[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MONTANA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 4


MONTANA:

Canadian on U.S. death row feels 'kicked to the curb'


Ronald Smith, the Canadian killer whose Montana death sentence sparked a
furor last week in Parliament, feels "kicked to the curb" by Canada after
learning that the Conservative government has abruptly reversed a
longstanding Canadian foreign policy and won't try to halt his execution.

After more than 20 years of seeking clemency for him, the federal
government has decided it will no longer fight to save the life of a man
Prime Minister Stephen Harper called a "double murderer" -- and that any
move to "repatriate" Smith to a prison in this country "would send the
wrong signal" to Canadians about violent crime.

Smith's lawyer, Greg Jackson, called Canada's reversal an "egregious"
abandonment of its only citizen on death row in the U.S.

His head is spinning with the developments," Mr. Jackson said of the
50-year-old Smith, a Red Deer, Alta., native who has been on death row at
Montana State Prison since his conviction for the murders of 2 Blackfeet
Indian men -- Harvey Mad Man, 20, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 24 -- during
a drunken road trip to the U.S. in August 1982.

Smith's sentence is currently under review in a U.S. federal court, but
his lawyers have exhausted all appeal options at the state level, and
Jackson -- as recently as 10 days ago -- had described Canada's ongoing
efforts to seek clemency for Smith as his client's best hope to avoid
death by lethal injection.

At the time, voicing support for Smith's bid to avoid execution, the
Department of Foreign Affairs had said that Canada "does not support the
death penalty" and that "it is the policy of the government of Canada to
seek clemency, on humanitarian grounds, for Canadians sentenced to death
in foreign countries."

But by last Wednesday, the Conservative government revealed that it had
adopted a new policy and would no longer petition Montana Gov. Brian
Schweitzer to commute Smith's death sentence.

"We are not going to seek clemency in cases in democratic countries, like
the United States, where there has been a fair trial," the new policy
stated.

The government's about-face was quickly condemned by Amnesty International
as "misguided and inhumane," and hammered by all opposition parties as a
re-launching of the national debate on capital punishment, which was
abolished in Canada in 1976.

Both of Canada's national newspapers also criticized the Conservative
government's decision. The National Post argued in an editorial on
Saturday that "if Stephen Harper's party seeks to overturn our nation's
stance on such an important issue, the proper place to do so is Parliament
-- not a passing communique involving a single Canadian monster."

On the same day, a Globe and Mail editorial stated: "Were Canada to ask
for clemency for Ronald Smith, it would not be because it has any great
love for Mr. Smith. It would be a statement of principle -- that the death
penalty should be put to rest."

At the state prison in Deer Lodge, Mont., Smith was suddenly being
bombarded with media requests for interviews.

But Jackson said Smith "wanted time to, one, talk to me, and, two, think"
about the sudden turn of events.

"(Smith's) immediate comment was that 'Canada had kicked him to the curb
again,' " said Jackson, referring to the weeks following Smith's arrest in
1982 when "the Canadian government did not see fit to respond, contact
him, visit him, advise him of his rights or provide any support,
assistance, guidance, etc."

It was Smith's sense of despair following the killings, his lawyers have
claimed over the years, that prompted him to initially seek the death
penalty rather than accept a prosecution proposal of consecutive life
sentences and a prison transfer back to Canada.

"As a result of his isolation and depression, (Smith) chose to ask to be
executed," Jackson said.

But at the Deer Lodge prison, Smith changed his mind and his lawyers
launched the 1st in a 20-year series of appeals to have the death sentence
overturned, based largely on the alleged ineffectiveness of his original
defence attorney.

Throughout those years -- and up until last week's surprise reversal by
the Conservative government -- Canadian officials had expressed support
for clemency in Smith's case and a possible transfer to a prison back in
Canada.

The latest contacts with Canada, Mr. Jackson said, took place earlier this
year.

"Be clear, the Canadian government came to us with representation that
they wanted Ron's sentence commuted so he could be returned to Canada, and
would do everything within its power to accomplish that," Mr. Jackson
said. "We did not go to them. This, together with 23 years of
representations that the government supports Ron and wants him home in
Canada, make the change in position most egregious."

Egregious, however, barely begins to describe the horror Smith inflicted
on his victims and their families. More than two dozen relatives of Mad
Man and Running Rabbit met last week with Mr. Schweitzer and urged him to
reject any Canadian efforts to have Smith's sentence commuted or allow him
to be transferred to a Canadian prison.

But the Conservative government's decision eased all of the pressure that
Mr. Schweitzer, less than two weeks ago, said he had been feeling from
Canada to grant Smith clemency.

Now the pressure is on Harper and his cabinet colleagues -- particularly
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime
Bernier -- to reverse their reversal.

(source: CanWest News Service)