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

By Bill Graveland -CP-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…

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