Idaho parole board denies new clemency review for death row prisoner awaiting execution
The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole on Tuesday denied a request for another clemency hearing from the state’s longest-serving death row prisoner, one in a series of last-ditch efforts by Thomas Creech to stop his execution next month — the second attempt this year to put him to death.
The state’s parole board met in closed session Tuesday afternoon to review Creech’s petition filed last week seeking a second hearing to consider reducing his sentence to life in prison. The seven-member board voted 5-1 against Creech, with Commissioner Patrick McDonald recusing. McDonald, a former longtime Idaho State Police officer, has also recused from prior decisions related to Creech.
Creech’s attorneys alleged that the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office presented “false evidence” at a clemency hearing held for him earlier this year when it asserted he was responsible for a man’s death in a 50-year-old cold case in Southern California. The parole board later voted in a 3-3 tie, which upheld Creech’s death sentence.
The next day, the state scheduled its first attempt to execute Creech, which failed when the execution team couldn’t find a suitable vein to establish an IV for lethal injection. Creech was returned to death row, where he waited on the state’s next move for nearly eight months.
Prosecutors provided no specific evidence at Creech’s prior clemency hearing of his involvement in the cold case, and he’s never been charged in the killing of Daniel A. Walker, 21, for which he denies any knowledge. Walker’s brother, Doug Walker, recently supported Creech’s push for a new clemency hearing, and submitted a signed letter stating he was concerned his family was “manipulated into participating” by the prosecutor’s office to provide a victim’s impact statement for the hearing.
Creech’s attorneys with the Federal Defender Services of Idaho declined an Idaho Statesman request for comment on the parole board’s ruling.
Separately, the legal nonprofit is suing the parole board and Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts in federal court on the same grounds. The Idaho federal judge presiding over that case was forced by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to recuse herself after declining to do so based on her decades-long friendship with Bennetts.
The case has been reassigned to a visiting federal judge from Arizona, who is now overseeing Creech’s federal appeals. On Monday, Doug Walker also submitted a “friend of the court” filing — known as an amicus brief — in the case, supporting a stay of execution for Creech.
Bennetts, who is up for reelection next week, ignored a request for comment from the Statesman last week about Creech’s request for a new clemency hearing. On Tuesday, after the parole board’s ruling was issued, Bennetts declined to comment through an office spokesperson.
Appeal awaits Idaho Supreme Court ruling
Creech, in attempts to avoid his Nov. 13 execution by lethal injection, has two other pending federal appeals. In yet another appeal awaiting a ruling from the Idaho Supreme Court, his attorneys with the State Appellate Public Defender’s Office have argued that a second execution attempt would violate Creech’s constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
Creech is the first Idaho prisoner to survive an execution, and just the sixth prisoner in U.S. history to survive one by lethal injection, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center. Two of those survivors, both in Alabama, were put to death in follow-up executions earlier this year.
The state’s highest court last week denied Creech’s request for a stay of execution in the same case. In that decision, the court also chose to rule on his appeal solely on its legal briefs — before they were filed — rather than hold a hearing for oral arguments.
Creech, 74, has been incarcerated in Idaho for almost 50 years after his convictions for five murders, including three victims in Idaho. His standing death sentence stems from Creech pleading guilty to the beating death of fellow maximum security prisoner David D. Jensen, 23, in May 1981.
Before that, Creech was convicted of the November 1974 shooting deaths of two men in Valley County. In a June phone interview with the Statesman, Creech acknowledged killing Edward T. Arnold, 34, and John W. Bradford, 40, in the incident. Creech, after he was imprisoned in Idaho, was later convicted of the shooting death of a man in Oregon and strangulation of a man in Northern California.
This story was originally published October 29, 2024 at 4:47 PM.
