State says Barry Beach has run out of court appeals

HELENA — Barry Beach, who is serving a 100-year prison sentence for a 1979 murder he says he didn’t commit, has been given unprecedented opportunity to argue his innocence and for a reduced sentence and deserves no more, the state said in a filing with the Montana Supreme Court.

Attorney General Tim Fox made the arguments last week in a response to Beach’s request that he be re-sentenced with consideration for the fact that he was 17 at the time of Kimberly Nees’ death near Poplar.

Attorneys for Beach argued that a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling requires judges to consider a defendant’s age, maturity level, circumstances of the offense and the possibility of rehabilitation when sentencing juvenile offenders.

The state argues District Judge James Sorte considered all of those things in 1984 and followed state law in effect at the time of the offense when he sentenced Beach to prison without the possibility of parole.

Beach appealed his sentence arguing it was motivated by a desire for vengeance and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The reply brief noted the Supreme Court rejected his arguments.