State panel denies Brandon Craft’s request for sentence modification in 2016 homicide
A state judicial panel upheld Brandon Craft’s sentence in the 2016 homicide of his roommate.
The Sentence Review Division of the Montana Supreme Court reviewed Craft’s sentence on Aug. 7 and upheld it in an Aug. 31 decision.
The division consists of three district court judges and one alternate judge appointed by the chief justice of the Montana Supreme Court.
A person sentenced to one year or more in the state prison or to the custody of the Montana Department of Corrections may file an application for sentence review.
The division can reduce a sentence, affirm or increase it, and the division’s decision cannot be appealed.
State rules hold that any sentence imposed by the district court is presumed correct and won’t be changed by the division “unless it is clearly inadequate or clearly excessive.”
In its Aug. 31 decision, the division found Craft’s request for a sentence modification was “insufficient to hold that the sentence imposed by the district court is clearly inadequate or clearly excessive,” and upheld the sentence.
Craft’s case has been reviewed on multiple occasions and in April 2025, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the local district court’s order denying a new trial for Craft and another convicted of assault with a weapon.
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The court also issued a substantial decision in March by denying a request for a new trial from a man convicted of killing his wife in Kalispell. In that case, the defendant argued that the clerk of court didn’t comply with the statutory requirements for assembling his jury panel.
The Montana County Attorneys Association, with the Clerk of Courts Association and the Montana Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, drafted a law change to correct any similar jury issues going forward.
HB194, sponsored by Rep. Amy Regier R-Kalispell, was approved by lawmakers and signed by the governor in May 2025.
Brandon Craft was tried and convicted by a jury in November 2019 of deliberate homicide, tampering with evidence and two different counts of deceptive practices.
Craft was accused of killing his roommate Adam Petzack in February 2016 by shooting him in the back of the head and burying him on his property. Afterward, Craft and his then-wife were accused of selling Petzack’s car for $600 on Craigslist and stealing hundreds of dollars of Petzack’s veterans benefits.
Craft was sentenced in February 2020 to 100 years in prison for the deliberate homicide charge, ten years for the tampering charge, and two concurrent ten-year sentences for the deceptive practices charges.
Craft appealed his sentence to the Montana Supreme Court, which affirmed three of his convictions and reversed one count of deceptive practices related to the sale of the truck for insufficient evidence in 2023.
In February 2024, Craft filed a motion requesting a new trial, arguing that problems discovered with the jury pool process in the summer of 2023 in another criminal case, entitled him to a new trial, according to an April 14 Montana Supreme Court opinion.
In August 2023, local defense attorneys raised issues with the process by which jurors were being called in two criminal trials.
In a case in Judge John Kutzman’s court, the defense raised those concerns, forcing the trial to be delayed, according to an order from District Court Judge Elizabeth Best.
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Because of the issues calling juries, one criminal trial was vacated and jury trials were halted for about a month in Cascade County.
The vacated trial was eventually held.
The underlying problem stemmed from a 2022 annual convention of Montana district court clerks, during which a now-retired Missoula County clerk “advocated a new method for notifying jurors which she had been using. This method involved sending postcards to jurors early in the year notifying them that they were selected for the year’s panel, but requesting no immediate action from the recipient,” according to an order from Best, filed in August 2023.
The district court denied Craft’s request for a new trial on the basis that it was filed four years after his trial and his reliance on 2023 jury pool issues in another criminal trial didn’t constitute newly discovered evidence that those issues existed with the 2019 jury pool from which Craft’s jury was empaneled, according to the state high court’s opinion.
According to a 2023 district court judge’s order regarding the Cascade County jury pool issues, the process change was made sometime in 2022.
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Under state law, prosecutors and the defense may investigate the formation of a jury pool and jury panel for a specific case before the trial and up to 30 days thereafter but Craft’s attorneys did not do so, a factor in the district court’s denial of his request for a new trial.
Craft’s attorneys largely relied on a local drug case against Felicia Hinkle, but in that instance, the problems with the jury pool were discovered before the trial started in 2023, causing a delay, but the issue was addressed and the trial conducted.
On Craft’s request for a new trial, the Montana Supreme Court reviewed the case to determine if the district court abused its discretion in denying the motion.
“After reviewing the record, we find the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Craft a new trial. Craft did not justify a new trial in the interests of justice. Craft did not provide any newly discovered evidence that his jury was improperly empaneled. Rather, using Hinkle as the basis for his assertions, he speculated there was an issue with the formation of his jury and, based on this speculation alone, requested an evidentiary hearing where he could question the clerk of court and sheriff for Cascade County as to their compliance with [state law], during the empaneling of his jury in 2019. Reliance on the abnormalities of the jury panel in Hinkle in 2023 does not constitute substantial evidence that the jury panel in Craft’s trial in 2019 was improperly empaneled,” according to the Montana Supreme Court’s opinion. “After reviewing the record, we find the district court did not abuse its discretion when it did not hold an additional hearing and denied Craft’s motion for a new trial for failing to establish such was required in the interests of justice.”
