DEER LODGE, Mon. — A Montana judge has scheduled a Jan. 31 execution date for the only known Canadian on death row in the United States, despite the fact that a conflicting court order was issued earlier in the week putting the case on hold.
The Missoulian newspaper reports that district Judge John Larson in Deer Lodge decided Wednesday on the date for the lethal injection of double-murderer Ronald Smith, who is originally from Red Deer.
A Helena judge had issued an order on Monday staying the execution. Smith is out of appeals but is seeking a court ruling on whether the state’s method of carrying out the death penalty is unconstitutional.
It appears it will be up to the state Supreme Court to decide which order stands.
Larson said he will ask the higher court to clear the issue up before January.
The earlier stay “attempts, in my view, to render what I have just done annulled,” the Missoulian quoted Larson as saying.
“Such an order produces a conundrum, an insoluble problem.”
The prosecutor in the county where Smith was originally tried called the situation “new territory,” the newspaper said.
Smith, 53, was in court for the hearing. He was convicted of fatally shooting two cousins, Harvey Madman Jr. and Thomas Running Rabbit, while high on drugs and alcohol near East Glacier, Mont., in 1982.
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.
He later had a change of heart and has been on a legal roller-coaster for the past 25 years. He has had several previous execution dates, but each has been overturned.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his final appeal earlier this year and the case was sent back to the State of Montana for another date for execution.
The outstanding lawsuit, launched on Smith’s behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union two years ago, challenges lethal injection, contending that it is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. That case has been on hold while Montana State Prison completes construction of a new death chamber and establishes the protocol to be used in future executions.
If his execution date stands, Smith’s last resort would be a petition for clemency to the Board of Parole and Pardons, and ultimately to Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
Canadian courts forced Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to seek clemency for Smith last year after Ottawa initially balked at stepping in. Canada’s consul general, Dale Eisler, met with the governor to make the request in June.
But Schweitzer, a Democrat, has told The Canadian Press that the Canadian government’s position is only one of many things he will consider when making his final decision.