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List of dismissed felonies in Hill County grows

District Judge Daniel Boucher dismissed three felony cases Thursday morning after the county attorney was unable to move ahead for failing to provide key witnesses or victims.

The cases were dismissed with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be filed again.

A fourth case that was scheduled as a jury trial went on as planned.

One of the cases dismissed Thursday was a felony assault with a weapon charge against former speaker of the Montana House of Representatives Robert J. Bergren Sr., who was accused of threatening with a shotgun a tenant he was having a dispute with.

Court minutes say Cole-Hodgkinson said subpoenas for witnesses were issued, but Boucher did not find any documentation to support that.

Bergren could not be reached for comment.

A second dismissed case was a felony assault on a minor case against Charles V. Deserly Jr., who was accused of punching a 13-year-old in the face and then fleeing the scene. That case was dismissed because the county attorney's office could not reach essential witnesses, court minutes say.

Again, Cole-Hodgkinson said subpoenas had been issued but the court did not have files that support they had.

A case against Havre woman Terra M. Oats, who was charged with felony partner or family member assault, was dismissed after the victim failed to appear. Oats was accused of her third or subsequent PFMA, the latest for allegedly threatening to stab her partner.

Cole-Hodgkinson said Thursday afternoon, "I do not subpoena witnesses in domestic violence cases, even if it will result in dismissal. They have already had their power taken from them; I refuse to further that by making them vulnerable to a contempt charge."

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said the commission had no comment on the matter.

Boucher did not reply to request for comment on the list of cases dismissed since Cole-Hodgkinson took over as county attorney.

Regional Deputy Public Defender Kaydee Snipes Ruiz did not respond by printing deadline to requests for comment on if and how dismissed cases affect her office.

Multiple other cases had been dismissed this year in local courts, some for similar and others for different reasons.

Charges against Havre man Jon Stimson, who already had four prior assault convictions when he allegedly choked his wife in June of 2016 were dismissed in April after no one from the county attorney's office showed up in court for the jury trial.

Cole-Hodgkinson said at the time she did not show up because the parties reached a plea deal before the case was dismissed.

A plea agreement had not been filed in District Court. The case was dismissed with prejudice.

The case against Brandon L. Main, who was accused of having 3.6 grams of meth with intent to distribute, was dismissed Sept. 5 for lack of speedy trial. The threshold for speedy trials is 200 days. Main was arrested June 9, 2016. The trial was vacated and reset twice. By the time of the trial Main would have spent 434 days in jail.

"Main was dismissed because the court's overloaded docket violated the defendant's speedy trial not because of any action by counsel," Cole-Hodgkinson said.

In his order granting a dismissal, Boucher said that while the county attorney does not appear to have done anything intentionally wrong, the fault for Main spending so much time in jail awaiting trial must go to the county attorney.

"That the delay does not appear to be in bad faith, however, does not mean that the institutional delay must not weigh against the state  or that such delay is not prejudicial to the incarcerated defendant," Boucher wrote.

Earlier in the year, a partner assault case against Eric J. Hawley was dismissed after Cole-Hodgkinson said she lost contact with the victim. The dismissal caused the victim to sue the county for $1 million for gross incompetence on the part of Cole-Hodgkinson. The victim said she had provided multiple ways to be reached and she would have been found had someone really wanted to find her.

Boucher dismissed the victim's lawsuit but the assault charges were refiled and the case was taken over by the state Attorney General's office.

Hawley pleaded guilty to a charge accusing him of beating the victim, and Aug. 14 Boucher sentenced Hawley to seven years with the Montana State Prison.

Another  more recent case will be taken over by the Attorney General's office because the county attorney's office did not provide the necessary information, according to court documents.

In the case against Thomas Koop the state office will take over because Koop's former public defender moved on to work at the county attorney's office.

Koop is accused of breaking into a woman's house, choking and hitting her and bruising her eye while doing so.

When a former public defender takes a position with the county attorney's office, as Deputy Hill County Attorney Karen Alley did, the county attorney's office must provide the necessary information to show that it has created a professional barrier between the knowledge the former public defender had and what her new employer, who will be prosecuting him, knows.

Cole-Hodgkinson's response to the defense's request for disqualification was that it was untimely, waiting "until nearly the eve of trial" to file it although Alley had been with the county attorney for weeks. Also, the case in which Koop was represented by Alley was already judged and the office of public defender had already taken steps to remove Alley from involvement in any cases. Also, before her transition to the county attorney's office, a list of all cases Alley was involved with at the OPD and Lorang Law was provided to the county attorney.

"Before involving Ms. Alley in any cases, the Hill County Attorney's Office refers to the lists to determine whether there is any potential conflict of interest," Cole-Hodgkinson wrote.

But the county attorney's office, Boucher wrote in his motion for disqualification, did not provide proof of timely or meaningful screening to prevent a conflict of interest.

Cole-Hodgkinson had at least one other case dismissed before she took over Hill County Attorney Nov. 25.

A district judge in Lake County A June 2014 Missoulian article titled "Pablo man accused of 'vicious' attack on jailer freed; prosecutors too slow in filing charges" says felony charges against a man who was accused of attacking a jailer were dropped because then-Lake County Deputy Attorney Cole-Hodgkinson did not file paperwork on time.

Cole-Hodgkinson said March 9 that the paperwork in the Pablo case was not filed because she had been waiting on information she had requested from law enforcement.

 

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