Killer's court hearing moved to Deer Lodge

A hearing to set an execution date for convicted double murderer Ronald Allen Smith has been moved to the Powell County Courthouse in Deer Lodge on Nov. 3.

District Judge John W. Larson on Monday had scheduled the hearing for the Granite County Courthouse in Philipsburg.

An amended order submitted by Larson Wednesday switched the location to Deer Lodge after space became available at the courthouse there.

Smith, a 53-year-old Alberta native believed to be the only Canadian on death row in the United States, is being held in Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge.

He was sentenced to die for the 1982 murders of Browning cousins Harvey Mad Man, 24, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20.

The Browning men, who had picked up Smith and two other men while they were hitchhiking, were marched into the woods off U.S. 2 near Marias Pass and shot in the head with a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle.

Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of deliberate homicide and two counts of aggravated kidnapping in Flathead District Court in 1983.

He initially asked for the death penalty but reversed course in 1984 and has been fighting the death penalty ever since.

Since then, Smith has exhausted all of his appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case, meaning the only way Smith can avoid the death penalty is to appeal to Gov. Brian Schweitzer for clemency.