Page 1 of 8 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 75

Thread: Ronald Allen Smith - Montana Death Row

  1. #1
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534

    Ronald Allen Smith - Montana Death Row


    Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Mad Man, Jr.

    smith.jpg
    Ronald Smith escorted in for his clemency hearing at Powell County District Court in Deer Lodge, Mont.


    Facts of the Crime:

    Was sentenced to death for fatally shooting two young men – Harvey Mad Man, Jr. and Thomas Running Rabbit – while he was on a drunken road trip in 1982.

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Hearing set for Smith execution

    An execution date for a Canadian man convicted of murdering two Browning men in 1983 will be set during a Nov. 3 hearing at the Granite County Courthouse in Philipsburg.

    Ronald Allen Smith, 53, will be transported to the hearing from Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, where he is currently on death row, according to an order signed Monday by District Judge John W. Larson.

    Smith, who was born in Alberta, was sentenced to die for the 1982 murders of Harvey Mad Man, 24, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20.

    The Browning cousins, who had picked up Smith and two other men while they were hitchhiking, were marched into the woods off U.S. 2 near Marias Pass and shot in the head with a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle.

    Smith later said he wanted their car and to know what it felt like to kill someone. The bodies of Running Rabbit and Mad Man were not found for several weeks.

    Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of deliberate homicide and two counts of aggravated kidnapping in Flathead District Court in February 1983.

    He was offered a plea agreement that called for a term of 110 years in prison, but he rejected it in favor of a death sentence.

    In 1984, he began fighting the death penalty and has continued the effort ever since.

    Since then, Smith has exhausted all of his appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case, meaning the only way Smith can avoid the death penalty is to appeal to Gov. Brian Schweitzer for clemency.

    After an execution date is set, Smith will have 10 days to file a request for clemency with the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole.

    Smith is one of two people on death row in Montana and the only Canadian believed to be on death row in the United States. The other Montana inmate on death row is William Jay Gollehon, who was sentenced in 1992 for deliberate homicide.

    http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/l...cc4c002e0.html

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Canadian’s lawyer seeks stay on execution date

    An execution date is to be set next week for the only Canadian on death row in the United States, but Ronald Smith’s lawyer intends to ask for an immediate stay.

    Greg Jackson says the judge can do anything he wants when Smith, 53, is brought to court in Philipsburg, Montana, on Nov. 3.

    But he says an American Civil Liberties Union challenge of Montana’s death penalty on behalf of Smith has been delayed.

    The ACLU argues the state’s lethal injection procedure is cruel and unusual, but the matter is on hold since Montana State Prison has dismantled its execution chamber and is building a new facility.

    Jackson says he will ask the judge to delay setting an execution date until the legal matter is resolved.

    Smith, who is from Alberta, has been on death row since he murdered two young Montana men in 1982.

    http://www.thespec.com/news/canada/a...execution-date

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Killer’s court hearing moved to Deer Lodge

    A hearing to set an execution date for convicted double murderer Ronald Allen Smith has been moved to the Powell County Courthouse in Deer Lodge on Nov. 3.

    District Judge John W. Larson on Monday had scheduled the hearing for the Granite County Courthouse in Philipsburg.

    An amended order submitted by Larson Wednesday switched the location to Deer Lodge after space became available at the courthouse there.

    Smith, a 53-year-old Alberta native believed to be the only Canadian on death row in the United States, is being held in Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge.

    He was sentenced to die for the 1982 murders of Browning cousins Harvey Mad Man, 24, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20.

    The Browning men, who had picked up Smith and two other men while they were hitchhiking, were marched into the woods off U.S. 2 near Marias Pass and shot in the head with a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle.

    Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of deliberate homicide and two counts of aggravated kidnapping in Flathead District Court in 1983.

    He initially asked for the death penalty but reversed course in 1984 and has been fighting the death penalty ever since.

    Since then, Smith has exhausted all of his appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case, meaning the only way Smith can avoid the death penalty is to appeal to Gov. Brian Schweitzer for clemency.

    http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/l...cc4c03286.html

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Hearing could spur clemency pleas, execution preparations

    A hearing Wednesday in Deer Lodge to set an execution date for double murderer Ronald Allen Smith could put several things in motion.

    Canadian representatives will likely increase the intensity of their appeals for clemency to Gov. Brian Schweitzer on behalf of Smith, the only Canadian on death row in the United States. Canada does not have capital punishment.

    Relatives of the two men Smith confessed to shooting - "to see what it would be like to kill somebody" - may renew their pleas with Schweitzer to let the death sentence be carried out. Smith shot cousins Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit of Browning nearly three decades ago and their families are tired of waiting for justice, Mad Man's brother Kevin said Friday.

    Workers at the Montana State Prison will have to move the aging single-wide trailer that serves as Montana's execution chamber back onto its base, after consigning it to apparently premature oblivion in January.

    And the state will have to find a supply of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used in the "cocktail" comprising lethal injections, the method used in Montana. Other states recently have postponed executions, citing a nationwide shortage of the drug.

    Smith, of Red Deer, Alberta, is one of only two men on death row in Montana. No one has been executed in the state since David Dawson in 2006 in just the third time the death penalty has been carried out in Montana since the practice was reinstated in the 1970s.

    But that's only if an execution date is set at Wednesday's hearing.

    ***

    Ron Waterman of Helena, one of two attorneys representing Smith, contends that shouldn't happen, in part because Montana's procedures, or "protocol," for lethal injection remain under court challenge in a case also filed by Waterman.

    "We would argue that we have constitutional rights and issues raised in the protocol case and that as a consequence, by setting an execution, we are being deprived of the constitutional right to raise the issue," Waterman said Friday. Besides, he said, "quite frankly I would also argue that I don't think the state can carry forward with an execution.

    "They have no execution chamber. ... They have no drugs."

    Recently, a federal judge stayed a pending execution in Arizona because of the drug shortage, only to see that action overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Arizona executed Jeffrey Landrigan last Tuesday after obtaining a dose of the drug from England, that state's attorney general told the Associated Press.

    Equally problematic, said Waterman, is the state's execution chamber, or lack thereof. The trailer where Dawson, Duncan McKenzie and Terry Langford were killed was moved earlier this year to make way for a roughly $300,000 addition to the Montana State Prison that would be used for storage and an employee break room, according to state Corrections Department spokesman Bob Anez. When necessary, it could be converted to an execution chamber.

    But Anez said the old trailer, now sitting off to the east of the maximum security unit, easily could be pressed back into service for the execution.

    "All they have to do is move it back and wire it for electricity," he said.

    But Waterman contends the trailer is inadequate should anything go wrong with a lethal injection, as has happened in other

    states.

    "Essentially you have to have a quasi-surgical suite prepared," he said.

    The challenge involving the lethal injection protocol still could end up before the Montana Supreme Court.

    As to the case directly involving Smith, his last hope within the court system to avoid execution vanished earlier this month, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal.

    If the questions concerning the method of execution are resolved, only clemency from Schweitzer will keep Smith from being put to death. Once a date is set, Smith will have 10 days to file a clemency request with the Montana Board of Pardons.

    "It all weighs heavy on me," the governor said Friday.

    But Schweitzer said, as he has before, that he'll rely on the wishes of the victims' families, who told him that "frankly, we will not rest until justice is done."

    ***

    Smith was hitchhiking with two companions when Blackfeet tribal members Mad Man, who was 24 at the time, and Running Rabbit, who was 20, picked them up on Aug. 4, 1982. When the group stopped near Marias Pass, Smith walked the two cousins into the woods and shot them with a .22-caliber sawed-off rifle. He pleaded guilty to deliberate homicide and kidnapping, and rejected a roughly 100-year sentence in favor of the death penalty.

    Later, however, he changed his mind and has been fighting that sentence ever since. At one point, a federal appeals court overturned it, but the sentence later was reinstated.

    As the years passed, more and more of the victims' relatives died, said Kevin Mad Man, starting with his mother a year after the murders.

    "It was like he just took her soul when he killed her oldest child," Mad Man said of Smith. "She just died of a broken heart."

    Running Rabbit's brother died four years ago, his mother died two years ago, and his father died last year, said Mad Man.

    "We're just losing people that were involved in the entire case, and they're still taking care of him," he said.

    Mad Man will be traveling in California Wednesday and unable to attend the hearing. But he'll be following the outcome with keen interest.

    "He put my mom in a turmoil. He didn't only kill my brother and my cousin, but he also killed my mother ... and he didn't have no remorse."

    The governor, he said, "should stick with what the family wishes. I still want to see it carried out."

    http://missoulian.com/news/local/art...cc4c002e0.html

  6. #6
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Judge grants injunction halting execution of double-murderer Ronald Smith

    A district judge in Helena has halted the execution of Ronald Allen Smith, even though a date for his death has yet to be set.

    That date was supposed to be scheduled Wednesday by Missoula County District Judge John Larson. It was unclear this afternoon whether the scheduling hearing, to be held in Powell County District Court in Deer Lodge, would still happen.

    Smith shot cousins Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit near Marias Pass in 1982 after the two young Browning men picked him up while he was hitchhiking. Smith later told authorities he wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone.

    Smith is the only Canadian on death row in the United States, and his home country - which has no death penalty - has pressed to spare his life.

    Earlier today, Helena attorney Ron Waterman sought an injunction from Helena District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock to halt the execution. The request cited litigation that terms Montana's method of lethal injection unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.

    It also notes that the old house trailer on the grounds of Montana State Prison used for executions was moved earlier this year to make way for an addition to the prison.

    The addition isn't finished yet, meaning the prison has no approved place for executions, Waterman's motion said. Prison spokesman Bob Anez said last week that the house trailer easily could be moved back into place if necessary.

    In his order granting the injunction, Sherlock wrote that "execution of the death sentence currently pending against Plaintiff will cause great and irreparable injury to Plaintiff."

    The order also stays the deadline for Smith to file a petition for clemency if Larson still sets a date on Wednesday.

    Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Smith, who originally sought the death penalty when he pleaded guilty to the killings.

    If the legal action addressing Montana's method of execution, or "protocol," fails to stop the execution, Smith's last hope lies with clemency from Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

    Once an execution date is set, a prisoner has 10 days to file a clemency request with the Board of Pardons, which in turn would make a recommendation to the governor.

    Schweitzer, however, has said that he'll follow the wishes of the victims' families in the matter. Relatives of Mad Man and Running Rabbit, who were 24 and 20, respectively, at the time, have said consistently that they want Smith put to death.

    Smith and William Gollehon, who was sentenced to die in 1992 for beating a fellow inmate to death during the Montana State Prison riots two years earlier, are the only two men on death row in Montana.

    http://missoulian.com/news/state-and...cc4c03286.html

  7. #7
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Ronald Allen Smith, only known Canadian on death row in US, scheduled to be executed Jan. 31

    A Montana judge has scheduled a Jan. 31 execution date for the only known Canadian on death row in the United States.

    District Judge John Larson in Deer Lodge decided Wednesday on the date for the lethal injection of 53-year-old Ronald Allen Smith of Red Deer, Alberta, according to the Missoulian newspaper.

    On Monday, a Helena judge issued an order staying the execution. Smith is seeking a court ruling on whether the state's method of carrying out the death penalty is unconstitutional.

    The Missoulian reports that Larson will ask the state Supreme Court to look at the apparently conflicting orders and clear up the issue before January.

    Smith faces the death penalty for the 1982 murders of Browning cousins Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit.

    The Canadian government has asked Montana officials to grant clemency.

    http://www.brandonsun.com/world/brea...338.html?thx=y

  8. #8
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Supreme Court asked to decide on execution orders

    Missoula District Court Judge John Larson filed paperwork on Friday formally asking the Montana Supreme Court to step in and allow the execution of inmate Ronald Smith, 53, to proceed as planned.

    On November 3, Larson ordered that Smith's death sentence be carried out on Jan. 31, 2011. Two days prior to that on Nov.1, Helena District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock issued an injunction to stay Smith's execution.

    Sherlock's ruling was in a 2008 civil case filed by Smith that seeks injunctive and declaratory relief and says the Montana State protocol for imposition of the death penalty invalid under a number of federal and state constitutional grounds.

    Larson argues the two orders are in direct conflict, saying "a death penalty cannot be simultaneously imposed and stayed." He also claims Sherlock does not have authority to enjoin the Montana Department of Corrections from implementing the death sentence imposed in the Criminal Case.

    Larson is asking the Supreme Court to rule Sherlock's decision void so the execution can move forward. You can read his Application for Supervisory Authority here.

    Smith has been on Montana's death row for more than 26 years after pleading guilty to killing two men in 1982 near Marias Pass.

    If Smith's death sentence is carried out, he will become the fourth prisoner to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated in Montana in the 1970s. Duncan McKenzie, Terry Langford and, most recently, David Dawson have been put to death under state law.

    http://www.kbzk.com/news/supreme-cou...cution-orders/

  9. #9
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    State and defence seek delay in execution of Canadian

    HELENA, Mon. — Lawyers for the state and for Canadian death-row inmate Ronald Smith are asking the Montana Supreme Court to block his Jan. 31 execution while he challenges the state's execution method.

    District Judge John Larson of Missoula set the execution date for Smith last month, just two days after District Judge Jeff Sherlock of Helena issued an order staying Smith's execution.

    Larson asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing only the sentencing court has the power to stay an execution.

    Lee Newspapers of Montana reports lawyers for Smith and the state submitted briefs Monday arguing that the case challenging the constitutionality of the death protocol needs to be decided before an execution date can be set.

    Smith has been sentenced to die for the 1982 murders of two Browning men.

    http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/lo...b=EdmontonHome

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Attorney tried to contact judge in death-row case

    A state attorney had tried to contact the judge in a Canadian death-row inmate's criminal case at least three times before a different judge ordered a stay over Montana's execution methods, according to court documents.

    But District Judge John Larson, of Missoula, never returned those phone calls, state attorney Chris Tweeten wrote in a court filing Monday, leaving the other judge in the inmate's civil challenge over execution methods to issue the stay.

    The stay had been sought by both the state and attorneys for death row inmate Ronald Allen Smith. Tweeten and Smith lawyer Ron Waterman reached an agreement on the morning of Nov. 1 that the execution should be delayed while Smith challenged the 3-drug cocktail that Montana uses to execute inmates.

    "The purpose of these discussions were to avoid a legal proceeding which would add confusion and unnecessary expense to both the criminal and civil process and to allow the civil challenge to the death protocol to proceed, before proceeding further in the criminal case," Waterman wrote in a brief filed with the Montana Supreme Court.

    When they did not hear from Larson, District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock ordered a stay in Smith's execution. Smith's attorney then e-mailed a copy of Sherlock's order to Larson.

    2 days later, Larson issued his own order setting a Jan. 31 execution date.

    Larson has asked the state Supreme Court to resolve the apparently conflicting orders. Larson argued he has exclusive jurisdiction over the case and that Sherlock does not have the authority to keep the death sentence from being implemented.

    Tweeten, writing as Sherlock's designee, responded Monday by saying Sherlock's order does not try to overturn or change Smith's death sentence, or prevent Larson from setting an execution date, so there is no jurisdictional issue.

    Whether the order delays the execution date is not a constitutional question for the Supreme Court to decide, Tweeten wrote in his brief.

    "Stays by federal courts of executions ordered in a state court are commonplace. There is no rule of law preventing the entry of orders in one court staying executions ordered in another," the filing reads.

    But if the Supreme Court disagrees, Tweeten asked the high court to replace Sherlock's stay of execution with its own while the civil case proceeds.

    Tweeten said attorneys for both parties in the civil case thought it was appropriate to contact Larson to tell him of the steps being taken before the attorneys met with Sherlock.

    "Tweeten left at least 2, and possibly 3, voicemail messages in which he explained the status of matters in the lethal injection case and the plan to seek a preliminary injunction staying Smith's execution from Judge Sherlock that afternoon," Tweeten's brief read.

    Smith is on death row for robbing 2 Browning men and shooting them in the woods with a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle. He was offered a plea agreement that called for a 110-year prison sentence in 1983, but he rejected that in favor of a death sentence.

    He changed his mind the next year and has been fighting his death sentence ever since.

    (Source: The Associated Press)

Page 1 of 8 123 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •