Smith death-penalty case back in court
A legal challenge to how Montana carries out its death penalty is to go before a judge Wednesday for a death-row Canadian waiting to hear whether he will be granted clemency.
The american civil liberties Union filed a civil lawsuit on Ron Smith’s behalf in 2008 that argues the lethal injections the state uses to execute people are cruel and unusual punishment and violate the right to human dignity.
Atrial is scheduled for sept.4, but both sides are asking Judge Jeffrey Sherlock in Helena, Mont., to simply look at the evidence and make a decision immediately.
“We’re going to ask the judge to say yes or no as a matter of law and therefore there’s no need to put evidence on,” Ron Waterman, a lawyer for the civil liberties union, said. “What we’ve got from the discoveries that we’ve engaged in so far demonstrates that the protocol is just so deficient that it’s unconstitutional and the court can declare it unconstitutional as a matter of law,” he added. “I think the case is capable of being decided Wednesday in our favour and, quite frankly, that’s what I expect.”
Waterman said the judge could rule that lethal injections are unconstitutional or that they are fine the way they are. He could also decide to go ahead and sit through a full trial with evidence.
Whatever his ruling, Sherlock is likely to take his time to write a “fairly, succinct” decision which Waterman doesn’t expect until later this summer.
Smith, originally from Red Deer, Alta., pleaded guilty in 1983 to shooting Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Mad Man Jr. in the head with a sawed-off, 22-calibre rifle while he was high on drugs and alcohol. Their bodies were dumped in the woods near East Glacier, Mont. He refused a plea deal and asked for a death sentence, but later changed his mind.