After almost 30 years in an isolation cell at Montana State Prison, Alberta-born double-murderer Ronald Smith — the only Canadian on death row in the United States — has formally filed his request for executive clemency to the state's parole board, submitting a 19-page appeal in which his lawyers describe the 54-year-old convict as a man who has made "great strides in his rehabilitation" and exhibits "heartfelt remorse," "a changed heart and mind" and "a potential for good."
Smith, a native of Red Deer, Alta., was convicted in Montana of killing 2 Blackfeet Indian men — Harvey Mad Man, 24, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20 — during a drug- and alcohol-fuelled road trip to the U.S. in August 1982. Smith marched the men into the woods and shot them dead after they had picked up Smith and two of his hitchhiking friends from Canada.
Smith, 24 at the time of the killings, confessed to the crime and initially requested the death penalty — and was promptly granted his wish by a Montana judge. But Smith later launched sentencing appeals to avoid execution, a legal fight that went on for some 25 years until his appeal options recently ran out.
But citing Smith's record as a model prisoner and his "unusual potential as a human being," the clemency application points to psychological tests conducted in 1995 that concluded Smith "is not anti-social and is not cold and callous; has a valid interest in intellectual pursuits; has made a positive adaptation to incarceration; and is not grandiose, narcissistic, aggressive, sadistic, bizarre, or psychotic."
The application also emphasizes Smith's high IQ — described as being in the "top 13th percentile of the population" — and the fact that "Ron has an above average capacity and a very good potential for educational pursuits, including a college degree. This has been borne out by his in-prison completion of numerous college credits."
And there is a detailed account of the abuses Smith suffered as a child at the hands of his violent, hard-drinking father.
"In the home and towns that Ronald Smith grew up in, there is a deeply entrenched culture of alcoholism and abuse," the document states, suggesting these circumstances had a powerful influence on Smith at the time of the 1982 killings.
Greg Jackson, Smith's lawyer in Helena, Montana, told Postmedia News on Thursday that if the state parole board decides, as expected, to hold a hearing on the clemency application, board officials will "conduct an investigation into Ron's background and the circumstances of the offence."
A hearing should occur within four months, Jackson said, adding that the board would then make a recommendation about clemency that Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer would be guided by, but not bound by, in determining Smith's fate.
Accompanying the request for Smith's death penalty to be replaced by a sentence of life imprisonment are letters from several supporters, including a prison teacher, a priest and — perhaps most significantly — Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.
He states that while the Canadian government "does not sympathize with violent crime," it is seeking clemency for Smith "on humanitarian grounds."
Baird's letter also notes that the government's backing of the clemency bid "should not be construed as reflecting a judgment on Mr. Smith's conduct." And he points out that the Canadian government was "ordered" by Federal Court of Canada in 2009 "to support Mr. Smith's case for clemency."
Still, the Conservative government's official expression of support for Smith's bid to avoid execution completes an about-face in a case that, in 2007, re-ignited a nationwide debate about capital punishment.
At that time — in the wake of a Postmedia News report about attempts by Canadian diplomats to win clemency for Smith and have him transferred to a Canadian prison — the Conservative government swiftly withdrew its support for the initiative and declared that Canada would no longer seek clemency for Canadians facing execution in "democratic countries, like the United States, where there has been a fair trial."
As opposition critics assailed the move and controversy over the case flared in the House of Commons in November 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his government's decision to abandon Smith was driven by concerns that lobbying for the killer's life would "send the wrong signal" to Canadians about violent crime.
"We have no desire to open the debate on capital punishment here in Canada — and likewise, we have no desire to participate in the debate on capital punishment in the United States," Harper insisted at the time. "The reality of this particular case is that were we to intervene, it would very quickly become a question of whether we are prepared to repatriate a double-murderer to Canada. In light of this government's strong initiatives on tackling violent crime, I think that would sent the wrong signal to the Canadian population."
But the government's handling of the Smith case was ruled "unlawful" in 2009 by the Federal Court of Canada, forcing a Conservative retreat on the issue and leading diplomats to re-launch the clemency bid.
Over the past two years, as Smith's lawyers exhausted all avenues for appealing the death sentence in U.S. courts, it became clear that the Canadian's fate probably would come down to a decision by Schweitzer about whether to grant clemency.
He has remained noncommital on the question in his public comments about Smith's case, acknowledging both the difficulty of deciding to send someone a death chamber and the legitimacy of demands by some relatives of Smith's victims that he be put to death for his crimes.
However, the document submitted this week to the parole board — members of which will offer their recommendation to Schweitzer in the coming months on whether Smith's death sentence should be commuted — highlights one U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that, according to Smith's lawyers, "took the extraordinary action of virtually recommending that the governor grant Mr. Smith clemency."
While denying a Smith appeal, the court had noted in its judgment that "by all accounts, Smith has reformed his life. He has developed strong relationships with various members of his family and has taken advantage of the educational opportunities offered by the prison that houses him. He has expressed deep regret for his deplorable actions. However, consideration of these issues are beyond our jurisdiction in this case. Clemency claims are committed to the wisdom of the executive branch."
Source: Montreal Gazette, January 21, 2012
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