Montana Supreme CourtAuthor: William L. Saunders Jr.
| State High Court | Judicial Selection Process | Legal Authority |
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General
Interim Vacancies
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Latest News
- Montana governor signs House Bill 409 on court injunctions - Fairfield Sun Times
- Climate change case that 'ignited a movement' ends with Supreme Court's cert denial - ABA Journal
- Montana Supreme Court Holds State Constitution Includes Protections Against Climate Change - JD Supra
- ‘Buckle Up’: In Montana, Republican Lawmakers Target the Judiciary - The New York Times
- Montana Supreme Court to hear case at MSU in honor of National Law Day - Montana State University
- Senate considers bills to reshape Supreme Court administration in Montana - Daily Montanan
- Bill to reduce number of Montana Supreme Court justices dies in House - Daily Montanan
- Proposed amendment would change how Montana Supreme Court justices are selected - KTVH
- State Supreme Court Chief Justice warns lawmakers against making judiciary partisan - Daily Montanan
- New state Supreme Court chief justice tells Legislature to not make judicial elections partisan - Montana Free Press
Scholarship & White Papers
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Supreme Court Reaffirms Its Holding from Citizens United
In denying a recent petition for certiorari and summarily reversing a decision of the Montana Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court adhered to principles of stare decisis and reaffirmed its 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (“Citizens United”), which held that corporations and labor unions’ independent spending for political campaigns enjoys First Amendment free-speech protection.1 The Montana Supreme Court had upheld a state law that prohibited corporate political expenditures, reasoning that Citizens United did not apply in Montana because of the state’s purportedly distinctive history of its “political system being corrupted by corporate interests.”2 The United States Supreme Court disagreed, summarily reversing without granting certiorari.3
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Montana Takes on Citizens United
From the Montana Supreme Court comes a potential challenge to the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (“Citizens United”). The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision ruled, 5-4, that corporations’ and labor unions’ independent spending in elections is political speech and does not corrupt the political process; therefore, a ban on such spending included in section 203 of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (“BCRA”) could not survive strict scrutiny under the First Amendment.
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Montana Supreme Court: Physician-Assisted Suicide Is an End-of-Life Option
On the last day of 2009, Montana’s Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Baxter v. Montana,1 making it the first high court to permit physician-assisted suicide. “[W]e find nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy,”2 stated the court. “We also find nothing in the plain language of Montana statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy. In physician aid in dying, the patient—not the physician—commits the final death-causing act by self administering a lethal dose of medicine.”3 Therefore, under Montana’s consent statute4 “a terminally ill patient’s consent to physician aid in dying constitutes a statutory defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician when no other consent exceptions apply.”