Providers
Where a fact is allowed to come from
Every docket card cites one of these. If a number is not on one of these pages, it is not in the ledger. Social posts are not used unless they repeat an agency release that is also on the agency’s site.
MTBNSF
A field atlas next door, not a death source
mtbnsf.com is an independent Montana observatory for air, water, infrastructure, and public money. Its methods page says a screening is not a regulatory finding or proof of cause. This desk links to it and does not import its readings into a custody count.
Open the sourceCity of Missoula eSCRIBE
Agendas the city already publishes
The public meetings site at pub-missoula.escribemeetings.com. This desk calls GetCalendarMeetings, the same method the city’s calendar page calls, and copies item titles from the HTML agenda that response names. It does not log in. A second copy of council dates comes from the city’s public iCal.
Open the sourceMissoula County CivicClerk
Commissioner agendas the county portal already loads
The county publishes three unauthenticated methods at missoulacomt.v8.civicclerk.com/public-api: Events, Meetings, and Attachments/Download. This desk calls the first two for commissioner public meetings, administrative meetings, and town halls, and links the download by file id. It does not copy the short-lived storage links in the response, and it does not copy join instructions.
Open the sourceMCA 46-5-117 and 46-5-118
Plate-reader policy and the 90-day clock
The Legislature’s text. A law enforcement agency that uses an automatic license plate reader must adopt and publicize a written policy before the system operates, and must audit it yearly for the agency head. Section 46-5-118 limits retention to 90 days unless a sworn preservation request or a warrant applies. Neither section, as published, requires a copy to the county attorney.
Open the sourceDistrict of Montana public calendar
Federal hearing settings, not the docket sheet
The court posts a public calendar at ecf.mtd.uscourts.gov. This desk reads that form for the dates the form itself offers. It does not log into PACER, does not open sealed entries, and does not copy dial-in numbers or meeting IDs. A date on that calendar is a setting, not a ruling.
Open the sourceCourtListener and PACER
Federal dockets, the free copy and the paid one
PACER is the official federal filing system and it charges by the page. This desk does not have a PACER login and does not pull sealed documents. CourtListener’s RECAP archive is the free public copy of filings someone has already uploaded. If a case number is not in that copy or in a news story, it is not invented here. Justia’s docket index is a caption list, not the complaint.
Open the sourceMontana Supreme Court
State constitutional opinions
Held v. State, DA 23-0575, 2024 MT 312, is a state opinion. It does not have a PACER number. Justia posts the synopsis. Youth plaintiffs appear in the public caption; this desk does not build a second roster from it.
Open the sourceFullCourt Enterprise, public portal
Fourth Judicial District case index
Missoula County District Court moved onto FullCourt Enterprise in June 2018. The public portal is a courtesy index of case number, type, parties, and the register of actions. It is not the court record, and this desk does not have a FullCourt login. Remote accounts are denied to the public. Documents are requested from the Clerk of District Court. On October 13, 2026, the portal did not answer, so no fresh register line was added.
Open the sourceState Bar of Montana, local associations
The Missoula lawyers’ association, not a court
There is no Bar Association of Missoula on the State Bar’s local list. The Missoula entry is the Western Montana Bar Association. The list names a president and does not date the term. The local bar does not decide judicial complaints or disqualification motions. Lawyer ethics complaints go to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
Open the sourceMissoulian
Local court reporting, Missoula
Inquests, the Ross Robertson lawsuit, the April 2025 judicial-complaint stories, and the October 2026 Redfern indictment story. Lee Enterprises; some stories are behind a paywall. Where the body was not readable, this desk uses the headline, the dek, and the reporter’s own post, and it says so.
Open the sourceMontana DOJ, Division of Criminal Investigation
Officer-involved releases
The first public account of a fatal police shooting is often a DCI release. It is a starting record, not a verdict. The Harlem release is the source for that file.
Open the sourceMontana Medical Examiner
Annual autopsy statistics
Annual reports count cases the office calls law-enforcement-involved or custody deaths: inmates, or deaths in the presence of officers. The printed series on this desk runs 2020 through 2025. The 2018 and 2019 reports do not print that total. A homicide line inside the mix is not a count of people shot. The office says these are cases coroners submitted, not every investigated death.
Open the sourceMontana DPHHS, LEIFE report
A second definition, 2019–2023
Seventy-nine law-enforcement-involved fatal encounters under a 2022 surveillance definition, including suicides and crashes with officers present. Forty were coded legal intervention. The report says Montana’s age-adjusted legal-intervention rate for 2019–2023 was second after New Mexico, and it does not print ranks 3 through 10. Not the medical examiner series.
Open the sourceCDC / NCHS leading causes
The top 10 is not this
The 10 leading causes of death in 2023 are heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, kidney disease, chronic liver disease, and COVID-19. Legal intervention is not on that list. CDC WONDER can tabulate death-certificate codes, and counts of 9 or fewer are not republished here.
Open the sourceWashington Post, Fatal Force
Fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024
A newsroom file of civilians shot and killed by an on-duty officer. It excludes custody deaths, off-duty shootings, and deaths that were not shootings. The Montana rows in version 2 number 69. Not a state census, and not added to the medical examiner series. Names stay in the Post’s file.
Open the sourceWashington Post, ICE use-of-force reports
Detention force reports, not deaths
A limited cut of 1,460 ICE detention use-of-force incidents from January 1, 2024 through February 28, 2026. No Montana detention facility turned up in a place-name search. Camp East Montana in that file is an El Paso camp. Narratives are not reprinted here.
Open the sourceBureau of Justice Statistics, jails and prisons
Bed counts, not a death census
Midyear 2024 local jails held 658,700 people, with 7.9 million admissions that year and 68% unconvicted. Yearend 2023 prisons held 1,254,200. Montana’s jurisdictional count was 4,985, of whom 48.7% were in private prisons. The mortality series stops at 2019. These figures are not added to the medical examiner or to Fatal Force.
Open the sourceMontana legislative fiscal snapshot, October 2024
One day of DOC capacity
Average daily population on October 1, 2024: men in secure facilities 2,741 against a printed capacity of 2,549; women 307 against 240. Jail holds inside those figures are 85 men and 59 women. Community supervision that day was 10,180. Not the county jail census, and not the yearend 2023 jurisdiction count.
Open the sourceDepartment of Corrections
State-custody death roll
Names, dates, locations, and DOC identifiers for deaths in DOC custody, including contract prisons and hospital deaths. No cause of death on the roll.
Open the sourceCounty attorneys and coroners
Who actually holds the inquest
The county attorney orders the inquest. The coroner conducts it. If the sheriff is the coroner and is disqualified, another county’s coroner is brought in. Missoula County publishes a plain-language page.
Open the sourceKPAX, KTVQ, KRTV, NonStop Local, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Great Falls Tribune
Hearing coverage
Inquest testimony is public, but the usable record for most readers is the next day’s story. Stations disagree on small details. Where they do, the docket says so or picks the later correction.
Open the sourceU.S. Marshals Service
JPATS, the only official flight record used here
Annual movement totals and a description of the network. The fact sheet is the source for fiscal 2025. A 2006 inspector-general appendix lists two non-federal movements for Montana in fiscal 2004 and three in fiscal 2005, by state, not by airport. Schedules, manifests, and tail numbers are not reconstructed here.
Open the sourceOffice of Public Information Requests
Montana executive records, not FOIA
OPIR takes requests for executive agencies on its list and says the federal Freedom of Information Act does not control state records. Courts, cities, counties, the university system, and separately elected offices are asked directly. The requests page has the copy text. This desk does not send it.
Open the sourceKing County International Airport
One county’s ICE flight log
Boeing Field posts a weekly log of ICE flights at that airport and says notice is incomplete. It is a Washington record. It is not a Montana flight and not a national manifest.
Open the sourceHuman Rights First, ICE Flight Monitor
An advocacy count, not a manifest
The project took over Tom Cartwright’s public-aviation count in August 2025. The Guardian’s Ohio story uses it. This desk links the reports and does not copy routes, call signs, or passenger totals into a custody file.
Open the sourceFBI Vault, Jeffrey Epstein
Records the Bureau has already released
The Vault collection is a processed FOIA release, not a complete file and not a Montana record. Later parts titled as a review of investigative holdings are Bureau postings. This desk does not reprint them and does not connect them to a local death or an ICE flight.
Open the sourceICE detention statistics, via FOIA
Where Montana beds show up
ICE’s own detention-management pages are the agency’s figures. The Deportation Data Project’s FOIA tables, charted by Adam J. Sawyer and analyzed by Vera, are how county-jail agreements become visible. This desk links them and does not host a population scrape.
Open the sourceUpper Seven Law
Litigant tally, not a statistical agency
The firm’s estimate of 2026 Montana immigration arrests, and its description of federal release orders, are labeled estimates. Useful because the state does not publish a comparable arrest roll. Not a substitute for the court order.
Open the sourcePrison Legal News
Secondary archive of older payouts
Used only for closed, older Montana jail-death stories (Wells, Longsoldier) where the point is the gap between an inquest and a later payment. Treat amounts as reported, not as something this desk audited.
Open the sourceMontana Code Annotated
The rule
Section 46-4-201 is the inquest statute, including the 2023 sheriff-coroner disqualification. Title 44, chapter 5, is confidential criminal justice information. This desk does not republish CCJI, youth-defendant names, or the protected person on an order of protection.
Open the sourceCommissioner of Political Practices, CERS
Filed campaign-finance reports
The public search at cers-ext.mt.gov. A report is public after it is filed. This desk does not log in and does not copy a donor roll. A contribution is not a finding.
Open the sourceMontana Public Service Commission
Utility regulator, including reported data-center letters
The commission’s own site is the docket. Newsrooms reported a 2025 Earthjustice complaint about NorthWestern Energy data-center letters, a later protective order, and an August 2026 release of some of that material. This desk has not opened the docket and does not invent its number.
Open the sourceOffice of Public Information Requests
Executive-branch requests, not a statewide switchboard
OPIR handles agencies the governor’s office supports. Its page says local government, the Legislature, the courts, the university system, and other elected offices, including the PSC, are asked directly. NextRequest is a vendor. On October 14, 2026, two guessed hostnames answered as agency portals, Missoula County and Kalispell. Thirty-two others redirected away and are not listed. That check is not a statewide inventory, and this desk did not log in or mail a request.
Open the sourceMontana Secretary of State, election results
The results board and the canvass
electionresults.mt.gov is the display. sosmt.gov holds the canvass and the archives. A turnout figure is copied with the board’s own timestamp. It is not a ruling in the birth-year lawsuit.
Open the sourceThe New York Times, October 26, 1986
The Wayne Nance account used here
The Times reported the September 1986 killing of Wayne N. Nance during a break-in and what investigators said they had linked him to afterward. Later encyclopedias say he was never charged. This desk does not turn that suspicion into a conviction or into a current case.
Open the source
Not used, on purpose: live ADS-B feeds, commercial inmate-lookup sites, ICE’s online detainee locator, and unpublished booking photos. Those are either operational, easy to get wrong, or outside a public-records reading desk.