went to federal court,” Rossi said. “But they also don’t have to go through the court process; that’s a benefit.
The benefit to the state is that they’re going to now have to pay out $5, $10, $15 million settlements to people who are wrongfully convicted, because this program does not exist, when it could have been less than a million dollars.” SK Rossi testifies in opposition of SB 99 before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday. THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record The hitch that upended HB 93 was an amendment Usher put on the bill to raise the threshold a claimant needed to attain in order to obtain compensation.
By requiring “clear and convincing” evidence rather than a “preponderance” of the evidence, the new threshold would have likely eliminated additional litigation but precluded a case like Marble’s from moving forward. The Montana Department of Justice, which defended the state against Marble’s case, opposed HB 93 before Usher’s amendment was grafted onto the bill. Chad Vanisko, general counsel for the justice department, said the proposal made funding available to people whose convictions were dismissed on technicalities rather than evidence of innocence.
“The bill opens the door not only to compensation of, I think, people who have no factual innocence but also cases in which there was no bad faith involved [on the] part of the prosecutors,” Vanisko said. He added HB 93 was being driven by “special interests,” and that Marble’s case was one of “manufactured innocence.” Cody Marble listens to testimony at the Missoula County Courthouse on Wednesday, May 15.
Marble, 39, whose conviction for raping another boy in the juvenile detention center when he 17 was overturned in 2017, was attempting to secure compensation for his wrongful conviction. BEN ALLAN SMITH, Missoulian Following Usher’s change to raise the threshold to reach a compensation claim, the Montana Innocence Project began raising alarm that the bill’s criteria would be too narrow to meet the program’s original intent. In an interview on Tuesday, Rossi noted the new standard to receive compensation in HB 93 would have been a higher hurdle than a civil court case, and accused the justice department of driving innocent people away from the program.
“It was basically a bill that is a false flag for people who are wrongfully convicted and wrongfully imprisoned,” Rossi said. “If they entered that program, there was no way they would get through it and get compensation without having to go through a nightmarish, essentially retrial, in civil court. So, at the end of the day, we asked the Legislature to kill it because we didn’t want to give anybody false hope.
” The Senate initially gave a narrow endorsement, voting 26-23 on Friday to advance the bill. But it died Saturday on a third, procedural vote when two Republicans switched their stance against the bill. “I feel like it’s a disservice to the state and the voters of Montana that are going to have to foot the bill if they win in a lawsuit,” Usher said.
“Lawsuits take years, so this person is not going to just come out and hit the ground running. They’re going to have to go through years of lawsuits, and if they win, they might get more.” As far as the Montana Innocence Project is concerned, Rossi said it’s unlikely the organization will pursue another bill to establish the compensation package in the near future.
“Unless the dynamics substantially change in the building (the state Capitol), the route for innocent people in Montana who want compensation for being wrongly convicted and wrongfully imprisoned will end up in federal lawsuits that end up in million-dollar settlements,” Rossi said. Author twitter Author email.
