State v. M. Smith

── State v. M. Smith ── Court: Montana Supreme Court Date: May 19, 2026 Category: Direct Appeal 05/19/2026 DA 23-0488 Case Number: DA 23-0488 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA 2026 MT 106 STATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. MICHAEL TODD SMITH, Defendant and Appellant. APPEAL FROM: District Court of the Ninth Judicial District, In and For the County of Teton, Cause No. DC-17-010 Honorable Gregory L. Bonilla, Presiding Judge COUNSEL OF RECORD: For Appellant: Gregory E. Paskell, Attorney at Law, Lynwood, Washington For Appellee: Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General, Katie F. Schulz, Assistant Attorney General, Helena, Montana Joe Coble, Teton County Attorney, Jennifer Stutz, Deputy Teton County Attorney, Choteau, Montana Submitted on Briefs: May 6, 2026 Decided: May 19, 2026 Filed: __________________________________________ Clerk Justice James Jeremiah Shea delivered the Opinion of the Court. ¶1 In the Montana Ninth Judicial District Court, Teton County, Appellant Michael Todd Smith was found guilty of five counts of Sexual Abuse of Children in violation of § 45-5-625(1)(e), MCA. Smith appeals the District Court’s Order denying his motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial, the Order denying his motion to compel, the admissibility of certain trial exhibits, and the Judgment entering the convictions. We restate and address the following issues: Issue 1: Whether Smith’s right to a speedy trial was violated. Issue 2: Whether the District Court abused its discretion by denying Smith’s motion to compel. Issue 3: Whether the District Court abused its discretion under M. R. Evid. 403 by admitting certain exhibits during trial. ¶2 We affirm. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND ¶3 On January 9, 2015, Teton County Sheriff Deputy Mark Groves, other deputies of the Teton County Sheriff’s Office, and Probation Officer Cody Shaw performed a home check at Smith’s residence for Smith’s brother, Lance Smith (Lance). Lance was participating in drug court at the time due to a felony drug distribution charge, and Shaw suspected that Lance had violated the conditions of participation. Lance, his wife, and his stepdaughter had lived at Smith’s residence since November 2014. During the search of Smith’s residence, law enforcement confiscated marijuana and items related to growing marijuana. Law enforcement also confiscated a grey laptop and red laptop from Smith’s 2 bedroom. Smith pled guilty to a charge of Criminal Endangerment, and was sentenced in July 2015 to a four-year commitment to the Department of Corrections (DOC), with all time suspended.1 Lance was incarcerated for a drug distribution charge. ¶4 The laptops seized in the search were forfeited and the Teton County Sheriff’s Office retained both of them. In June 2016, Deputy Groves requested Special Agent Brent Johnsrud of the Department of Homeland Security to analyze the laptops’ content before the Sheriff’s Office used them as office resources because Deputy Groves suspected that they may contain illegal content. Upon receiving the laptops, Johnsrud used forensic technology to copy the data from the laptops’ hard drives to a government-owned hard drive (“cloned hard drive”), made a copy of the cloned hard drive (“working hard drive”), and verified through forensic imaging software that both the cloned hard drive and working