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Montana Legislative Services Division

Legal Services Office
HARDIN DETENTION CENTER CONTROVERSY PDF DOCUMENT
STAFF BRIEFING FOR LAW AND JUSTICE INTERIM COMMITTEE
Prepared by Valencia Lane, Staff Attorney
January 10,2008

"Other reasons, according to a discussion with DOC staff, include the fact that the designs were not approved by the Department before construction and there may be concerns about the facility's compliance with design standards."


The following is an excerpt from this letter written by BRIAN SCHWEITZER, GOVERNOR of Montana March 24, 2008. The letter is regarding the Two Rivers Detention Center.



It has been said that as Governor, I can bring in out-of-state prisoners to open the facility.
The fact is state law does not allow a “detention center” (a fancy name in Montana law for a county jail) such as the facility in Hardin to house out-of-state inmates. Your own city attorney requested an Attorney General opinion on this issue. Attorney General Mike McGrath, who is elected by the people of Montana, issued an opinion on December 3, 2007 affirming that housing out-of-state prisoners in a detention facility is against the law. That opinion is being challenged in court by the
City of Hardin and the Two Rivers Authority. Until and unless the court overturns the Attorney General’s opinion, it is legally binding on me as Governor as well as on all state government.
It has been said that as Governor, I should have told you to stop the project after you started it with no contracts for prisoners.
The fact is according to the Executive Director of the Two Rivers Authority your local government built a “detention center.” Contrary to the opinion expressed by one member of the delegation here last week, legally it does make a big difference what you built. Unlike prisons, the state isn’t involved
in building “detention centers.” Those are local decisions. I don’t know a sheriff, police chief or county commissioner in Montana who wants the state Corrections Department, let alone the Governor, to start telling them about building county jails. DOC legal counsel Diana Koch explained the important distinction between prisons and jails to the March 11 delegation as reported in the
March 12, 2008 Big Horn County News, “We understood you were building a detention center, which is in essence a county jail. We thought you were going to contract with your county, with other counties and communities, maybe even with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”