All legal documents in the court case of the man accused of shooting and killing four Anaconda residents at a bar in early August have been sealed from public view, according to the Anaconda-Deer Lodge clerk of district court, a move that legal experts have cast as highly unusual.
The suspect’s name, Michael Paul Brown, was not listed Tuesday or Wednesday in relation to any case in the public court system for Anaconda-Deer Lodge District Court. Asked in phone calls and emails from Montana Free Press to confirm the county in which the case was proceeding and why the case was not visible, Anaconda-Deer Lodge Clerk of Court Jodi Lechman repeatedly said that everything related to the case is sealed.
No local officials or parties familiar with the case reached by MTFP on Wednesday would say who moved to seal the proceedings.
Court filings could include a wide range of content, including charging documents, scheduling orders for future court appearances and the names of attorneys representing Brown and the state. Without visibility in the public filing system, it is unclear what documents, if any, have been entered. Attorneys in the case have not said what Brown has been charged with or how he has pleaded.
Multiple Montana legal experts and criminal lawyers said they had never heard of a state criminal case being sealed in its entirety or shielded from public view.
“No,” said retired Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice and former state attorney general Mike McGrath in a Wednesday phone call. “I’ve never heard of that.”
Lechman directed further questions to Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Attorney Morgan Smith. Reached by phone, a secretary in Smith’s office reiterated that all filings related to the case — including a judge’s order to seal the case, a motion to seal the case or any brief in support of that motion — were sealed.
“Those are also sealed. The entire record, all of the documents, are sealed,” the secretary said.
Smith and Lechman did not fulfill later public records requests from MTFP for copies of the judge’s order and the motion to seal.
Brown made a virtual appearance on Aug. 11 from the Butte-Silver Bow Detention Center for his first court hearing, three days after law enforcement officials arrested him. Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Judge Ken Walund set Brown’s bail at $2 million. The judge did not say what, if any, charges had been filed against Brown or set a date for his next court appearance. In the same hearing, public defense attorneys from the Office of the State Public Defender said they intended to continue representing Brown in the case.
Brett Schandelson, the director of the state public defender’s office, declined on Wednesday to comment to MTFP about why the case was sealed or if agency lawyers made the request.
Andrew King-Ries, a criminal law professor at the University of Montana in Missoula, said extensive court sealing can happen in high-profile cases with vulnerable victims, such as federal drug cartel cases. King-Ries also pointed to the widespread gag order over court filings in the 2022 Moscow, Idaho, murder case against Bryan Kohberger. Those documents were largely barred from public view until recently, after the parties reached a plea deal and Kohberger was sentenced.
In Brown’s case, public officials and media outlets disseminated information about the initial shooting as well as the week-long manhunt for Brown, the only identified suspect. King-Ries said, given that public attention, not having the case appear on the public docket was “a little strange.”
“It’s not a usual or a typical procedure, but there are some other situations where there are motions for people that are made to think about protecting a defendant’s right to a fair trial,” King-Ries said, adding that either the prosecutor or the defense attorney could move to seal case filings. “You can see that it’s a small county, it’s a really high-profile case. A really sensitive case for them to have.”
Dirk Sandefur, a former county attorney who at the start of the year stepped down from his associate justice seat on the Montana Supreme Court, said Montana courts have often sealed information or specific filings in a case, particularly if they relate to a person’s health or the details of a mental illness. But Sandefur said the deliberations about whether to seal court records are typically visible to the public.
“I don’t have any recollection of any situation where an entire case, much less a homicide case, was sealed — blanket sealed — without explanation,” Sandefur said.
Family members of Brown told the Associated Press that he had long struggled with mental illness. Brown served in the Army as an armor crewman from 2001 to 2005 and deployed to Iraq from early 2004 until March 2005. He also was in the Montana National Guard from 2006 to 2009.
Law enforcement authorities have said they believe Brown, an Anaconda resident, combat veteran and former Montana National Guard member, killed four people on Aug. 1. The victims included a bartender, Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64, and three patrons: Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59; David Allen Leach, 70; and Tony Wayne Palm, 74.
The event shook the small southwest Montana town, where many residents said they knew the victims and the suspect. He avoided capture for a week before being arrested near the Ranch Bar just west of Anaconda, about five miles from the scene of shooting.
At a press conference shortly after Brown was taken into custody, Smith, the county attorney, said that the homicide investigation was ongoing, and that the prosecution and investigation would be mostly handled by the Division of Criminal Investigations within the state Department of Justice.
Press secretaries for the Montana Attorney General’s Office, which oversees the state DOJ, did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
Zeke Lloyd contributed reporting.
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.
