Full text of clemency order for Barry Beach

Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock signed a clemency order allowing his release Friday.

But the Montana Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the lower court erred in granting a new trial because Beach did not prove his first trial was constitutionally flawed, and because the new evidence was tied to witnesses whose stories had changed. “So I’m fighting with everything I have to go back to a society that’s never going to accept me”.

The murder of honor student Nees gripped the small town of Poplar after her body was found alongside the river at a popular place for teenagers to party.

Beach’s sentence had drawn the attention of legal advocates, including Bullock, who argued that sentencing for youth offenders should take into account their age and the possibility of reform. “You don’t get out of here after twenty-some years and have a secure future”, Beach said.

Bullock also said Beach lived a productive life on the outside before he was returned to prison in 2013 and has maintained a good correctional record. Jon Tester, former Gov. Brian Schweitzer and former Republican US Sen.

Beach was released for 18 months beginning in 2011 for a new trial.

Beach maintained he was innocent of the crime, claiming that police in Louisiana coerced him to confess to the murder.

Beach will be required to serve the suspended portion on probation.

Outside the prison Friday, Beach and his lawyer, Peter Camiel, thanked the governor and the Legislature for giving Beach one last chance for freedom.

“I knew I was going to be here someday”, he said.

Barry Beach waves as he departs Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Mont., Friday, November 20, 2015. Beach has proven he can handle life outside prison by staying employed and out of trouble when he was previously released, Phillips said.

During his time on the outside, Beach worked at the Clocktower Inn in Billings, Montana’s largest city.

A retired Montana judge says the state’s governor was right to release Barry Beach from prison four years after the judge unsuccessfully sought a retrial in Beach’s 1984 murder conviction. State officials rejected Beach’s request for clemency on four occasions.

A new law – inspired in large part by Beach’s case – gives Montana’s governor the final decision in clemency requests instead of the parole board.

“In the spring of 2014 when the parole board basically blocked Beach’s application for clemency and refused to forward that to the governor, even though he has written to them and requested that he be given the opportunity to weigh in on it, I felt that signaled to me that that there was something broken in our system”.

His mother, Bobbi Clincher, said Friday the hotel’s owner had told her the job was still available for Beach, and she expects he will resume working there soon.