Gollehon

We are called upon to decide whether a state court defendant lacked fair notice as a matter of federal Constitutional law that aiding and abetting a deliberate homicide would subject him to the death penalty in Montana.

I

A

On September 2, 1990, the badly beaten body of inmate Gerald Pileggi was found lying in the exercise yard of the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Montana. Several witnesses had seen inmates William Gollehon and Douglas Turner both strike Pileggi multiple times with baseball bats. An autopsy revealed that Pileggi died from massive head injuries, including a blow to the top of the head which had caved in part of his skull, as well as a blow to the side of his face which had collapsed his forehead, torn his brain, and ruptured his eyeball.

Gollehon and Turner were jointly charged with deliberate homicide for the beating death of Pileggi. The information was later amended to add an alternative count of deliberate homicide by accountability. The difference between these counts, as explained by the Montana Supreme Court, is that the “charge of deliberate homicide by accountability allowed the jury to convict both men involved in the deliberate…