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Mont. Code Ann. § 46-18-303

Aggravating circumstances

Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case State v. Reynolds (1990)

Most recently applied in People v. Casares (February 2016)

En. 95-2206.8 by Sec. 3, Ch. 338, L. 1977; R.C.M. 1947, 95-2206.8; amd

How often courts cite this section

1982199020002010201620
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

Aggravating circumstances are any of the following:

(1) (a) The offense was deliberate homicide and was committed:

(i) by an offender while in official detention, as defined in 45-2-101;

(ii) by an offender who had been previously convicted of another deliberate homicide;

(iii) by means of torture;

(iv) by an offender lying in wait or ambush;

(v) as a part of a scheme or operation that, if completed, would result in the death of more than one person; or

(vi) by an offender during the course of committing sexual assault, sexual intercourse without consent, deviate sexual conduct, or incest, and the victim was less than 18 years of age.

(b) The offense was deliberate homicide, as defined in 45-5-102 (1)(a), and the victim was a peace officer killed while performing the officer's duty.

(2) The offense was aggravated kidnapping that resulted in the death of the victim or the death by direct action of the offender of a person who rescued or attempted to rescue the victim.

(3) The offense was attempted deliberate homicide, aggravated assault, or aggravated kidnapping committed while in official detention, as defined in 45-2-101, by an offender who has been previously:

(a) convicted of the offense of deliberate homicide; or

(b) found to be a persistent felony offender pursuant to part 5 of this chapter, and one of the convictions was for an offense against the person in violation of Title 45, chapter 5, for which the minimum prison term is not less than 2 years.

(4) The offense was sexual intercourse without consent, the offender has a previous conviction of sexual intercourse without consent in this state or of an offense under the laws of another state or of the United States that if committed in this state would be the offense of sexual intercourse without consent, and the offender inflicted serious bodily injury upon a person in the course of committing each offense.

Official source: Montana Code Annotated (Montana Legislature). Reproduced from public-domain Montana statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.