MT - Ronald Smith, Canadian on US Death Row

[kmclaren]

I thought this might be of interest given the discussion on Tori's threads re: death penalty. I had totally forgotten about this guy but his is apparently the only Canadian on death row in the US. And only 1 of 2 on death row in Montana. He has been in the Montana State Prison for almost 30 years. It sounds like he will be denied clemency...

Ronald Allen Smith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.canada.com/clemency+offered+Canadian+death/6425239/story.html

 

[kmclaren]

A bit of an update:

A Canadian who is fighting for his life on Montana's death row scored a minor legal victory Thursday after a judge declared the state's method of execution unconstitutional.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/montan...in-canadian-man-s-case-1.945560#ixzz25lJQyPE8

 

[accordn2me]

From the Wiki link:

Smith, who is from Wetaskiwin, Alberta, was sentenced to death in March 1983, after he himself asked for the death penalty after his conviction. Seven months earlier, he along with an accomplice, who were both high on LSD, killed two aboriginal men who offered them a ride while hitchhiking. They marched cousins Harvey Mad Man, 23, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, into the woods by the highway and shot them both in the head with a sawed-off .22-calibre rifle.[4] Smith refused a plea deal that would have seen him avoid death row but spend his life in prison. He pleaded guilty three weeks later and then asked for — and was given — a death sentence. Later he changed his mind.


Changed his mind? Wonder why.

No contest he committed this crime. If the issue is lethal injection, OK. How about what he gave the two young men he killed - death by a shot to the head with a sawed-off .22-calibre rifle?

 

[seasideForest]

Here he is in the press again https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/death-row-canadian-montana-executions-1.7448541

I'm generally not pro capital punishment, but I wish a way could be found to get rid of this unmentionable for what he did to those two poor young First Nations men. iirc he and his accomplice befriended them first at a bar further back along the road. Maybe somebody could find that information way back in The Edmonton Journal of the time, so I'll just say MOO to that.

Also MOO but the First Nations people in Canada often have a rather a raw deal in the justice system and outside it (vigilante justice) so let Robert Smith die for some of them, JMO, having murdered some of their fellow people in Montana. I like that the Canadian Government changed their policy on seeking clemency for all Canadian citizens on death row abroad (explained in the wiki article linked in first post) though mine is an emotional, not rational, reaction and might end up bad in a different case. In this case however there is no doubt of who R.S. is and what he did.

MOO JMO