HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The state is seeking the death penalty in the case of a Montana State Prison inmate charged with killing a fellow inmate by cutting his throat.

The Attorney General's office confirmed Thursday that the state filed notice in District Court in Powell County Tuesday in the deliberate homicide case against Clyde Ervin Cosner.

Cosner is charged with killing Danny Lee Hartford in October 2012 by cutting his throat using a prison-made weapon.

Montana law allows the death penalty to be sought in cases of an inmate serving time for a homicide who is convicted of killing a fellow inmate.

Cosner is serving a 40-year sentence for accountability to deliberate homicide for the December 2007 beating death of 45-year-old James Jardine.

His body was found in a pickup truck east of Shelby

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