Clemency for Smith? No way

Convicted double murderer Ronald Smith is requesting clemency, claiming he is repentant, but the way we see it he has had clemency for the last 30 years that he has spent on Montana’s death row.

Smith is expected to have a hearing before the state Board of Pardons and Parole, which will then make a recommendation to Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who will not be bound by the recommendation.

The governor will hear pleas from Smith’s family, but he should put more weight on the wishes of the victims’ family members, who have in the past asked that Smith not be granted clemency.

In 1982, Smith shot Harvey Mad Man, 24, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, in the head, one after another, in a wooded area near Marias Pass. Long after he admitted the heinous crimes and was convicted, he remained entirely unrepentant and even requested the death penalty.

There is arguably a very high bar of circumstances to be met for a death penalty conviction in Montana, most recently exemplified by the Flathead County Attorneys Office withdrawing a motion for the death penalty against Tyler Miller, the man who brutally executed his ex-girlfriend and her daughter on Christmas Day, 2010.

Schweitzer told family members of Mad Man and Running Rabbit in 2007 that he is “sworn to uphold the laws of Montana.”

Well, that’s what this is all about. Montana’s death penalty was in place then and it’s in place now, and Smith is on the hook for his lawful conviction and subsequent legal failures in an obviously overdrawn appeals process.

Thirty years? That makes a mockery of Montana law, and that’s reason enough for clemency to be denied. Those who oppose the death penalty by all means can pursue an effort to have it legally banned in Montana, but that’s not the case right now.

The citizens of Montana and the victims’ families deserve justice and closure with the execution of Ronald Smith.