Jesse Engebretson v. Mike Mahoney

BACKGROUND

In 1993, Plaintiff-Appellant Jesse Engebretson pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual assault. The state trial court sentenced him to four concurrent 20-year prison terms. The court also found that because Engebretson had been convicted of burglary (a felony) within five years of committing the sexual assaults, he was a persistent felony offender under Montana law. See Mont. Code Ann. § 46-18-501. The court accordingly sentenced Engebretson to serve an additional 30 years in prison, to run consecutively to the assault sentences. However, the trial court suspended Engebretson’s entire 30- year sentence and imposed probation instead, even though Montana’s persistent felony offender law provides that “the imposition or execution of the first 5 years of a sentence imposed under” the law “may not be deferred or suspended.” Id. § 46-18-502(3).

Engebretson did not appeal, and he began serving his 20- year prison sentence in November 1993. He was discharged for good behavior about ten years later, in September 2003. Engebretson then began serving his probationary term under the supervision of a probation officer.

Three years later, while he was on probation, Engebretson…