From the Courts - District Court: Dion to be resentenced on assault charge

One day after she sentenced Erica Ann Dion to six years with the state Department of Corrections for assault with a weapon, state District Judge Kaydee Snipes Ruiz ordered a new sentencing for Dion, scheduled for next Wednesday.

Dion pleaded guilty in a plea agreement to threatening a woman with a realistic-looking BB gun after the woman refused, at the direction of her landlord, to let Dion into her residence, which belonged to Dion’s father.

Snipes Ruiz sentenced Dion in state District Court in Havre Monday to the six years with none suspended, recommending she be screened and placed in a drug treatment program, and ordered her to pay jury and witness costs for a trial on the offense, which Snipes Ruiz declared a mistrial when Dion failed to appear at the ongoing trial.

In an order issued Tuesday, Snipes Ruiz said the sentence length was impermissible under Montana law.

The statute to which she referred, Montana Code Annotated 46-18-201(3)(a)(iv)(A), says that, with some exceptions, when a defendant is sentenced to the DOC with recommendation for screening and treatment, all but the first five years of the sentence must be suspended.