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HELENA, Mont. – The Latest on Montana cases before the Supreme Court (all times local):
4:20 p.m.
Montana Attorney General Tim Fox is asking state lawmakers to act after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his petition that would have allowed prosecutors to charge a man for the decades-old rape of an 8-year-old girl.
The Republican attorney general called the high court’s decision Tuesday “beyond disappointing.” He is urging the Legislature to repeal statutes of limitations for child sex crimes, saying no offender “should find comfort in running out the clock.”
A bill to repeal the time limits for prosecuting sex crimes is pending in the House Judiciary Committee.
Fox sought to charge Ronald Tipton for the 1987 rape based on new DNA evidence. The Supreme Court rejected without comment his petition to reconsider a 2003 ruling that says it’s unconstitutional to bring criminal charges after the statute of limitations has expired.
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10:05 a.m.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined without comment to hear two cases from Montana.
In the first case, the nation’s high court dismissed a request from Montana Attorney General Tim Fox to reconsider a previous ruling that he says prevents the state from bringing a sex offender to justice in a 1987 child rape case.
Fox sought to charge Ronald Dwight Tipton for the rape of an 8-year-old girl based on new DNA evidence, but a 2003 court decision says it’s unconstitutional to charge him after the statute of limitations has expired.
The second case is a challenge to Montana’s campaign disclosure laws.
Montanans Against Community Development petitioned the court after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected its case to strike down the law that requires groups such as itself to disclose its donors and spending.
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