Tag: reduce prison population Montana

Montana Law and Justice Interim Committee – Someone Call Search and Rescue

The LJIC is responsible for monitoring the activities of the Office of the State Public Defender (OPD), the Department of Corrections (DOC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and any entities attached to those agencies for administrative purposes. The administratively attached entities that the LJIC monitors are: • the Board of Pardons and Parole (attached to DOC); • the Board of Crime Control (attached to DOJ until January 1, 2018, when it will transfer to DOC); • the Gaming Advisory Council (attached to DOJ); and • the Public Safety Officer Standards and Training (POST) Council (attached to DOJ).

The LJIC is required to monitor the operations of the agencies under its jurisdiction and should give specific attention to: 1) identifying issues likely to require further legislative action; 2) identifying opportunities to improve existing laws that govern an agency’s operation and programs; 3) determining whether the experiences Montanans have had with an agency can be improved through legislative action; and 4) reviewing proposed agency legislation. 

 
The Law and Justice Interim Committee has been meeting for the last two years implementing and monitoring laws designed to reduce prison overcrowding and recidivism.   The members come to the meetings with their designer coffee's and wander in late after roll call.  The law enforcement personnel testifying get to put on "their good stuff" and look shiny.  The agencies being monitored turn out their best looking people dressed all fancy and smiling, with reports that have been worded just right.  The Committee Members tour prison facilities and of course Director Reginald Michael always looks great and speaks eloquently. Everyone looks shiny, dresses well and drinks expensive coffee...and spend millions of dollars.

The 2017 Legislature passed a package of bills purported to reduce prison overcrowding and recidivism in the Department of Corrections population. The Law and Justice Interim Committee was tasked with monitoring the operations of the agencies in implementing this package of laws. Perhaps the committee members got lost in Montana attempting to implement the law MCA 44-7-120. A law that actually provides housing for those inmates being released from prison. This law sprang from Senate Bill 65 and is now an actual law that cannot be enforced. I fear the members are lost somewhere looking for the housing created by this law. It is the only explanation I can find for their complete lack of monitoring the agencies they have been tasked to monitor and identifying opportunities to improve existing laws that govern an agency’s operation and programs.

Here are some recent newspaper headlines concerning these laws created by the legislature and tasked to the Law and Justice Interim Committee to implement and monitor.
Yellowstone County: A Montana sheriff is saying efforts to reduce jail crowding are backfiring                     Flathead County: “Nothing that happened at the Legislature has affected jail overcrowding at this point.   
Lewis and Clark County: The planned renovations will bring capacity from the current 80 inmates to 156.

The Law and Justice Interim Committee, after two years of drinking designer coffee, listening to law enforcement personnel dressed up in their “good stuff”and listening to the carefully worded reports of monitored agencies, voted for the following legislative action to reduce prison overcrowding and reduce recidivism:

LAW AND JUSTICE INTERIM LEGISLATION

The committee voted in September 2018 to forward 3 bills to the 2019 Legislature.

  • LC 93 (LClj01) — Clarifying interim oversight of the Office of State Public Defender.  Section 1.  Section 5-5-228, MCA, is amended to read:  (iv) the office of state public defender;
  • LC 360 (LClj02) — Revise appointment of board of pardons and parole members.  Section 2.  Section 2-15-2305, MCA, is amended to read: The members must be appointed as provided in [section 1]. using the process provided for in [section 1].
  • LC 361 (LClj04) — Eliminate or revise MCA references to Article II, section 36, of the Montana Constitution (Marsy’s Law). Marsy’s Law was passed by the heart strings of voters. The Montana Supreme Court has declared Marsy’s Law unconstitutional.

Two years of work, millions of dollars and the Law and Justice Interim Committee have added 23 words in two laws to relieve prison/jail overcrowding and to reduce recidivism. Meanwhile a few miles down the road the Montana Innocence Project, with the help of volunteers and donations, have exonerated seven wrongfully convicted people in Montana. The Montana Innocence Project did this without tax payer money, wearing jeans and t-shirts and fighting state prosecutors to free innocent people.

I fail to see where the addition of 23 words is going to relieve prison overcrowding, reduce recidivism and provide housing for those leaving prison. The Law and Justice Interim Committee has given a whole new meaning to GET LOST IN MONTANA. 

 






 


























	


	
	






	
	

		
The Real Legacy of Mike Batista and Montana Corrections
	


	

		
Montana’s prisons are over capacity due to an 11 percent increase in the prison population between FY2008-2015.  Mike Batista was the administrator for the Division of Criminal Investigation for the Montana Department of Justice for 20 years before being appointed as director for the Department of Corrections in 2012.  Now Mike Batista is currently named to the Board of Pardons and Parole.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  Let’s look at Batista’s legacy.


During Mike's tenure with the Division of Criminal Investigations, he employed a computer forensic scientist named Jimmy Weg.  Attached is an email obtained from Jimmy Weg.  

seq-2 (1)
click on link

This email is disturbing in so many ways. The email itself testifies to the fact that the "science" of computer forensics is junk science.  Jimmy was asked to help defend a search warrant.  Jimmy clearly says the defense is correct in their assessment of the search warrant. Jimmy says "TRUE" to defense claims. "WE'VE ALL HEARD OF CASES IN WHICH A SIGNAL WAS IN FACT STOLEN LEADING TO A SEARCH OF THE WRONG COMPUTER."  "..[nothing] IS FAIL SAFE."  Under the leadership of Mike Batista, Jimmy Weg continued to knowingly provide false and incomplete "evidence" to ignorant judges who in turn rubber stamped any search warrant request.  Immediately the innocent victim of the "scientific evidence" is turned into a criminal.

Mike Batista employed an investigator, Arlyn Greydanus.  Arlyn's son was a person of interest in a crime and was interviewed by law enforcement.  Mike Batista then authorized Arlyn to transport the evidence from Helena to the Missoula Crime Lab.  WOW!! Talk about evidence handling.  Obviously the son was cleared of any wrong doing.

During Mike's tenure as Director of Montana Department of Corrections, Mike signed a contract with Crossroads Correctional Facility authorizing Crossroads to add extra bunks in cells overcrowding the prison cells.  After authorizing Crossroads Correctional Facility to overcrowd the prison, Mike then asks the State of Montana for millions of dollars to alleviate the overcrowding he authorized.
  
Mike Batista worked with Ron Alsbury, Chief of Probation and Parole, to exponentially revoke and rescind the probation and parole of hundreds of men and women, particularly of American Indian descent.  After this unprecedented number of revocations, Mike Batista asks Montana citizens for millions of dollars to correct the challenges he created.

Mike Batista knowingly allowed search warrant applications based on "evidence" that was questionable at best and according to his own forensic examiner, known to be false.  Judges were not informed in these applications that probable cause was not, in fact, probable cause at all.

Batista allowed his own investigator a clear and probable opportunity to alter evidence in favor of the investigator's son.

Mike Batista signed a contract to authorize the overcrowding of prisons. He worked with Ron Alsbury to revoke and rescind the probation and parole of hundreds of people.  Mike Batista then pretends to be the savior of overcrowded prisons.

Now Batista is serving on the Board of Pardons and Parole deciding the fate of the people he incarcerated.  Many of these people are victims of the "probable cause" search warrants submitted by his investigators under his supervision.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.