News you can use
News you can use
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BILLINGS (AP) — An unarmed robbery suspect moved his hands six times in defiance of an officer's orders before the officer fatally shot him during a traffic stop, Billings Police Chief Rich St. John said Wednesday. St. John said the actions captured on a police dash-cam video justified the officer's decision to draw his weapon and shoot Richard Ramirez, 38, three times. "I'm upset we had a tragic end to this," St. John said. "I'm confident we did things properly." A search of the car in which Ramirez was a passenger found d...
BILLINGS (AP) - A Billings police officer shot and killed a man being sought in a recent robbery after authorities say the suspect made a sudden movement while in the back of a car that had been pulled over, authorities said Tuesday. Billings Police Chief Rich St. John identified the deceased as Richard David Ramirez, 38, of Billings. No weapon was found on Ramirez, who was shot three times just a few blocks from his home. St. John said the officer was placed on...
PORTLAND, Ore. — A voting rights lawsuit from members of three American Indian tribes in Montana — including tribes at Fort Belknap in Blaine County — will go forward after a federal judge rejected attempts by state and county officials to dismiss the case. Members of the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap tribes want county officials to set up satellite voting offices to make up for the long distances they must travel to reach courthouses for early voting or late registration. Judge Donald Molloy said in a Wedne...
BILLINGS — U.S. transportation officials rebuked the oil industry Friday for not giving up information regulators say they need to gauge the danger of moving crude by rail, after several accidents highlighted the explosive properties of fuel from the booming oil shale fields on the Northern Plains. Department of Transportation officials told The Associated Press they have received only limited data on the characteristics of oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana, despite requests lodged by Secretary Antony F...
BILLINGS — Federal officials say their investigations into drug crimes in the Bakken oil patch have led to the arrests of 11 people linked to a ring that trafficked methamphetamine from southern California. The U.S. Attorney's Office announced the arrests in Montana and California on Friday. The defendants will face drug conspiracy charges in Montana. The charges carry potential penalties of life in prison and fines of up to $10,000,000 each upon conviction. The defendants include four Montana residents, three from Los A...
BILLING (AP) — Advocacy groups said Friday that a yearlong investigation of Montana's corrections system found "systemic" mistreatment of mentally ill prisoners, including their placement in solitary confinement for months or even years and the routine denial of needed medicines. The findings were detailed in a letter to state officials from the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana and Disability Rights Montana. The ACLU warned it will sue the state if changes aren't made. ACLU attorney Anna Conley said the problems w...
BILLINGS (AP) — Attorneys for a former Montana teacher who raped a 14-year-old student argued Friday that his 30 days in prison were enough punishment, even as a judicial oversight panel sought the censure of the judge in the case over what it called an unlawful sentence. Prosecutors want to send freed rapist Stacey Dean Rambold of Billings back to prison. They say he should have served a minimum of four years after pleading guilty last year to sexual assault without consent. In a legal brief setting up their appeal, l...
BILLINGS (AP) — BNSF Railway Co. said Thursday it intends to buy a fleet of 5,000 strengthened tank cars to haul oil and ethanol in a move that would set a higher safety standard for a fleet that's seen multiple major accidents. The voluntary step by the Texas-based subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. comes as railroads in the U.S. and Canada are under intense pressure to improve safety for hazardous materials shipments. There's been a string of recent train accidents involving oil and ethanol, punctuated...
BILLINGS — A Montana judge who said a 14-year-old rape victim appeared older than her chronological age has waived formal proceedings and asked the state Supreme Court to decide his punishment. District Judge G. Todd Baugh said in a court filing Tuesday that his actions appeared improper and failed to promote public confidence in the courts. He says he is waiving the pending proceedings before a judicial oversight panel. The Montana Judicial Standards Commission filed a complaint against the Billings judge earlier this m...
BILLINGS (AP) — At least 10 times since 2008, freight trains hauling oil across North America have derailed and spilled significant quantities of crude, with most of the accidents touching off fires or catastrophic explosions. The derailments released almost 3 million gallons of oil, nearly twice as much as the largest pipeline spill in the U.S. since at least 1986. And the deadliest wreck killed 47 people in the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Those findings, from an Associated Press review of U.S. and Canadian accident r...
BILLINGS (AP) — A judicial oversight board wants a Montana judge disciplined for saying a 14-year-old rape victim was "older than her chronological age" and sentencing her rapist to just one month in prison. The Montana Judicial Standards Commission filed a formal complaint Monday with the state Supreme Court against District Judge G. Todd Baugh (baw) in Billings. The complaint was released Tuesday. It says the 72-year-old Baugh eroded public confidence in the courts with his statements and the "overly lenient" prison s...
BILLINGS (AP) — An FBI spokesman says the agency is considering permanent agents in the Bakken oil patch of Montana and North Dakota as the drilling boom drives crime rates higher. That's sparked a dispute between the states' U.S. senators over where the agents should be located. Crime on both sides of the border has spiked as thousands of new workers arrive with drug traffickers following in their wake. Since July, two agents and an intelligence specialist have been stationed in Sidney, Mont. North Dakota Sens. Heidi H...
BILLINGS — A Montana judge under fire for commenting that a 14-year-old student rape victim appeared "older than her chronological age" said Tuesday that he deserves to be censured but not removed from the bench for the remarks. District Judge G. Todd Baugh told The Associated Press the comments violated judicial ethics rules by failing to promote public confidence in the courts. But he repeated his prior assertions that his comments did not factor into the 30-day sentence he handed down in the case, and said he has no p...
CODY, Wyo. (AP) — A Montana nature photographer was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to kidnapping and sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in Wyoming who was later found wandering in the mountains outside Cody. Jesse Paul Speer, 40, of Manhattan, Mont., tricked the young victim into accompanying him in October 2012 by saying he needed help finding a lost puppy, according to court documents. When the girl had second thoughts, Speer pulled a gun, made her get into his vehicle and then drove her i...
BILLINGS (AP) — Attorneys for a Colorado man charged with killing an eastern Montana teacher filed court papers Friday saying his mental disabilities render him unfit to stand trial in a case that could carry the death penalty. Defense attorneys asked state district Judge Richard Simonton to commit 24-year-old Michael Keith Spell to the Montana State Hospital or another state facility for up to 60 days to undergo a mental examination. The Parachute, Colo., man faces a felony murder charge in the January 2012 death of S...
BILLINGS — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to settle a voting rights case in which American Indians in Montana sued to establish satellite voting offices on three reservations. Residents of Fort Belknap and other Indian reservations say the offices are needed to make up for the long distances they must drive to reach county courthouses for early voting or late registration. At Fort Belknap, they say, people living in remote Lodge Pole have to go to Chinook to register to vote. After a now-retired judge d...
BILLINGS (AP) — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to settle a voting rights case in which American Indians in Montana sued to establish satellite voting offices on three reservations. Residents fort Fort Belknap and other reservations say the offices are needed to make up for the long distances they must drive to reach county courthouses for early voting or late registration. At Fort Belknap, they say, people living in remote Lodge Pole have to go to Chinook to register to vote. After a now-retired judge d...
BILLINGS (AP) — Montana's Department of Corrections will offer boot camp for female prisoners and cancel a mandatory treatment program that was criticized as degrading under a settlement announced Tuesday in a discrimination lawsuit. The state also agreed to pay $50,000 in legal costs and a combined $12,000 to the seven current and former prisoners named in the case, according to settlement documents provided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana. The lawsuit began with a complaint filed in federal court last y...
BILLINGS (AP) - Gov. Steve Bullock on Friday declared an energy emergency that lifts work time restrictions on truck drivers in eastern Montana, where disrupted fuel supplies have caused hours-long waits at pipeline terminals ahead of a winter storm forecast for this weekend. The executive order comes after a recent mudslide shut down a CHS Inc. refined fuels pipeline serving eastern Montana and western North Dakota. The closure of that line for repairs put a further strain...
BILLINGS (AP) — A second case of the livestock disease brucellosis in just over a week has turned up in a Montana cattle herd, coinciding with new restrictions on animals exported to Texas because of worries that infections could spread beyond the region. Friday test results from a federal animal health laboratory confirmed the latest infection in a bull that came from a herd of about 550 cattle in southern Montana's Park County, state veterinarian Marty Zaluski said. Another case was confirmed in a Madison County cow S...
BILLINGS (AP) — Montana's Supreme Court has ordered a judge to cancel a Friday resentencing hearing for a former teacher who got 30 days in prison for raping a 14-year-old student. Justices say Judge G. Todd Baugh does not have authority to reconsider the sentence he gave to former Billings teacher Stacey Rambold. Baugh was widely criticized for the Aug. 26 sentencing and for saying the victim was "older than her chronological age." He has since sought to backtrack, apologizing for his comments and attempting to r...
BILLINGS — A Montana judge appeared intent on trying to undo his lenient sentence for a teacher who raped a student, even as prosecutors pressed the state Supreme Court on Friday to stop him until their appeal is resolved. A resentencing hearing was planned later in the day for Stacey Rambold, 54, who pleaded guilty to one count of rape in April. An emergency petition from the state attorney general's office to block the resentencing was pending before the state Supreme Court after being filed at close of business T...
BILLINGS — A former Billings high school teacher sent to prison for 30 days over the rape of one of his students could face more time behind bars after prosecutors appealed the case to the state Supreme Court. Attorneys for the state and Yellowstone County say a minimum of two years in prison is mandated under state law for former Billings Senior High School teacher Stacey Rambold, 54. They could seek even more prison time for the defendant as the appeal proceeds. The case g...
BILLINGS (AP) — State prosecutors on Wednesday appealed as "illegal" a 30-day sentence handed down by a Montana judge to a former teacher for raping a student who later killed herself. The announcement came after District Judge G. Todd Baugh received widespread condemnation for the sentence and his comments that the victim was "older than her chronological age." Defendant Stacey Rambold, 54, last week received 15 years in prison with all but a month suspended for his months-long sexual relationship with Billings Senior H...
BILLINGS (AP) — A Montana judge under fire for his comments about a 14-year-old victim in a schoolhouse rape case has ordered a new sentencing hearing for the former teacher who received just 30 days in prison for the crime. In setting the hearing for Friday afternoon, District Judge G. Todd Baugh said Tuesday that state law appears to require that a two-year mandatory minimum prison term be imposed against Stacey Rambold, 54, of Billings. Rambold last week was sentenced to 15 years with all but 31 days suspended and a one-da...
