Montana board rejects Barry Beach’s clemency bid

DEER LODGE, Mont. – Montana’s parole board on Wednesday denied a clemency bid from Barry Beach, who said he will keep fighting to overturn his 100-year murder sentence for the 1979 beating death of a high school classmate.

The decision from the state Board of Pardons and Parole marked the fourth time since 1994 that the panel has rejected a bid for executive clemency by Beach in the slaying of 17-year-old Kim Nees on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.

A key factor in the decision was that Beach has not admitted to committing the brutal killing, board members said.

Beach has argued police in Louisiana coerced the 1983 confession used to convict him in Nees’ killing. In an interview at Montana State Prison, he compared that coercion to the parole board’s conditions for considering him rehabilitated.

“I have not ever accepted responsibility for this crime, and I never will,” Beach said. “I did not kill Kim Nees.”

Hundreds of supporters have taken up his cause, including former Gov. Brian Schweitzer.