BILLINGS – A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Yellowstone County should not be held responsible for the legal defense provided to a former Billings man who spent 15 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
A three-judge panel with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the decision in the appeal by Jimmy Ray Bromgard, who says he was wrongly convicted in 1987 of raping an 8-year-old girl because of poor representation from his court-appointed attorney. He was exonerated in 2002 by DNA testing.
Bromgard was represented by the late John Adams, a court-appointed private attorney who took on indigent defendants, and his conviction was based largely on hair evidence analyzed by former state crime lab director Arnold Melnikoff. Melnikoff and his evidence have since been discredited.
Thursday’s two-page ruling affirmed a finding by U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull, who concluded that the state, not the county, was responsible for providing Bromgard an adequate defense.
“The evidence demonstrates that the county was not in a legal or de facto position to hire, supervise, remove or set the compensation of defense attorneys for indigents in 1987,” the ruling said.
Bromgard, who now lives in Kalispell, had earlier won a $3.2 million settlement from the state of Montana, which he also sued for the same reason.
“We’re very pleased with the court’s decision and rationale,” Yellowstone County Attorney Dennis Paxinos said Thursday. “It’s exactly what the county has been arguing for years. That it was a state problem. That it was a state issue. That the county had no responsibility. And that’s been affirmed by the Ninth Circuit.”
Bromgard’s attorney, Ron Waterman of Helena, said he was disappointed by the outcome and may seek a rehearing or ask the court to take the case to a larger panel of appellate judges.
Bromgard sued the county and state in 2004 for $16.5 million in damages.