Idaho inmate on death row wants new clemency hearing after tie

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BOISE, Idaho – An Idaho man scheduled to be executed at the end of the month is asking a federal court to temporarily halt his lethal injection and schedule a new clemency hearing after previous votes were tied.

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Thomas Eugene Creech is Idaho's longest serving death row inmate. He was serving time after being convicted of two murders in Valley County in 1974, and was sentenced to death in 1981 for killing an inmate with a battery-filled sock.

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Last month, the state parole board voted 3-3 on Creech's request to commute his sentence to life without parole after one member recused himself from hearing the case. Under state rules, a majority of board members must vote in favor of the pardon to send the proposal to the governor.

But this is not a guarantee either. The state also allows the governor to reject clemency proposals, and Gov. Brad Little said last week that he has “no intention of taking any action that would stop or delay Creech's execution.”

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“Thomas Creech is a convicted serial killer responsible for extremely violent acts,” Little said in a statement, later adding: “His legal and just sentence must be served as ordered by the court. Justice has been delayed long enough.”

Ada County Deputy District Attorney Jill Longhurst described Creech as a sociopath with no regard for human life during the parole hearing. He noted his long criminal record, which includes murder convictions in Oregon and California. Another murder charge in Oregon was dropped by prosecutors because he was sentenced to four life sentences.

Sometimes Creech claimed to have killed several others.

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“The facts underlying this case could not have been more horrific,” wrote then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 1993, upholding Idaho's law allowing defendants to be sentenced to death. The ruling came after Creech appealed his conviction, arguing the statute was unconstitutional.

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“Thomas Creech confessed to killing or participating in the killing of at least 26 people,” O'Connor continued. “The bodies of 11 of his victims – shot, stabbed, beaten or strangled – were found in seven states.”

Creech's defense attorneys say the number of murders attributed to him is greatly exaggerated and that Creech, 73, has changed in his decades behind bars.

Creech was a positive influence on young inmates and went 28 years without a single disciplinary infraction before being booked once in 2022 for “a misunderstanding involving a card game,” Jonah Horwitz, an attorney with the Idaho federal defender's office, said during the pardon hearing.

Creech has found support in his commutation bid from some seemingly unlikely sources, including a former prison nurse, a former prosecutor and the judge who sentenced him to death.

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Judge Robert Newhouse told the parole board last year that it would serve no purpose to execute Creech, who has been on death row for 40 years. Doing so now would only be an act of revenge, he said in the petition.

In a federal appeal seeking a new clemency hearing, Creech's defense attorneys say their client was unfairly disadvantaged by the absence of one council member. Normally, a defendant would have to convince a simple majority to win a clemency recommendation, but if one person disappeared, it was two-thirds of the panel, his lawyers said.

Another board member should have been removed to avoid a tie vote, or someone else should have been appointed to fill the seventh seat, they said.

Creech has two appeals in other matters pending before the Idaho Supreme Court and has appealed another case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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