Cdn on death row says he\'s at peace

Tag : Whole Rabbit

DEER LODGE, Mont. - For a man who's spent half of his life awaitingdeath by lethal injection for the murder of two young cousins 26years ago, Ronald Smith, formerly of Red Deer, Alta., seemsremarkably at peace with his lot in life.
A troubled teen who first got into trouble at age 15, spent time inan adult prison by age 16, and was sentenced to death in Montanafor fatally shooting two young men while on a drunken road trip in1982, he has been fighting for his life for a quarter of a century.
Smith and friend Rodney Munro had been hitchhiking from Red Deer toMexico. Once in Montana, they were picked up by Harvey Mad Man Jr.and Thomas Running Rabbit.
Smith and Munro eventually kidnapped the two and marched them intoa wooded area where Munro is described as having stabbed one ofthem, while Smith shot them both with a sawed-off shotgun.
"I have to live with this. I try to put it out of my mind as muchas I can but unfortunately I wake up every morning and it's alittle hard to forget why I'm here," said Smith, 50, in aninterview Monday with The Canadian Press at Montana State Prison
"People think that after all this time it's all good and this isn'teven a memory but there's no getting away from it."
Smith, clad in a bright orange jumpsuit, looked much as he did 26years ago - shoulder-length brown hair, a moustache and goatee. Hewas brought into the tiny cell by two burly prison guards, hishands cuffed at his waist.
He's one of two death row inmates at the prison and the onlyCanadian on death row in the United States.
The state prison, at the foot of the blue, snow-capped RockyMountains, is surrounded by five-metre high metal fences cappedwith razor sharp barbed wire. Armed guards keep a vigil on thetowers while the cement maximum security wing of the facility isset off by itself in one corner.
Although he originally asked to be executed, Smith later changedhis mind and has been fighting his death sentence for over 20years.
"I was an alcoholic and emotionally unbalanced and I'm neither ofthose anymore. I've been forced to face my demons and that's howyou deal with it.
"If you have any brains at all, you face your demons and become abetter person."
Yet Smith, who has a dagger tattoo on his left forearm - a reminderof his study of the occult many years ago - says he's ready to facedeath.
"Well, if there is a God, he knows I was screwed up and he eitheraccepts that or he doesn't so but I don't necessarily believe inthe whole God thing so there's another reason not to be scared," headded.
Smith hopes his lawyers will eventually prevail and that hissentence will either be commuted to life in prison or he will beallowed to return to Canada to serve out the rest of his time.
He and his supporters, along with the state of Montana, were caughtoff guard when Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announced theCanadian government would no longer seek clemency for Smith or anyother mass or multiple murderer facing the death penalty in ademocratic country.
Canada hasn't had a state-sanctioned execution since 1962, and thefederal government has habitually opposed the death penalty abroadin cases involving Canadians.
"The Canadian government had taken a more active role to see ifthere was something they could do to help me out," Smith said.
"Then just out of the blue, all of a sudden they're not going totake an active role but they're not going to do anything at all. Itwas a little bit of a kick in the head."
Smith's lawyer, Greg Jackson, said his client was very despondentwhen that happened.
"The Canadians had firmly led us to believe that they supportedhim. For them to reverse themselves was just unfathomable," he saidoutside the prison.
Smith is resentful that his co-accused, Rodney Munro, entered aplea bargain that saw him later transferred to Canada, and that thedetails of who killed the men were never explored in a courtroom.
"I'm not saying I'm a nice person but if there's two of us and oneof us is already on the street how does that make me worse?" askedSmith.
"He has been out since 1997. That's another thing that's a littlebit aggravating is that apparently Day and (Stephen) Harper haven'tstopped to think that there is a fall partner and he's already outso what? Is he better than I am?"
Montana State Prison has had three executions since 1995. LindaMoodry has been at the prison for the past 26 years and said Smithhas been a model prisoner.
"He's very decent to deal with and respectful," the administrationworker said. "He's probably in his cell 23 hours a day."