Ellsworth verdict vacated after court document mishap

Sen. Jason Ellsworth, a Bitterroot Republican, is no longer guilty of official misconduct after his verdict was vacated following a court error.

Joan Mell, one of Ellsworth’s lawyers, said Wednesday afternoon, “He’s no longer guilty of anything.”

The Montana Department of Justice told the Daily Montanan that it plans to retry the case.

“The Attorney General’s Office looks forward to retrying this case. We are confident the jury will come to the same correct conclusion and, once again, find Jason Ellsworth guilty,” Amanda Braynack, Montana Department of Justice communications director, said in a statement. “Public corruption is a serious offense, and we will hold anyone who violates the law accountable.”

Mell said the state faces an “uphill battle.” A jury deliberated for about four hours on Tuesday night, the sixth day of an occasionally dramatic trial that saw a well-known public official accused and found guilty of criminal wrongdoing.

The error stems from sealed scheduling emails included in a packet of evidentiary information given to the jury. Mell said that the state had included that information for “different purposes,” and that it never should have ended up in the jury room.

She added she’s seen the evidence packet given to jurors.

“I think it shows poor judgment by (state prosecutor) Daniel Guzynski,” Mell said. “He’s not at fault for the jury getting it, but he’s responsible for the content that should have never been there.”

A “notice to parties” document was submitted to the court at 9:36 a.m. Wednesday, according to court documents first published by the Lee News Bureau.

The notice says the court accepted the series of emails concerning the “scheduling of named witness Bryce Eggleston,” and that they “were marked and lodged under seal should they be necessary for appellate review.”

They were not submitted for evidence, the document goes on to say, adding the emails were given to the jury and that “the court deeply regrets the error.”

Ellsworth’s lawyers first learned of the issue on Tuesday night, shortly after 12 jurors delivered a unanimous verdict of guilty on a misdemeanor official misconduct charge. Mell and Martin Judnich, Ellsworth’s other lawyer, talked with one of the jurors for about 20 minutes after the trial.

Once a jury is released, they’re allowed to speak about the case, and lawyers often reach out to jurors following a trial to see how they did.

Mell and Judnich then tried to get into the courthouse.

“We were trying to secure what it was they’d gotten because I knew they shouldn’t have had that,” Mell said.

Ellsworth was accused of circumventing normal contract processes to secure a deal for a friend to track judicial legislation. The contract, in total, was for about $170,000.

Ellsworth also faced a legislative ethics hearing, which was barred from being spoken about during courtroom proceedings while the jury was present under order from the court. Ellsworth was eventually stripped of nearly all privileges as a public official, though the state Senate stopped short of expelling him from their ranks.