Montana passed legislation raising the minimum age...

Montana passed legislation raising the minimum age for the death penalty to 18, becoming the fifteenth state to eliminate capital punishment for juvenile offenders, in addition to the 12 states with no death penalty. A bill to allow the coroner to determine death at an execution and to regulate the number of witnesses also passed. Bills to abolish the death penalty, to establish a moratorium, to create a commission to study the death penalty, to bar the death penalty for those convicted twice of sexual intercourse without consent, and to require a judge and jury to impose a death sentence (December 1998), were all defeated.