We, Bart Crabtree, Tony Rosales, Kevin Leatherbarrow, and Jake Green, submitted a petition to Montana's 8th Judicial District Court in Cascade County to impanel a Grand Jury. Our aim was to investigate the death of Mike Hanson at the hands of Detective Jacob Tri of the CCSO. We believe the coroner's investigation was flawed, with key evidence misconstrued and omitted. Even more disconcertingly, we believe that the District Attorney, Josh Racki, lied during the inquest and that witnesses lied under oath as well.

Our grand jury petition was rejected by Judge Elizabeth Best. Our profound concern is that she didn't just dismiss our petition, but dismissed our constitutional rights as U.S. citizens and Montanans to impanel a grand jury. We believe not only did she reject our petition, but she did not even read it or look through the evidence presented in order to consider it.

These actions breach the trust the public has in our judiciary's commitment to preserve, protect, and uphold the U.S. and Montana Constitution. For these reasons, we call for the immediate recall of Judge Elizabeth Best from the 8th Judicial District Court in Cascade County, Montana.

The Montana Recall Act allows for the recall of public officials on the grounds of physical or mental lack of fitness, incompetence, violation of the oath of office, official misconduct, or conviction of a felony offense. The violation of the oath of office would allow the citizens to petition a recall of Elizabeth Best. According to the Montana Recall Act, "A petition for the recall of a state-district officer must contain the signatures of qualified electors equaling at least 15% of the number of persons registered to vote in the last preceding election in that district." There were 51,930 registered voters in the previous election. That means we need 7,790 Cascade County "qualified electors" in order to submit the petition to the Supreme Court. Because of disqualifying factors and other unforeseen problems, we are attempting to get 12,000 signatures, just to be safe. We will reiterate, these MUST be qualified electors (citizens of voting age) who live within the county of Cascade, MT. If you do not live in the area, you can still sign the petition as a show of support! The more people who sign, the better.

We need a judiciary that upholds the Constitution, respects citizens' rights, and maintains justice. We demand justice for Mike Hanson and for our constitutional right to impanel a Grand Jury.

You can view documents and evidence that we have on our official investigatory website. You can also watch our documentary series about the incident on Peaceful Sea Network. Please, sign our petition.