High court: Killer can't withdraw guilty plea
The Montana Supreme Court has denied a former Bigfork man’s request to withdrawal his guilty plea for the 2007 shooting death of a 24-year-old Ferndale man.
Ronald Lon Petersen, 22, was sentenced in 2009 in Lake County District Court to 110 years in Montana State Prison.
Petersen, a soldier based in North Carolina at the time, admitted breaking into Clyde Wilson’s Meadow Creek Road cabin at about 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 31, 2007, and shooting Wilson three times in the head and body with a semi-automatic pistol.
Petersen then fled on foot.
District Judge C.B. McNeil accepted a plea agreement between Petersen and Lake County prosecutors that called for a 100-year sentence for deliberate homicide.
During the sentencing hearing on March 23, 2009, McNeil added an additional 10 years to the sentence because Petersen admitted using a firearm to commit the murder.
Petersen’s defense attorneys sought to withdraw his guilty plea because the weapons enhancement was not identified in charging documents or the plea agreement.
The request was denied in Lake County District Court, a ruling that was upheld in an opinion filed Tuesday by Montana Supreme Court justices.
The high court, however, also requires the 10-year enhancement to be stricken from the sentence in Lake County District Court.
Assistant Attorney General Mark Mattioli wrote in a reply to Petersen’s appeal that McNeil didn’t have the authority to enhance to sentence by 10 years. He argued, though, that the situation called for a correction of the judgment and not a withdrawal of Petersen’s guilty plea.
“There is no dispute that Petersen killed Clyde Wilson and that he did so deliberately,” Mattiolo wrote. “Petersen has gotten what he bargained for. The weapon enhancement was not enforceable. The District Court was not obliged to make the victim’s family and friends suffer through a painful trial under these circumstances.”
Petersen was taken into custody Jan. 27, 2008, at Fort Bragg Army Base near Fayetteville, N.C., and was extradited back to Montana in February 2008.
He told investigators he shot and killed Wilson — a father of four who was asleep next to his girlfriend and an infant child — because he believed Wilson had attempted to molest a 13-year-old girl.
Lake County Attorney Mitch Young said at the time that there was no evidence to support that assertion and that Wilson had been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Petersen is serving his sentence at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Shelby.
Reporter Eric Schwartz may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at eschwartz@dailyinterlake.com.