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| Prison Transfers Left Up to Montana |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/30/2003 |
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A convicted murderer's claim that he should not have been transferred from the Montana State Prison to other facilities has no merit, the state Supreme Court ruled May 19. At issue was the sentence of Paul Wright, an inmate at the privately owned Crossroads Correctional Center in Shelby. Wright was convicted of murder and use of a firearm in 1996, and was ordered to spend the first 20 years of his 80-year sentence in the Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge. He has since been transferred numerous times, and asked a Billings District Court to stop the practice. District Judge G. Todd Baugh declined and Wright appealed to the high court, which denied his claim in a 4-3 decision. Writing for the majority, Justice William Leaphart dismissed Wright's claim that changes made to state law after his sentence violated the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against subjecting defendants to retroactive laws. 'Clearly, Wright does not have a constitutional right to be imprisoned in any particular facility,' Leaphart wrote. The majority also ruled that state laws in place when Wright was sentenced -- which establish the Deer Lodge facility as the state prison -- didn't establish any right to be held there exclusively. 'Montana retains the discretion to transfer a prisoner for whatever reason or no reason at all,' Leaphart wrote. The original sentencing instruction that Wright spend two decades at Deer Lodge 'was to ensure that Wright would serve at least twenty years in prison, not to confer to Wright a special privilege to serve in any particular prison,' Leaphart wrote. The majority also warned that granting Wright's request would head off any other legislative changes that could affect a prisoner's punishment, possibly limiting the state's ability to combat overcrowding in its facilities. However, a three-justice minority disagreed with the ruling. Writing for the minority, Justice James Nelson said the majority's analysis was irrelevant because of the specific language of Wright's sentence and the law at the time. State case law has always held that laws in effect when the crime was committed are the ones that control a convict's sentence, Nelson wrote. 'Accordingly, the Department of Corrections has no authority under the trial court's sentencing order and under our jurisprudence to remove Wright from the Montana State Prison to some other correctional facility,' Nelson wrote. |
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