Death Penalty News

Montana is a deep red state. In 2024, President Trump received 58% of the state’s vote, and Republicans swept contests for statewide office. Yet Big Sky Country is no death penalty hotbed . While capital punishment is legal there, it is rarely used. Late last month, the state legislature rejected a proposal that would have changed that. Montana has never been a place with frequent executions . Before 1976, when the death penalty was revived in this country, Montana had executed 71 people by hanging , the last one in 1943 .

The fate of a Canadian who has been on death row in Montana for the past 42 years has been thrown into more uncertainty as state legislators try again to remove obstacles to resuming executions.  Ronald Smith, 67, is originally from Red Deer, Alta., and has been on death row since 1983, a year after he and another man, high on LSD and alcohol, shot and killed two young Indigenous cousins near East Glacier, Mont.  Time moves slowly at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Mont. where Smith has been described as a model prisoner for four decades. But almost like clockwork every two years, another attempt to allow the state to resume executions begins in the Montana legislature.

A Montana woman who pleaded guilty to torturing and killing her 12-year-old grandson more than three years ago has been sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison. Patricia Batts, 51, pleaded guilty in May to deliberate homicide in the death of James “Alex” Hurley on February 3, 2020, in West Yellowstone in an agreement reached after prosecutors dropped efforts to seek the death penalty. She was sentenced in District Court in Bozeman. “This is a horrific case of child abuse. It was totally unnecessary, and it was done with malevolence,” District Judge John C. Brown said, according to NBC-Montana. RELATED | Death penalty sought for grandmother of boy, 12, beaten and left to die on living room floor

BOZEMAN — Last week, the case of 12-year-old James Alexander Hurley, who was found dead in his grandparents’ home in early 2020, returned to court in the form of another guilty plea. Now, only one of five people arrested connected to the West Yellowstone boy’s death - his grandmother - remains to be adjudicated . Last week, James Sasser Jr., the boy’s grandfather, pleaded guilty to the charge of deliberate homicide by association and two others: tampering with a witness and criminal endangerment, with prosecutors recommending a combined 120 years in prison at his November sentencing. All that remains to be adjudicated now: Patricia Batts. The weeks following February 3, 2020, were spent by many at the Gallatin County Law & Justice Center, as the pile of court documents has only grown, all with graphic details regarding the death of James. Grandfather James Sasser Jr., 14-year-old uncle James Sasser III, 18-year-old aunt Madison Sasser and Sasser III’s friend, Gage Roush, have eithe...

Ronald Smith sounds tired. Despite good news last month, when a bill to resume executions in Montana was unexpectedly defeated, the Canadian on death row in that state is in a sombre mood. Smith, originally from Red Deer, Alta., has been facing capital punishment since 1983 for killing 2 young Montana men in 1982. “I thought we were screwed,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press from Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Mont. “I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that this wouldn’t be approved. Once my daughter found out, I explained to her which road we were going down and what the probable outcomes were going to be. I was that sure that it was over.” All executions have been stayed in Montana since 2015 because the state requires the use of an ultra-fast-acting barbiturate, which is no longer available. There hasn’t been an execution in Montana since 2006. Montana’s house of representatives passed a bill in February that would have amended protocol to include any subst...

A bill that would have allowed the state of Montana to resume executions via lethal injection was voted down in the Senate on Thursday afternoon. House Bill 244 brought by Rep. Dennis Lenz, R-Billings, proposed revising Montana’s death penalty law in an effort to comply with a 2015 district court ruling. That ruling halted the use of one drug the state used for executions. In 2015, Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock ruled that pentobarbital, a drug used by the state in its lethal injection cocktail, did not meet the definition of "ultra-fast" identified in law because it takes several minutes to work. HB 244 proposed revising state law to remove mention of a specific drug, replacing it with a fast-acting substance “sufficient to cause death.” The legislation was endorsed by Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who told lawmakers the change would fix the legal issue identified by the court with language similar to that of legally tested laws in...

The fate of a Canadian man who has been on death row in Montana for 38 years could become more tenuous as the state gets closer to removing obstacles that prevent it from resuming executions. Ronald Smith, 63, is originally from Red Deer, Alta., and has been on death row since 1983, a year after he and another man, high on LSD and alcohol near East Glacier, Mont., shot and killed two young Indigenous cousins. Montana specifies that the death penalty must be accomplished by an “ultra-fast-acting” barbiturate. A district court judge stayed executions more than a decade ago after ruling that the proposed use of pentobarbital didn’t meet requirements. But a bill that would allow Montana to use any “intravenous injection in a lethal quality” has passed in the House of Representatives and is to be voted on this week by the senate. Smith’s daughter, who was six when her father went to prison, is trying not to worry. “This is more than revenge. This is just now inhumane. This is torture. There...

Montana is on track to resume capital punishment for the first time since 2015 after lawmakers in the House gave preliminary approval to legislation loosening requirements for lethal injections in the state. The House passed HB244 on second reading 56-44, the penultimate hurdle before the bill moves to the Senate. The proposal, carried by Rep. Dennis Lenz, R-Billings, would strike language in state law requiring that the chemical cocktail used in lethal injections contain an “ultra fast acting barbiturate,” a move opponents warn would allow unregulated substances to be used in executions by the state. The bill replaces that language with a requirement that the state use a substance “sufficient to cause death.” Executions in Montana have been on hold since 2015, when Lewis and Clark County Judge Jeffrey Sherlock ruled that the barbiturate the state had been using, pentobarbital, did not comply with statute, as it took minutes to kill — hence, not “ultra fast acting.” The state’s last ex...

Lawmakers heard arguments Wednesday morning about a bill to revise Montana’s death penalty law in a way that would allow the state to resume administering lethal injections. House Bill 244 would strike the state’s current lethal injection requirements and broaden the variety of drugs Montana can use to execute death row inmates. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Dennis Lenz, R-Billings, told members of the House Judiciary Committee that HB 244 is “a simple bill,” but that the subject it addresses is not simple. “The state of Montana is the only state that specifies the death penalty be accomplished by an ultra-fast-acting barbiturate,” Lenz said. “The other states employing the death penalty either specify a particular drug or merely state the execution is to take place by means of lethal injection, and that is what we’re going to do here.” Lenz’s bill would remove those four specific words — “ultra-fast-acting barbiturate” — from state law, replacing them with language that would include any s...

WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont. — Gallatin County prosecutors filed paperwork seeking the death penalty for the grandmother of a murdered West Yellowstone boy. NBC Montana confirmed Friday the Gallatin County Attorneys Office submitted the request to seek the death penalty for Patricia Batts. Batts is accused of playing a part in the murder of her grandson, Alex Hurley, who was 12 at the time of his death in early February. Court document say Batts tortured Hurley.  Torture is grounds to seek the death penalty, according to Montana law. James Sasser Jr., Hurley's grandfather, and James Sasser III, Hurley's 14-year-old uncle, are also charged in his death. Sasser Jr. isn't accused of having a large role in the torture, according to court records. Sasser III's status as an adult or juvenile is still under consideration by a Gallatin County judge. RELATED | Montana | Boy, 12, abused regularly by relatives, beaten and left to die on living room fl...

A Gallatin County judge is asking defense attorneys to file with the court their qualifications to argue against the death penalty for a grandmother accused of torturing and beating her 12-year-old grandson to death. Gallatin County District Judge John Brown asked attorney Ryan Peabody at a hearing on Wednesday to file his qualifications to represent Patricia Batts. Batts is charged with deliberate homicide, aggravated kidnapping, criminal child endangerment and strangulation of partner or family member, all felonies, in the death of Alex Hurley. Prosecutors said in court documents that because Batts is accused of both kidnapping and torture, they may seek the death penalty if she is convicted of those “aggravating circumstances.” RELATED | Montana | Boy, 12, abused regularly by relatives, beaten and left to die on living room floor Batts was scheduled to enter a plea to the charges on Wednesday, but Judge Brown delayed the hearing until March 24. He said he wanted to ...

Newly released texts reveal the horrifying treatment a 12-year-old Montana boy received from relatives before he was beaten to death on the living room floor last month.   James 'Alex' Hurley, died February 3 and his grandparents, 47-year-old James Sasser Jr. and 48-year-old Patricia Batts, as well as his 14-year-old uncle James Sasser III are charged with deliberate homicide.  Hurley's 18-year-old aunt, Madison Sasser, texted her boyfriend that the child should 'go die in the woods' and described him as 'a piece of (crap) off of my f**king shoe', the Billings Gazette reports.  Sasser and Hurley's six-year-old uncle lived with the relatives who allegedly physically abused and starved the child. According to documents, Hurley was made to sit half-naked in front of fans and was sprayed with water. Batts is said to have commented, 'that’s what they do with cats, right?' The grandmother told detectives Hurley 'drove her nut...