Albertan on death row watching Montana capital punishment debate

After spending half his life in the courts fighting a death sentence for the murder of two young cousins nearly 27 years ago, Albertan Ronald Smith could be spared from a lethal injection by an act of the Montana state legislature.

Montana is one of several states currently debating whether prisoners should be put to death for serious crimes. The state senate recently approved, by a vote of 27-23, a bill that would abolish capital punishment. It still needs to be passed by the state legislature and then receive the OK of Montana's governor.

Smith's lawyer says there's hope.

"We're halfway there with it having passed the senate," Greg Jackson said from his office in Helena, Mont. "It's always an uphill battle, but I do think there's a realistic chance of it happening this year."

Smith, now 51, initially requested the death penalty for fatally shooting two young men Harvey Mad Man Jr. and Thomas Running Rabbit while he was on a drunken road trip in 1982. But he later changed his mind and has been fighting for his life for a quarter of a century.

'I have to live with this'

"I have to live with this," Smith said in an interview with the Canadian Press last July. "I try to put it out of my mind as much as I can, but unfortunately, I wake up every morning, and it's a little hard to forget why I'm here."

Smith is one of two death row inmates at Montana State Prison and the only Canadian on death row in the United States. The federal Conservative government has steadfastly refused to intervene in his case by seeking his return to Canada.

There are 36 U.S. states that currently have death penalty laws. But several of them, including Tennessee, Illinois, Maryland and Missouri, are now debating whether to end the practice.

This is not the first time Montana has considered doing away with the death penalty. A similar bill passed in the state senate last year, but it never made it past a house committee so it could be voted on by the legislature.