Idaho death row prisoner seeks clemency review, with support of cold-case victim’s family
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Kevin Fixler, Idaho Statesman
BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Attorneys for Idaho death row prisoner Thomas Creech, who is under a death warrant and awaits his scheduled execution next month, asked Tuesday for a new hearing so the state’s parole board can reconsider dropping his sentence to life in prison.
His application for the hearing is supported by the family of one of Creech’s purported victims, a case that earlier this year helped prosecutors prevent the convicted murderer from receiving a reduced sentence. Creech’s attorneys said in a court filing that assertions made by the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office about their client’s involvement in a 50-year-old cold case — the killing of a man named Daniel A. Walker in Southern California — amounted to “false evidence.”
In recent months, Creech’s attorneys with the Federal Defender Services of Idaho said they’ve been able to determine that local police in California investigated their client at the time of Walker’s death and ultimately ruled out Creech as a suspect. Now, Creech seeks a “fair opportunity to fully challenge the allegations” at another hearing in front of the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole, his attorneys said in a statement Tuesday.
Walker’s younger brother, Doug Walker, submitted a signed letter of support that accompanied Creech’s application filed with the parole board.
“We are concerned that we were manipulated into participating in a hearing where the stakes were as high as they can get, namely the death penalty, and that this resulted in false statements being made that corrupted the Commission’s decision-making process,” Doug Walker wrote.
Under Idaho Administrative Rules, prisoners may ask for such a review only once a year — with the exception of capital cases, Creech’s attorneys noted in his application. The state’s parole board reviewed his case in January.
The parole board will consider Creech’s application in closed session at its general meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 29, Christine Starr, the board’s executive director, said Tuesday in an email to the Idaho Statesman.
“If the commission grants Mr. Creech another hearing, it will be on the merits of the recently filed petition,” she said.
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At a new hearing, Creech also aims to argue that a second execution attempt would be cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of his constitutional rights, his attorneys wrote. An Ada County judge last month dismissed the same legal argument, which is now on appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court.
The request for a new clemency hearing is the latest maneuver from Creech’s legal team to hamper an unprecedented second execution attempt in Idaho of the same prisoner after state officials failed to fulfill Creech’s death sentence earlier this year. Creech also has other active appeals before the state’s federal court system, with stays of execution filed there and the state’s highest court as of Tuesday evening.
One of those federal lawsuits names the parole board and elected Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts as defendants. A federal judge was recently removed from overseeing the case because of her longstanding friendship with Bennetts.
Creech, 74, is the state’s longest-serving death row prisoner after almost 50 years of incarceration. He remains sentenced to death for the May 1981 beating death of fellow maximum security prisoner David Jensen. Creech also was sentenced to death for the November 1974 murders of two men in Valley County, but later resentenced to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not make the death penalty mandatory for first-degree murder convictions.
Victim’s brother still seeks justice a half-century later
The state’s parole board held an all-day clemency hearing for Creech in January. At that hearing, the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office opposed a reduced sentence for Creech, saying he was responsible for no fewer than 11 murders across the western U.S. Creech has been convicted of five murders, including the three in Idaho, which has led state officials to label him a serial killer.
Prosecutors said one of the other killings was Walker’s in October 1974. They alleged to the parole board that Creech “got away with this murder” and several others, without offering any specific evidence concerning Walker. Clemency hearing rules do not permit objections or arguments between the two sides.
Creech has never been charged in the case, and he and his attorneys have repeatedly denied his involvement in Walker’s death. Creech did so directly to the Statesman in a June phone interview from the prison.
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In a news release immediately after the hearing, Bennetts’ office also characterized the Walker cold case as “solved” and identified Creech as the culprit “after law enforcement’s thorough investigation.”
“The problem is that none of that is true,” Doug Walker wrote in his support letter. “The cold case wasn’t solved. There was no ‘thorough investigation.’ ”
Bennetts, who is up for reelection in a couple of weeks, and her office did not respond to a Statesman request for comment Tuesday. Bennetts’ office previously deferred comment about the Walker case to the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office in San Bernardino County, which together investigated his death.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office told the Statesman she would look into the matter. The DA’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
In January, with one member recusing himself, the parole board voted 3-3 on Creech’s request for a reduced sentence, a tie that upheld his death sentence. At the time, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, who has the final say on clemency decisions in the state, said in a statement that part of his job is to follow the law and ensure criminal sentences are carried out as ordered.
“Thomas Creech is a convicted serial killer responsible for acts of extreme violence,” Little said. “As governor, I have zero intention of taking any action that would halt or delay Creech’s execution. His lawful and just sentence must be carried out as ordered by the court. Justice has been delayed long enough.”
Creech was served with a death warrant the next day, which scheduled his execution for late February.
But at Creech’s planned execution, the prison’s execution team was unable to find a suitable vein for a lethal injection IV at eight different points of his body, and prison leadership called it off after almost an hour. It was the first time in Idaho history that the state failed to execute a prisoner, with Bennetts and Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador each on hand as state witnesses.
With Labrador’s help, Idaho approved a firing squad as a backup execution method last year, but the state has yet to renovate the prison’s existing execution chamber to accommodate that option. Prison officials last week told the Statesman the construction project will cost nearly $1 million to complete.
With Creech’s latest death warrant active — his 13th since his first death sentence in 1976 — his attorneys are seeking to stave off a repeat attempt on his life by lethal injection on Nov. 13. They’re now using prosecutors’ uncorroborated statements about Creech’s involvement in Walker’s death to request reconsideration.
”Independently and extraordinarily, the family and friends of Mr. Walker are also requesting a clemency hearing to allow them to resolve lingering questions and doubts they have about whether Mr. Creech is really responsible for Daniel’s murder,” Creech’s attorneys wrote.
Walker’s brother, who published a book about the unsolved case, previously told the Statesman that he believed Creech likely killed his brother. But he said Tuesday that he continues to pursue justice and wants to ensure there’s enough time to know precisely who is responsible.
“It’s not a case of questioning Thomas Creech’s guilt in Dan’s case,” Doug Walker said in a text message. “Guilt or innocence is determined in a court of law. In a way, Dan has never had his day in court. We are asking for more time to do further investigation in the interest of justice and on behalf of my brother Dan.”