Rice seeks re-election as justice

HELENA -- Montana Supreme Court Justice Jim Rice said he's seeking re-election because he's pleased with his work on the court and the progress the court has made the past decade in its approach to deciding cases.

"By that I mean the analysis we employ and also the progress we have made in the business of the court, the speed in which we deliver cases," Rice said in an interview last week. "We're caught up."

A decade or so ago, Rice said those involved in appeals to the Supreme Court sometimes would have to wait a year or two for a decision.

Today, the court now decides a case, on average, 100 days after attorneys for the different sides file their briefs.

Rice, 56, has served on the court since his appointment by Gov. Judy Martz in 2001. He won election in 2002 for the rest of that justice's term and in 2006 won a full eight-year term.

This year, Rice faces a challenge this election from attorney W. David Herbert of Billings.

Rice invited voters to compare their backgrounds.

"I have more than 30 years of public service in the state to his five or six years," Rice said. "I think the experience is the key."

Rice cited his work starting as a college student on a helicopter quick response team to fight wildfires for the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

He practiced law for 19 years in Helena in a private law firm and served as a contract public defender for the first four years.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Rice served three terms as a Republican legislator from Helena, including as House whip in 1993.

Later, Gov. Marc Racicot appointed him to chair the Board of Personnel Appeals, which hears collective bargaining disputes.

"It was at that stage I learned to be a judge," Rice said.

Rice lost a race for attorney general in 2000.

The court today is a very different one from the activist one he joined in 2001 that was quick to strike down legislative enactments, Rice said.

"What I tried to do is bring traditional jurisprudence back to the court, where we defer to the other branches of government and give them enough room to solve societal problems," Rice said. "We defer to the legislative branch. We don't do any legislating ourselves. We start with a presumption that the actions by the other branches are constitutional."

Rice said he wrote more dissenting opinions than majority opinions early in his tenure on the court, but now writes far fewer dissents.

On issues, Rice disagrees with Herbert's call for jury nullification, a theory in which a jury can acquit a criminal defendant, even if the jurors believe he is guilty, if they disagree with the law the defendant was accused of breaking.

"I think Mr. Herbert's barking up the wrong tree in terms of the office he's running for," Rice said. "He should go to the Legislature if he wants to implement some reform."

Herbert has criticized Rice for being the author of the court's 4-3 decision in May 2013 to overturn a lower court ruling that had granted a new trial to convicted murderer Barry Beach, sending him back to prison.

Herbert said Rice should have recused himself from the case because Rice graduated from high school in Glasgow in 1975, and Beach was convicted in a trial in Glasgow nine years later. He said it's highly likely Rice knew someone on the jury.

Replied Rice, "For him not only to personally attack my character but to undermine the confidence in the judiciary and to needlessly inflame a controversial case with no facts whatsoever is irresponsible and reckless," Rice said. "This case has been here seven times. The issue of who's on the jury has never been raised. Even if there is some connection, that doesn't require recusal. It depends on the nature of the relationship and whether it rises to a level."

Federal courts in recent years have allowed partisan organizations to endorse Montana judicial candidates.

Rice said he respects the federal court ruling, but added: "I think that injecting partisanship into judicial races is a real negative for the judiciary. We have to make decisions here with regard to the law and not based on political agendas."