Ronald Allen Smith (born September 7, 1957) is a Canadian man who was sentenced to death in Montana for murdering two people.
[3] Judge Jeffrey Sherlock granted Smith a stay of execution so his civil lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection could be decided.
Seven months earlier, he, along with an accomplice, who were both under the influence of LSD, killed two Native American men who offered them a ride while hitchhiking.
They marched cousins Harvey Mad Man, 23, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, into the woods by the highway and shot them both in the head with a sawn-off .22-calibre rifle.
The court did not determine whether there is, generally, a legal duty on the government to help its citizens sentenced to death abroad; rather, the court based its decision on issues of procedural fairness, holding that before withdrawing support of Smith's clemency application, the government had a duty to consult fully with Smith and his legal advisors, followed by a fair and objective consideration of the appropriateness of applying any new policy to the facts of his case.