Paul Ezra Rhoades is sentenced to die Nov. 18. It would be the second execution in Idaho since 1957.

RHOADES’ OPTIONS

Paul Ezra Rhoades has vigorously fought his convictions in the two decades since he was sent to death row. On Oct. 11, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Rhoades’ final appeal. But he still has other legal avenues.

He has filed a federal lawsuit against the state, saying Idaho's lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The state has asked the court to throw out that lawsuit.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Bush could decide to issue a stay of execution while the lawsuit works through the system. If he declines and the lawsuit isn’t resolved by Nov. 18, the execution might move forward.

Rhoades also could ask the Idaho State Parole Commission for clemency. If it decides to consider his request, it will likely schedule a hearing and publishnotice of a hearing for four weeks. It would make a recommendation to the governor; Gov. Butch Otter would have 30 days to decide.

Otter spokesman Jon Hanian said that, in general, the governor supports the death penalty. But he stressed that Otter has not yet considered the case. “He will weigh all the facts in this case when they are presented to him, and he will make his decision at that time.”

Department of Correction officials have been working for months to get the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution ready. Department Director Brent Reinke told the Board of Correction on Friday that an execution team is in place and practices regularly.

The Associated Press

IDAHO FALLS — On the day a judge gave the order for serial killer Paul Ezra Rhoades to die, the men who brought him to justice found little satisfaction in his looming execution.

Instead, the investigators and prosecutors who worked Rhoades’ cases emphasized their limited roles nearly a quarter-century ago in tracking, catching and convicting him.

“The case has come to its full destiny now,” Bonneville County Sheriff Paul Wilde said. “That’s the order of the court, not the order of the law-enforcement guys.”

Bonneville County Judge Jon Shindurling issued death warrants Wednesday for Rhoades, 54, for murdering Stacy Baldwin and Susan Michelbacher in 1987. Rhoades also received two life sentences for the second-degree murder of Idaho Falls convenience store clerk Nolan Haddon around the same time.

Rhoades’ execution is scheduled for Nov. 18. The last execution in Idaho took place in 1994, when Keith Wells gave up his federal appeals and asked to be put to death. The last execution in Idaho before that was 1957.

Idaho has 14 people on death row, including one woman, Robin Row of Boise, convicted of killing her husband and two children.

Late winter 1987 was an uneasy time in eastern Idaho. A series of kidnappings, rapes and murders that unfolded over a period of about three weeks had the area on edge. People suspected a serial killer was on the loose but investigators had yet to identify a suspect.

“There was a concern in the community. I mean everybody was concerned. Gun sales went up. People were very careful with what they were doing in the evening,” Wilde said. “You didn’t see a lot of females traveling alone.”

In late February of that year, Baldwin was on duty at a Blackfoot convenience store when Rhoades forced her into his pickup and drove her to a secluded area. He tried to sexually assault her, but she resisted and fled. Rhoades shot her in the back.

Wilde had served as a sheriff’s deputy for about 10 years when Michelbacher, a teacher at Eagle Rock Junior High School, was found dead in a patch of sagebrush and lava west of Idaho Falls. She had been kidnapped, raped and murdered.

Six days after Michelbacher went missing, investigators, led by Bonneville Sheriff’s detective Victor Rodriguez, tracked Rhoades to northern Nevada and arrested him. Rodriguez, who today works as a detective for the Nampa Police Department, called Rhoades’ apprehension “a major breakthrough for the community, because, if not, I believe he would have continued” his string of crimes.

He said the Sheriff’s Office and the Idaho Falls Police Department committed every possible resource to bringing in Rhoades.

With Rhoades in custody, the job of applying justice fell to the court system.

Bonneville County Prosecutor Kimball Mason led the prosecution in the Michelbacher case. Already busy prosecuting Rhoades for his crimes against Baldwin, Bingham County Prosecutor Tom Moss assisted.

Moss was no stranger to brutal and stomach-turning crimes, but even he wasn’t immune to these.

“These are difficult things to be involved in, but you have a job to do and you do the best you can,” Moss said.