He survived an execution attempt in Idaho. Attorneys are trying to stop another

Thomas Creech, left, is Idaho’s longest-service death row prisoner, including after a failed execution by lethal injection in February 2024. He married his wife, LeAnn Creech, in 1998 while incarcerated. Federal Defender Services of Idaho | Courtesy photo BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Lawyers for Idaho’s longest-serving death row prisoner are renewing their efforts to spare him from execution after the state failed last year to put him to death by lethal injection. Thomas Creech, 74, has remained in limbo for more than 18 months since prison officials called off his execution in February 2024 following nearly 50 years of incarceration. Members of the execution team were unable to find a vein in his body suitable for an IV to deliver the lethal dose of drugs. The experience, which included a judge signing another death warrant for Creech last year, left him with post-traumatic stress disorder and “profound psychological damage,” according to a court filing that cited the doctor who diagnosed him. The findings made up the basis for arguments from Creech’s attorneys that a second execution attempt of their client would represent cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. RELATED | Judge postpones execution of serial killer Thomas Creech months after he survived a botched execution attempt A federal judge rejected the claim and lifted a stay of execution for Creech, the first of a series of legal defeats for him this month. His attorneys also tried arguing the constitutional rights case in the Idaho Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled against them last year. Attorneys with the Federal Defender Services of Idaho now requested that the judge reinstate the stay of execution. The lawyers argued Creech shouldn’t face execution while they appeal his alleged constitutional violation case with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court. RELATED | Idaho Supreme Court rules on Thomas Creech’s last state appeal to avoid death penalty Senior U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow, who lifted the latest stay of execution in the case, also dismissed another federal case filed by Creech. In that, his attorneys alleged state prosecutors presented false evidence, including that Creech committed a Southern California cold-case murder, at a clemency hearing last year, when Idaho’s parole board deadlocked over whether to drop Creech’s sentence to life in prison. A tie vote means the death sentence remains in place, and a death warrant for his execution was issued the next day. Snow dismissed the last of Creech’s three federal cases because, he wrote in the ruling, it is unclear whether Idaho would attempt to put the longtime prisoner to death again, and, if so, which execution method the state might use. Idaho is transitioning from lethal injection to a firing squad for carrying out the death penalty. The state has not executed a prisoner in more than 13 years. A federal injunction barring Idaho from carrying out the death penalty has been in place since April. The ruling came after three news outlets, including the Idaho Statesman, sued the state prison system for improved access to the concealed room where lethal injection drugs are prepared and administered in executions. Shortly thereafter, the Idaho’s prison system suspended all executions likely until at least early 2026 as it retrofits its execution chamber located at the maximum security prison south of Boise, where Creech and other death row prisoners live. If the state eventually seeks another death warrant for Creech, it would reopen the door for his federal lawsuit over execution methods, Snow wrote. RELATED | Idaho starts remodel for the firing squad chamber. Here’s what it’ll cost Creech’s attorneys declined to comment to the Statesman. The Idaho Attorney General’s Office, which defends the state against death row prisoner appeals, did not return a request for comment concerning the latest court rulings. Idaho prosecutors suspect Creech of at least 11 killings Creech has now been imprisoned in Idaho for more than a half-century. He was convicted of murder in the 1974 shooting deaths of two men in Valley County — Edward T. Arnold, 34, and John W. Bradford, 40 — and given the death penalty. His sentence was reduced to life in prison a few years later when the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited automatic death sentences following a conviction. But in 1981, he killed again. Creech bludgeoned to death fellow prisoner David D. Jensen, 23, who was partially disabled at the time. Creech pleaded guilty and was sentenced to return to death row, where he has remained for 43 years. Today, Creech is one of nine prisoners on Idaho’s death row. Creech also was convicted of killing two other men, one in Oregon and one in Northern California. Prosecutors suspect him of killing several others across the Western U.S. “I’m not going to act like I’m a saint or angel of any kind,” Creech told the Statesman last year in a phone interview. “I’ve done some bad things, hurt people, hurt my family. I’m very remorseful, and not that person I was 30 years ago.” In 1996, a prison guard introduced Creech to his mother, LeAnn. The couple wed two years later. She attended his scheduled execution last year, and Creech told the Statesman he was devastated after he saw the fear on his wife’s face through the observation window as he laid on the gurney in the execution chamber. As part of the federal lawsuit, Creech’s attorneys argued that the pain he knows another execution attempt would cause his wife has created unreasonable trauma that meets the threshold of cruel and unusual punishment and in violation of his constitutional rights. For the state, LaMont Anderson, capital litigation chief in the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, countered during oral arguments in front of Snow in December that he was sympathetic to the issue. But he had a solution. “When counsel talks about the wife and talks about things that the state can do to alleviate this so-called deliberate indifference,” Anderson told the court, “Creech’s wife doesn’t have to be at the second execution, and that alleviates that problem.” After 27 years of marriage, which included enduring Idaho’s failed attempt to execute her husband, LeAnn Creech, 77, died in late December. Prosecutor LaMont Anderson, left, capital litigation chief in the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, argues death penalty appeals on behalf of the state, including before the Idaho Supreme Court. Justice Gregory Moeller helped oversee one such hearing in June 2022. | Kevin Fixler, Idaho Statesman Creech long denied involvement in the deaths of the two men in Valley County — the original reason he was imprisoned in Idaho. Instead, he testified at trial that he killed 42 people by the time he turned 24 years old, but Arnold and Bradford were not among them. But in June 2024, after the failed execution, Creech admitted to the Statesman that he killed the two men. Creech’s attorneys have said he far exaggerated the number of people he killed. At his clemency hearing last year, Creech didn’t provide the number of victims beyond his five murder convictions, though state prosecutors said they believe the total is no fewer than 11 homicide victims.The post He survived an execution attempt in Idaho. Attorneys are trying to stop another appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com