US: Idaho set to execute one of the country’s longest serving death row inmates

Thomas Eugene Creech’s hour of death has been set, and it is fast approaching. On Wednesday morning, Idaho prison officials will ask the 73-year-old man if he would like to take a mild sedative to help calm him down before his execution at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise.

Then, at 10 a.m. local time, they will bring him to the execution chamber and strap him to a padded medical table. Defense lawyers and the warden will investigate any last-minute court order that would stop the execution of Creech, one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the US.

Skipping any legal restrictions, volunteers with medical training would insert a catheter into one of Creech’s veins. He or she will be given a chance to say his or her last words, and a spiritual advisor may pray with him or her. The state will then inject a drug to kill the man who has been convicted of five murders in three states and is suspected in several other killings.

Creech has been imprisoned since 1974 and was originally sentenced to death for the shooting deaths of John Wayne Bradford and Edward Thomas Arnold. However, that sentence was commuted to life in prison after the state’s sentencing law was found unconstitutional. Then, in 1983, he was sentenced to death for the murder of David Dale Jensen, who was 22, disabled and serving a sentence for car theft when Creech executed him at the Idaho State Penitentiary on May 13, 1981. He was beaten to death.

During Creech’s clemency hearing last month, Jensen’s family members described him as a gentle soul who loved hunting and being outdoors. Jensen’s daughter was only 4 years old at the time of his death, and she described how painful it was to grow up without a father, piecing together what she knows about her father from other people’s descriptions and memories. .

In court documents filed late last week, Idaho officials said Creech’s spiritual advisor would be allowed to stand next to Creech, placing his hand on his shoulder during his execution. Episcopal bishops will also be able to pray quietly at the creche, but will not be allowed to hold up their hands or make noise once the administration of the lethal injection chemical begins, according to court documents. According to the document, Creech will also be allowed to wear a crucifix, and his wife will be seated in the witness box where he will be able to make eye contact with her.

Creech’s supporters have pushed for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison without parole, saying he is a greatly changed man who has become a compassionate and supportive force inside the Idaho Maximum Security Institution cell block where he lives. Is. Several years ago he married the mother of a corrections officer, and former prison employees said he was known to write poetry and frequently express gratitude for the work done by corrections officers.

During his clemency hearing, Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jill Longhorst did not dispute that Creech could be polite and friendly with corrections officers. But she said he is a psychopath – a person who may be charming and likable but who lacks remorse and empathy for others.

Creech’s lawyers filed a late appeal in hopes of stopping his execution or commuting his sentence to life without parole. They included claims that his clemency hearing was unfair, that his execution was unconstitutional because he was sentenced by a judge rather than a jury, and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.

But so far the judges of the four courts who have reviewed the petitions have found no basis for leniency. Creech’s last chance hinges on a petition filed late Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court asking for a stay of execution so the high court can evaluate Creech’s claim that prosecutors lied during his clemency hearing. had spoken, which violated his due process rights.

In addition to the Idaho murders, Creech has been convicted of the 1974 murders of William Joseph Dean in Oregon and Vivian Grant Robinson in California, both in 1974. He was also charged with the murder of Sandra Jane Ramsmoose in Oregon that year, but the charge was later dropped pending review of his other murder convictions.

In 1973, Creech was tried for the murder of 70-year-old Paul Schrader in Tucson, Arizona, but was acquitted of the crime. Authorities still hold him responsible for Schrader’s death and say Creech provided information that led them to the bodies of two people near Las Vegas and one near Baggs, Wyoming.

Creech’s execution will be the second in the US this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The first incident occurred last month in Alabama, when Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first inmate to be executed using nitrogen gas. Alabama officials said the method would be humane and predicted death would occur within minutes, but Smith remained conscious for several minutes and was seen trembling and writhing in pain for at least two minutes.

Another execution in Texas is also scheduled for Wednesday – Ivan Cantu was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of his cousin, James Mosqueda, and his cousin’s girlfriend, Amy Kitchen. Cantu has said that he is innocent.

Idaho’s death penalty was established in 1864, about 26 years before the territory became a state. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 29 executions have been carried out since that time, including the state’s last execution in 1957. In the decades that followed, executions became rare. Although dozens of people have been sentenced to death since the 1970s, Creech will be only the fourth to be executed by the state since 1957, all of them by lethal injection.

Keith Eugene Wells, 31, was executed in 1994 for the murders of John Justad and Brandi Raines, committed in Boise just four years earlier; He had given up his appeals and sought the death penalty. Paul Ezra Rhodes was executed in 2011 for the 1987 murders of Stacey Dawn Baldwin and Susan Michelbacher in eastern Idaho. Rhodes was also convicted of the murder of Nolan Hayden that year, and authorities said they suspected him in other deaths as well. Richard Albert Leavitt was executed in 2012 for the 1984 murder of Danette Jean Elg in eastern Idaho.

After Creech’s execution, only seven people will remain on Idaho’s death row. A handful of people on death row in the state over the past 50 years have died of natural causes, and at least two have been acquitted of those crimes. The sentences of several others have been reduced on appeal.

Earlier this year, Idaho lawmakers considered adding the death penalty as a possible punishment for people convicted of indecent conduct with a child, but the legislation did not make it through the House of Representatives.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – The Associated Press)