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valuable,” Bradshaw said.
KALISPELL
4. Woman Who Killed Husband in Glacier Park Appeals Conviction to
Supreme Court
The Kalispell woman who murdered her husband of seven days in Glacier National Park has appealed her convic- tion to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On May 5, an attorney for Jordan Linn Graham led a writ of certiorari with the high court seeking a review of her 2013 conviction. Graham’s previous appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was denied.
In July 2013, Graham shoved her hus- band of seven days, Cody Lee Johnson, o a cli near the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier Park. Graham initially tried to cover up the death, telling friends and family that the couple had gotten into a ght and he left her.
Graham was later charged with rst and second degree murder and mak- ing false statements to law enforce- ment. On the fourth day of her trial in December 2013, Graham took a deal and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. In March 2014, she was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Soon after her sentencing, Federal Public Defender Michael Donahoe led an appeal arguing that Graham’s sen- tence was extreme.
Graham remains incarcerated at a fed- eral prison in Alabama.
SOMERS
5. Woods Bay Man Killed in Highway
93 Crash Near Somers
A 42-year-old Woods Bay man was killed on the morning of May 26 when the pickup truck he was driving collided head-on with a tandem-trailer chip truck on U.S. Highway 93 near Somers.
Charles Long died at the scene, while the driver of the fully loaded chip truck, a 30-year-old man from Trout Creek, was uninjured, according to Montana High- way Patrol Trooper David Mills.
The fatal collision occurred at 6:48 a.m. near the intersection of School Addition Road and closed a section of the highway for nearly ve hours, Mills said.
Long was driving southbound on U.S. Highway 93 when he failed to negotiate the downhill curve approaching Somers, crossed into the northbound lane and crashed into the chip truck, striking the oncoming vehicle partially head-on.
The driver of the pickup was wear- ing a seatbelt and the vehicle’s airbags deployed, but he was killed instantly.
HELENA
6. Judge Reinstates Contribution
Limits on Political Parties
A judge reinstated voter-approved limits on the amount of cash Montana political parties can give to candidates on May 26, nine days after he struck down those limits as unconstitutionally low and less than two weeks before Mon- tana’s primary elections.
U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell ruled last week that the low campaign contribution limits for political parties,
individuals and political committees set by a voter-approved initiative in 1994 restricted speech and did not allow candi- dates to e ectively campaign. As a result, state o cials re-imposed the higher lim- its that were in place for individuals and political committees before 1994.
However, the pre-1994 limits on political parties were lower than those approved by voters that year. Enforcing those lower limits would worsen the sit- uation for the political parties that chal- lenged the caps and put the state in the position of enforcing another unconsti- tutional law, the judge wrote in his order.
“The public’s interest lies in hav- ing First Amendment protections hon- ored,” Lovell wrote. “While neither the pre-1994 political party limits nor the political party limits declared uncon- stitutional by the undersigned last week fully comport with those protections, the higher, later limit certainly comes closer to doing so.”
The ruling means the maximum polit- ical parties and county party central committees can donate will continue to range from $850 to state House candi- dates to $23,350 to gubernatorial can- didates per election. Before the 1994 ini- tiative, the political party limits ranged from $300 to $8,000.
BILLINGS
7. Trump Rallies in Billings After
Securing Nomination
A crowd of thousands, buoyed by word that Donald Trump had just locked down the Republican presidential nomination, gathered in a Billings arena on May 26 to cheer the New York businessman and his unlikely ascent to the top of his party.
Trump traveled to Montana after delivering his rst policy speech on energy in North Dakota.
He reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Republican nom- ination for president earlier Thursday, adding to the excitement for supporters who waited in line as long as 20 hours for a chance to hear Trump speak.
COLSTRIP
8. Montana Power Plant Needs New
Operator by May 2018
Owners of a coal- red power plant in Montana say the company that keeps it running wants out within 2 years.
Pennsylvania-based Talen Energy owns a share of the Colstrip plant and operates the entire facility. Talen o cials told the Billings Gazette on May 24 that the company’s role as operator is not eco- nomically viable and the plant’s ve own- ers will need a new manager by May 2018.
Talen spokesman Todd Martin says the decision is part of the company’s e ort to end business operations in Montana.
Colstrip Units 3 and 4 are owned by utilities in Washington and Oregon as well as South Dakota’s Northwestern Energy, which is the largest gas and elec- tric utility in Montana.
Ownership of Units 1 and 2 is split evenly between Talen and Puget Sound Energy.
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