Beach is serving a 100-year sentence without parole for the brutal 1979 murder of his Poplar High School classmate and neighbor, Kim Nees, a crime to which he confessed, but has maintained ever since he did not commit. Meanwhile, Beach says, Nees' true killers remain free.
For the last seven years, a New Jersey-based advocacy group that works to free innocent convicts, called Centurion Ministries, has spearheaded Beach's clemency efforts, appealing unsuccessfully to Gov. Brian Schweitzer for a pardon or commutation of his sentence.
“A profound miscarriage of justice has occurred,” McCloskey wrote. “I ask you to use the full authority of your office to rectify this grave mistake.”
Attached to the letter is a 25-page critique of the parole board's decision, which McCloskey calls “replete with numerous misstatements of critically important facts. Bereft of even a pretense of balance and evenhandedness, it ignores or mischaracterizes strong evidence of Mr. Beach's innocence and the guilt of others. One can only wonder how sincere and well-intentioned the board's disposition and motivation was when it initiated and conducted these hearings.”
But the three-member board stands by its decision, insisting its deliberations were fair and exhaustive.
“This was a difficult and involved case with extensive testimony and filings,” said board chairman Vance Curtiss. “The board members carefully reviewed all the information and listened intently to witnesses before reaching our conclusions.”
In the last sentence of its 20-page decision, the board writes: “This unprecedented clemency hearing will not be repeated; from our perspective and to the best of our combined ability, we have laid this matter to rest.”
According to Schweitzer's spokeswoman, Sarah Elliot, once the Board of Pardons and Parole rejects an inmate's clemency petition, the governor's authority to intervene is limited to capital punishment cases.
Elliott said an attorney in the governor's office is reviewing the letter, but couldn't say to what end.
“The governor does not have any legal authority or any legal avenues to intervene in Mr. Beach's case at this point,” Elliot said. “It's not a capital case and so the only way the governor has the power to do anything is if it is forwarded to him by the Board of Pardons and Parole.”
Craig Thomas, the Board of Pardons and Parole's executive director, declined to comment on McCloskey's critique of the decision, and said the board's conclusions and findings of fact speak for themselves.
“We have no comment on their response or their letter to Gov. Schweitzer. It wasn't addressed to us anyway, so the board stands by its decision,” Thomas said.
Prosecutors in the state Attorney General's Office who fought Beach's request for clemency said his legal team was given enormous leeway to prove their case and failed. Centurion Ministries' letter and request to the governor is “simply raising the same old arguments that it raised at previous pleadings,” according to a memo prosecutors wrote to Attorney General Mike McGrath.
“The governor has no authority to grant Centurion Ministries any relief,” according to the memo. “The board conducted an exhaustive review of Beach's case, including a three-day hearing in June and one-day hearing in August. ... The board gave Beach and Centurion Ministries every chance it could to prove their case at the hearings.”
Assistant attorneys general Mike Wellenstein and Tammy Plubell point to Beach's signed confession, which has been upheld all the way to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as proof that they incarcerated the right man. The confession, they say, corroborates too many accurate details to be false, as Beach and his lawyers claim.
But McCloskey said his organization would have abandoned Beach's case long ago if it found evidence of his guilt, and genuinely thought the board would grant Barry parole or commutation.
“We're not through,” he said during a recent telephone interview. “We cannot leave Barry behind. We will continue the long struggle on behalf of Barry and his freedom. We will do everything humanly possible to try and turn this grave mistake around.”
This week, McCloskey will travel to Deer Lodge and convene for a “summit” with about a dozen of Beach's supporters, many of whom live in Poplar and traveled to the Montana State Prison to testify at the rare clemency hearings.
“For me, it'll never be over,” said Glena Lockman, Kim Nees' cousin and a Poplar resident who believes Beach is innocent. “I do not think justice has been done.”
Beach's supporters are also anticipating national attention later this year, when a “Dateline NBC” documentary on Beach's case is scheduled for broadcast.
Although Beach's attorney, Peter Camiel, conceded that the case has stalled with the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole, he will not throw in the towel.
McCloskey agreed, and said he's experienced similar setbacks in the past working with Centurion Ministries, a nonprofit organization that has gained freedom for 40 wrongfully convicted inmates in the past 27 years.
“It is an emphatic ‘no' in terms of this board and the way they approached the case,” Camiel said. “We will continue to find ways to work on the case. The investigation will continue.”
Reporter Tristan Scott can be reached at 523-5264 or at tscott@missoulian.com.
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