Judge denies motion to dismiss in 2024 attempted deliberate homicide case
Judge John Kutzman has denied a motion to dismiss charges charges against Jeremiah Gideon, who is accused of running over a credit union employee with a vehicle in 2024.
Kutzman issued the order on March 11, finding that the state did not violate a 90-day deadline related to fitness, as delays at the Montana State Hospital have brought some criminal cases to a near standstill, irking local district court judges and prosecutors.
The case highlighted significant issues within the criminal justice system pertaining to mental health and the 2025 Legislature attempted to address those issues, making some changes that are being argued in Gideon’s case.
Gideon has been held in the Cascade County Adult Detention Center since being arrested on charges of hitting and seriously injuring a Montana Credit Union employee with his vehicle in October 2024.
Gideon’s defense and the prosecution have discussed a plea agreement but were awaiting Kutzman’s order. The county attorney’s office argued against dismissal.
Now that the order has been issued, Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki said those discussions would resume.
Michael Kuntz, Gideon’s defense attorney, filed the motion to dismiss in January 2025, arguing that it took far longer than 90 days, which is specified in state statute, for Gideon to be evaluated for fitness to proceed, with significant delays by the state hospital despite court orders.
“This is the law. It must be applied fairly and equally,” Kuntz said during a July 2025 hearing, acknowledging the severity of the charges against Gideon. He filed another motion to dismiss that month on the grounds of speedy trial violations.
Kuntz filed his motion 90 days after Judge Elizabeth Best had ordered Gideon to Warm Springs in October, for up to 60 days for evaluation, under state law.
Kuntz argued in his motion that the delay violated state law and “consequently {Gideon] should never have to stand trial for allegedly trying to kill the bank employee for telling him to leave the premises. He moved to dismiss. While that motion was pending, DPHHS admitted him civilly, examined him, found that he was fit to proceed, and returned him to the local jail, where he has been medication-compliant since returning. He insists his current fitness to proceed is irrelevant and maintains his dismissal demand. The state disagrees. So does the court,” Kutzman wrote.
There is no 90-day deadline in the 2023 or current version of Montana Code Annotated, Kutzman wrote, but instead Gideon’s argument seems to rely on a section of code that states, the issue of fitness may be raised and when it is, fitness must be determined by the court and requires the a report on fitness be filed. If the report is contested, a hearing must be held.
If the defendant is found unfit, the proceeding must be suspended and the court determine an appropriate commitment for as long as the unfitness endures or disposition is made under the statute, according to Kutzman’s order.
With 90 days of the commitment, the court shall review the defendant’s fitness to proceed, under the 2023 statute, and “if the court finds that the defendant is still unfit to proceed and that it does not appear that the defendant will become fit to proceed within the reasonably foreseeable future, the proceeding against the defendant must be dismissed,” Kutzman wrote, citing state law.
Kutzman wrote that the in 2022, the Montana Supreme Court reversed his decision not accepting DPHHS’ “insistence that it would have been impossible” to get that defendant into the state hospital for restorative treatment before the 90-day deadline and the case was ultimately dismissed. He cites a later 2022 case in which the state’s high court held that the 90-day deadline isn’t jurisdictional, affirmed the earlier case, and added that the statute provisions in question prescribe the process a court must follow in determining a defendant’s fitness to proceed.
In that case, the court added that statute creates a mechanism to resume a criminal case if a defendant is deemed fit and if not, the court may dismiss a charge if it views the time elapsed would be “unjust.”
The 2025 Legislature amended the 90-day provision to state that if a court commits a defendant to the state hospital for fitness evaluation or restoration to fitness and the defendant has been found fit or restored to fitness, a criminal matter will be set for trial.
Within 90 days of commitment, the court shall review the defendant’s status and if the court finds he hasn’t been admitted to an appropriate facility or DPHHS and is still unfit to process, the court “shall assess whether the proceeding against the defendant must be dismissed or whether alternatives to incarceration, if applicable, or to commitment are appropriate under the circumstances, including whether the involuntary administration of medication is necessary,” according to the new statute.
The 2025 Legislature also made a change to “prohibit holding DPHHS in contempt for failing to get an allegedly unfit accused into one of its facilities before” a deadline in statute runs out, Kutzman wrote.
The state hospital’s delays often prevent getting defendants to the facility within the 90-day timeline, the Montana Supreme Court held that DPPHS couldn’t comply with the timeline, and the 2025 Legislature prevented a reenactment of a 2022 case, “by providing that DPHHS putting a district court at risk of having to put the public at risk by dismissing an otherwise-valid prosecution of a violent crime – because DPHHS did not admit the person within the…time frame – is never contempt of court,” Kutzman wrote.
Kutzman wrote that Gideon is conflating two sections of code, according to both the prosecution and DPHHS, but has instead doubled down on the assertion. Kutzman held that nothing in the code sections being discussed “requires or even authorizes dismissal if the evaluation process takes longer than 60 days,” and the other section applies only to restorative treatment and does not apply to a defendant on whom there is no report regarding fitness.
In the motion to dismiss, Gideon “relies entirely” on the 90-day deadline, which only appears in the restorative commitment provision, Kutzman wrote. The other code sections in dispute “contain no similar dismissal consequence for non-compliance with the 60-day commitment duration” ordered by Best in October 2024.
Conflating the statutes, Kutzman wrote, “tacitly concedes that [Gideon’s] argument fails if he cannot access the 90-day procedure,” in one statute, but it’s clear he can’t because there’s never been any restorative commitment for Gideon under the statute.
Nothing in the other statutes referenced “supports his ongoing argument that Judge Best’s order was the equivalent of, or some kind of alternative to, an appropriate expert report finding him unfit to proceed,” within the meaning of the statute, Kutzman wrote. “Instead, he ultimately went to Warm Springs as the result of a stipulated civil commitment. This court did not reach, and in fact could not have reached” a restorative commitment under the statute because it never received the necessary report to trigger that provision.
“The fundamental statutory interpretation rule in this state prohibits courts from inserting language the Legislature
has not seen fit to enact, and from omitting language the Legislature did see fit to enact. With that authority in mind, the court will not cooperate in Gideon’s demand to graft” on provision onto others, Kutzman wrote. “If the Legislature had intended dismissal under these circumstances, it would have said so. It did not.”
Gideon had been scheduled for trial on March 9, but that was continued during a March 5 pre-trial hearing.
During the hearing, Kuntz, Gideon’s defense attorney, said Gideon was fit for proceedings and had been taking his lithium for the last eight months while in the county jail.
Kuntz said he was in talks with Ryan Ball, the deputy county attorney prosecuting the case, about resolution for the case, but that was dependent on Kutzman’s order.
In December, Gideon appeared in court on the 2017 case of felony criminal endangerment and a first offense misdemeanor DUI.
He was sentenced on those charges in 2017 and in December, his attorney asked Judge David Grubich to determine that he had served his sentence in that matter.
Ball, the county prosecutor, said the state agreed that Gideon had served his sentence in the county jail on the 2017 charges.
Grubich agreed and declared that sentence completed.
Gideon hit a credit union employee on Oct.9, 2024 and during subsequent interviews, threatened investigators, according to court documents.
Kutzman civilly committed Gideon to the Montana State Hospital for treatment in August 2024, but within about five weeks, Gideon had been released and arrested on a new assault charge, then about a week later, hit the bank employee with his vehicle.
Last year, the court was awaiting a determination whether Gideon was fit to stand trial for the Oct. 9 incident and Gideon was civilly committed to the Montana State Hospital in February.
In April 2025, Gideon was transferred back to the Cascade County jail and local prosecutors filed a motion asking that the county, through medical professionals at the jail, could involuntarily medicate Gideon if needed.
State hospital staff determined in April that Gideon “has reached maximum benefit” but since he’s still facing a $500,000 bond in the current criminal case, he’s remained in the county jail through the criminal proceedings.
At the end of June, a provider evaluated Gideon finding him fit to proceed, according to lawyers during the hearing.
During a July 31 hearing, Kuntz, Gideon’s defense attorney, said the case was nearing the 300 day mark and filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds of speedy trial violations.
County attorney: attempted homicide suspect released from state hospital without notice [2024]
During the 2025 legislative session, that law was changed and the prosecution has argued that Gideon’s rights weren’t violated in relation to the 90 day timeline.
Kutzman asked Ball to file a short brief, which he filed on Aug. 8, on those legislative changes and whether they were retroactive.
In his brief, Ball wrote that the defense was relying on a provision of state code that there’s a 90-day limit on the time a defendant can be held, but that the court is not operating under that provision and it only applies when a report has been submitted deeming a defendant unfit to proceed.
In addressing the defense’s argument that the legislative change altered the provision and that the case must be dismissed, Ball wrote that the “major change to this statute that is important to the defendant’s theory of how this case should be handled is the change in statute that no longer reads that the proceedings must be dismissed. Instead, the court is ordered to assess how to proceed, from dismissal to alternatives like involuntary medication. This is especially relevant in this case, where the subject of involuntary medication has been broached, but not ordered as [Gideon] has been restored to fitness and is compliant with necessary medications. Simply put, the new language in the statute is entirely supportive of the manner in which this case has progressed.”
Ball wrote that the law change doesn’t change the purpose or substance of the law, but instead clarifies the process and “based on this, the state believes that these changes to the statute apply to the instant case, and are beneficial to the State’s position against dismissal.”
