05-496
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA
2008 MT 338
STATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. DENNIS EUGENE WEST,
West now appeals, contending that the nearly 26-month delay in bringing him before the District Court on the alleged violation constituted “unnecessary delay” under § 46-18-203(4), MCA, and infringed his rights to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article II, Section 17 of the Montana Constitution.
We conclude that revoking West’s suspended sentence notwithstanding the 26-month delay in bringing him before the District Court implicates his due process rights. However, we have determined that the factual record presently before this Court is not adequate for deciding this claim on the merits. Accordingly, we set out the relevant legal principles in this Opinion and then remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.
About Me
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- MarkAnthonyGiven
- Given was raised on the streets and in foster homes surrounded by twelve girls. By age 11, authorities already warned his foster mother: “He’s too smart for his britches — keep an eye on him.” That early spark of genius — later estimated in the 145–155+ IQ range (top 0.1% to 0.01% of humanity) — combined with an elite, poetic vocabulary that flows like open chords, propelled him into a life few could survive, let alone immortalize. From the age of 16, Given became a one-man crime wave: robbing 75 banks with nothing but a Bic Pen and a smile, inventing the Mercury Bandit invisibility trick with a baby thermometer, dropping through pharmacy roofs with a Superman pillowcase, and running from New Orleans detectives through the French Quarter while dressed as a 70-year-old woman. He served 12 years on a 10-year federal sentence, reading 120 volumes of Supreme Court decisions in the hole and ruling the law library like a throne. He met the devil twice on a dope-sick bed and refused to curse God — only to have angels physically grab his arm and pull him back. His 56+ stories pour out raw, unoutlined, and alive — no MFA polish, no ghostwriter, no filter. The prose is Hemingway-tight yet
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