STATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. MARK ALAN MENDOZA, Defendant and Appellant, and BRANDON JAMES KILLAM, Petitioner, v. JIM SALMONSEN, Acting Warden, MONTANA STATE PRISON, Respondent

STATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. MARK ALAN MENDOZA, Defendant and Appellant, and BRANDON JAMES KILLAM, Petitioner, v. JIM SALMONSEN, Acting Warden, MONTANA STATE PRISON, Respondent. Oral Argument is set for Wednesday, June 16, 2021, at 9:30 a.m. in the Courtroom of the Montana Supreme Court, Joseph P. Mazurek Justice Building, Helena, Montana. The argument will be live-streamed and can be accessed through the Court’s website at http://stream.vision.net/MT-JUD/ . In both cases before this Court, combined for purposes of oral argument, the issue is whether the convicted party received proper credit on his respective sentence for time he served while he was detained on a bailable offense. In Mendoza’s case, he alleges on appeal that the District Court failed to properly credit him for time served. In that case, Mendoza was detained on arrest warrants for three separate criminal matters. When he was ultimately convicted and sentenced for each matter, the time he was credited in total did not account for the days he spent incarcerated awaiting resolution of his pending cases. In Killam’s case, he was arrested for a felony while on parole associated with an earlier felony. Although the court set bond for the new felony charge, Killam was simultaneously held on an arrest warrant for a parole violation that did not entitle him to bond. Killam was ultimately convicted of the new felony charge, but the District Court denied him credit for the 489 days he spent incarcerated and awaiting sentencing because as he was on parole, he was not entitled to credit for time served. Killam then petitioned the Montana Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that he was improperly denied credit for time served. One of Montana’s sentencing statutes, § 46-18-403(1), provides that if a defendant is incarcerated on a bailable offense and is later convicted of that offense, the defendant is entitled to credit for each day of incarceration served against the imposed sentence. However, trial courts have interpreted two Montana Supreme Court decisions— State v. Pavey and State v. Kime —to not require that credit be given if the defendant is also being held without bail on another offense. In ordering oral argument in Mendoza’s and Killam’s cases, the Court has asked counsel to be prepared to discuss whether Pavey and Kime appropriately applied § 46-18-403(1), MCA.

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