[xtypo_dropcap]T[/xtypo_dropcap]ime may finally be running out for convicted killer Ronald Smith.
More than 28 years after Smith shot two young men in the woods off a highway in northwestern Montana, a Montana judge has ordered the Canadian to die by lethal injection on Jan. 31, 2011.
Judge John Larson set the date in spite of a court order issued two days earlier that put the case on hold.
On Nov. 1, a court injunction was granted stating that a joint lawsuit filed by Smith and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) must be resolved before an execution date can be set.
However, Judge Larson went ahead and ordered a date anyway. It will now be up to Montana’s Supreme Court to determine which order will stand.
The lawsuit, filed by Smith and the ACLU two years ago, claims Montana’s capital punishment system using lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.
That case is currently on hold while Montana State Prison, where Smith, 53, has been held for almost three decades, modernizes its execution facility and sets the protocol for future executions.
Smith, originally from Red Deer, Alberta, is the only Canadian on death row in the U.S.
On a drunken road trip that began in Alberta, Smith and two friends were hitchhiking when they were picked up by Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, and Harvey Mad Man, 23, who were out driving in their grandmother’s car.
Smith and his accomplices, who were carrying knives, forced the two Blackfeet Indians into the woods where Smith shot them in the head with a sawed-off shotgun at point blank range.
The killers stole the car and drove to California, where they were arrested two days later after a failed robbery in Eureka.
Smith pleaded guilty to the murders and although he was offered a plea bargain of life in prison, he asked for the death penalty, having testified in court that he shot Running Rabbit and Mad Man to see what killing someone felt like.
Smith was sentenced to death in 1983 but about a year later had a change of heart, claiming the murders were fuelled by booze and drugs and that he was suicidal when he demanded the death penalty.
“I was forcing the judge to give me a death sentence, so I made myself out to be the most horrendous person I possibly could,” Smith told W-FIVE, according to CTV News.
He has been fighting in the courts to avoid the death penalty ever since and has now exhausted all avenues of appeal.
If the execution date set by Judge Larson stands, Smith could file a petition for clemency with the Board of Parole and Pardons—his last resort.
The Canadian government, which had been trying to secure clemency for Smith, announced in 2007 it was adopting a new policy and would no longer intervene for Canadians facing execution in a democratic country.
However, after hearing a lawsuit by Smith objecting to the new policy, a federal Court of Canada judge last year ruled the government’s decision unlawful and ordered Canadian officials to again begin a bid to seek clemency for Smith.
Canadian Liberal Member of Parliament Dan McTeague has called for a determined effort by Canada to convince Montana governor Brian Schweitzer to commute Smith’s death sentence. Ultimately, Schweitzer has the executive power to grant clemency in the case.
“The obligation now really rests on the government to do the right thing and ask for clemency,” McTeague told Canwest News Service earlier this year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Smith.
Meanwhile, relatives of Running Rabbit and Mad Man told CTV they feel Canada should stay out of the affair and that Smith should be put to death.
“How dare Ronald Smith and the Canadian government come here to Montana in the United States and play with our laws and our government,” said Cheryl Bear Medicine of the Blackfoot Nation.
In response from his prison cell in Montana, Smith told CTV: “They are more than welcome to their opinion. I don’t think any harsher of them than people who don’t think I should die.”
More than 28 years after Smith shot two young men in the woods off a highway in northwestern Montana, a Montana judge has ordered the Canadian to die by lethal injection on Jan. 31, 2011.
Judge John Larson set the date in spite of a court order issued two days earlier that put the case on hold.
On Nov. 1, a court injunction was granted stating that a joint lawsuit filed by Smith and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) must be resolved before an execution date can be set.
However, Judge Larson went ahead and ordered a date anyway. It will now be up to Montana’s Supreme Court to determine which order will stand.
The lawsuit, filed by Smith and the ACLU two years ago, claims Montana’s capital punishment system using lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.
That case is currently on hold while Montana State Prison, where Smith, 53, has been held for almost three decades, modernizes its execution facility and sets the protocol for future executions.
Smith, originally from Red Deer, Alberta, is the only Canadian on death row in the U.S.
On a drunken road trip that began in Alberta, Smith and two friends were hitchhiking when they were picked up by Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, and Harvey Mad Man, 23, who were out driving in their grandmother’s car.
Smith and his accomplices, who were carrying knives, forced the two Blackfeet Indians into the woods where Smith shot them in the head with a sawed-off shotgun at point blank range.
The killers stole the car and drove to California, where they were arrested two days later after a failed robbery in Eureka.
Smith pleaded guilty to the murders and although he was offered a plea bargain of life in prison, he asked for the death penalty, having testified in court that he shot Running Rabbit and Mad Man to see what killing someone felt like.
Smith was sentenced to death in 1983 but about a year later had a change of heart, claiming the murders were fuelled by booze and drugs and that he was suicidal when he demanded the death penalty.
“I was forcing the judge to give me a death sentence, so I made myself out to be the most horrendous person I possibly could,” Smith told W-FIVE, according to CTV News.
He has been fighting in the courts to avoid the death penalty ever since and has now exhausted all avenues of appeal.
If the execution date set by Judge Larson stands, Smith could file a petition for clemency with the Board of Parole and Pardons—his last resort.
The Canadian government, which had been trying to secure clemency for Smith, announced in 2007 it was adopting a new policy and would no longer intervene for Canadians facing execution in a democratic country.
However, after hearing a lawsuit by Smith objecting to the new policy, a federal Court of Canada judge last year ruled the government’s decision unlawful and ordered Canadian officials to again begin a bid to seek clemency for Smith.
Canadian Liberal Member of Parliament Dan McTeague has called for a determined effort by Canada to convince Montana governor Brian Schweitzer to commute Smith’s death sentence. Ultimately, Schweitzer has the executive power to grant clemency in the case.
“The obligation now really rests on the government to do the right thing and ask for clemency,” McTeague told Canwest News Service earlier this year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Smith.
Meanwhile, relatives of Running Rabbit and Mad Man told CTV they feel Canada should stay out of the affair and that Smith should be put to death.
“How dare Ronald Smith and the Canadian government come here to Montana in the United States and play with our laws and our government,” said Cheryl Bear Medicine of the Blackfoot Nation.
In response from his prison cell in Montana, Smith told CTV: “They are more than welcome to their opinion. I don’t think any harsher of them than people who don’t think I should die.”
