'A two-year stay of execution': Montana legislature defeats bill to resume executions

Ronald Smith speaks with The Canadian Press in Deer Lodge, Mont. on Oct. 4, 2016. The clock has been reset for a Canadian who has been on death row in Montana for the past 42 years after an attempt to resume state executions was defeated by state legislators. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Bill Graveland

The clock has been reset for a Canadian who has been on death row in Montana for 42 years after state legislators defeated an attempt to resume executions.

Ronald Smith, 67, is originally from Red Deer, Alta., and has been on death row since 1983, a year after he and another man, high on LSD and alcohol, shot and killed two young Indigenous cousins near East Glacier, Mont.

All executions have been stayed in Montana since 2015 because the state requires the use of an “ultra-fast-acting barbiturate” that is no longer available.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock ruled that pentobarbital — the drug the state was planning to use — didn’t qualify as “ultra-fast-acting” and blocked the state from using it. There hasn’t been an execution in Montana since 2006.

A new bill, which was sponsored by Republican Rep. Shannon Maness, would have removed the “ultra-fast-acting” language, allowing the state to use “an intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death.”

The bill failed on the house floor in a 49-51 vote, with nine Republicans joining the Democrats and voting against it.

“I think enough people voted their conscience and decided that they couldn’t support a law that permitted an individual to be put to death in a completely inhumane manner,” said Alex Rate, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“I think plenty of folks generally have philosophical, religious or moral objections to the death penalty at large.”

It’s the third session in a row that the Montana legislature has considered bills to remove the “ultra-fast-acting” requirement.

In 2021, the bill fell two votes short in the senate, and in 2023, it failed by one vote in the senate.

“This was a positive step in the right direction. We haven’t seen a lot of glimmers of hope come out of this legislature, but every once in a while you get a vote like this and you are reminded that people are able to make compassionate choices,” Rate said.

“The clock resets. We go through another session without having amended the lethal injection statute, then we get a two-year stay of execution.”

The Montana Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, has been lobbying to have the death penalty abolished. Executive director Matt Brower said the group contacted all of the Republicans to ask that they vote against the bill.

“We were pleasantly surprised at the reaction we received from a number of them,” Brower said.

He said the group will be ready when the matter likely comes up again in two years, but he said many legislators have their minds set.

“They adhere to this law-and-order view and seem to be appealing to a certain segment of the electorate who support that.”

Smith and Rodney Munro admitted to marching Harvey Mad Man, 23, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, into the woods by a highway more than four decades ago. They shot each man in the head with a sawed-off .22-calibre rifle.

Smith was initially offered a plea deal that would have taken the death penalty off the table, but he rejected it. He pleaded guilty and asked to be put to death, but later changed his mind. He has had five execution dates set over the years. Each has been overturned.

Munro took the plea bargain, was eventually transferred to a prison in Canada and has been free since 1998.

In an interview in 2021, after a similar bill was defeated, Smith was far from ecstatic.

“A lot of people look at it and say, `Well at least you’re alive,' but I’m really not. I’m just sitting around like a bump on a log is all I’m doing, and after almost 40 years of this, anything is preferable,” Smith told The Canadian Press.

“I’ve hit that point where I’ve done enough of this. If [legislators are] not going to cut me a break, then go ahead and do away with me.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 10, 2025.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press