08 November 2024 :

November 6, 2024 - Idaho. After surviving a botched execution attempt in February, Thomas Creech was scheduled for execution a second time on November 13 in Idaho. On Wednesday, November 6, a federal district court issued a stay of execution to allow more time to consider Mr. Creech’s legal claims. The Idaho Department of Corrections announced that “execution preparations have been suspended” and the execution warrant will expire.
Mr. Creech, 74, is the longest-serving prisoner on Idaho’s death row. On February 28, the execution team tried eight times to set an IV line to administer lethal injection drugs to Mr. Creech, inserting needles into his hands, feet, and legs, but each time his veins collapsed. The execution—the first the state had attempted in 12 years—was eventually called off after over an hour. Mr. Creech’s attorneys had warned that his age and medical conditions, including Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and edema, could impact circulation and vein quality. “Mr. Creech has spent more than 50 years in prison and is now suffering from significant mental health issues because of the trauma he was subjected to when the state failed to execute him,” said Deborah Czuba, his attorney. “We hope the courts will recognize the cruel and unusual level of punishment that this remorseful and harmless old man has already been through, and stop a needless execution.” 
Yet the state scheduled Mr. Creech for lethal injection a second time and amended its execution protocol to allow officials to use a more invasive IV procedure. Under the new protocol, the execution team may access larger veins in the neck, groin, chest, or upper arm to run a catheter to a person’s heart. The state spent over $300,000 this summer to build a new execution preparation room, and nearly a million dollars in total to create a secured facility for executions by firing squad, which Idaho legislators authorized as an alternative execution method in 2023. The state spent an additional $100,000 to purchase lethal injection drugs for the new attempt. Yesterday (November 5) the Idaho Supreme Court held that a 2nd execution attempt of Thomas Creech does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment or imposing multiple punishments for the same offense.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/idaho-federal-judge-grants-stay-of-execution-for-thomas-creech-defense-asks-court-to-bar-death-penalty-for-bryan-kohberger
https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/law-justice/2024-11-05/idaho-supreme-court-execute-creech-death-penalty

04 June 2024 :

June 1, 2024 - Idaho. Chad Daybell, 55, White, sentenced to death on June 1
The man is accused of killing his ex-wife, Tammy Daybell, and his new partner's two children, ages 7 and 16, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan.
The boys' mother, Lori Vallow, has already been sentenced to 3 life terms to be served consecutively, and is awaiting trial in Arizona for the murder of one of her former husbands, Charles Vallow, who was also the father of the youngest victim.
An Ada County jury unanimously agreed that imposing the death penalty would be a just resolution to the triple-murder case. Judge Steven W. Boyce of the Seventh Judicial District said a sentencing hearing would begin on Friday morning.
The case began in 2019, when a family member called police. Investigators soon realized both children were missing. Nearly a year later, their remains were found buried on Chad Daybell’s property.
The mother of the children is Lori Vallow Daybell, whom Chad Daybell married shortly after his wife’s death. Vallow Daybell was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison without parole in July 2023, and is now awaiting trial in Arizona in connection with the shooting death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. Charles Vallow was JJ’s father.
Mr. Daybell and Ms. Vallow Daybell, now 50, pleaded not guilty to the charges. They married in 2019, shortly after his wife, Tammy Daybell, was found dead at her home in Idaho. At first, her death was attributed to natural causes, but after Ms. Vallow’s children disappeared, the authorities began an investigation that extended into a re-examination of her death. An autopsy later attributed the cause to asphyxiation. Tammy Daybell’s death occurred about a month after Mr. Daybell had increased the amount of coverage in a life insurance policy for her.
During a nearly two-month-long trial, prosecutors said Chad Daybell promoted unusual spiritual beliefs including apocalyptic prophecies and tales of possession by evil spirits in order to justify the killings. Daybell’s defense attorney, John Prior, argued during the trial that there wasn’t enough evidence to tie Daybell to the killings, and suggested Vallow Daybell’s older brother, Alex Cox, was the culprit. Cox died in late 2019 and was never charged, and Vallow Daybell was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

https://apnews.com/video/crime-idaho-juries-homicide-legal-proceedings-e2a99c0ac7fa4cd7ba93d2f54c12dd30

28 February 2024 :

February 28, 2024 - Idaho. Idaho halts execution of Thomas Eugene Creech after 8 failed attempts to insert IV line
Creech was wheeled into the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution on a gurney at 10 a.m.
Three medical team members tried eight times to establish an IV, Corrections Director Josh Tewalt told a news conference afterward. In some cases, they couldn’t access the vein, and in others they could but had concerns about vein quality. They attempted sites in his arms, legs, hands and feet. At one point, a medical team member left to gather more supplies. The warden announced he was halting the execution at 10:58 a.m.
(On the Creech case see also HoC 25/02/2024)

https://apnews.com/article/idaho-execution-creech-murders-serial-killer-91a12d78e9301adde77e6076dbd01dbb

26 February 2024 :

February 25, 2024 - Idaho. Idaho is set to execute Thomas Eugene Creech, a serial killer.
For nearly 50 years, Idaho's prison staffers have been serving Thomas Eugene Creech 3 meals a day, checking on him during rounds and taking him to medical appointments.
This Wednesday, some of Idaho's prison staffers will be asked to kill him. Barring any last-minute stay, the 73-year-old, one of the nation's longest-serving death row inmates, will be executed by lethal injection for killing a fellow prisoner with a battery-filled sock in 1981.
Creech's killing of David Jensen, a young, disabled man who was serving time for car theft, was his last in a broad path of destruction that saw Creech convicted of 5 murders in 3 states. He is also suspected of at least a half-dozen others.
Creech's attorneys have filed a flurry of last-minute appeals in four different courts in recent months trying to halt the execution, which would be Idaho's first in 12 years. They have argued Idaho's refusal to say where its execution drug was obtained violates his rights and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.
A 3-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected an argument that Creech should not be executed because he was sentenced by a judge rather than a jury.
It’s not clear how many people Creech, an Ohio native, killed before he was imprisoned in Idaho in 1974. At one point he claimed to have killed as many as 50 people, but many of the confessions were made under the influence of now discredited “truth serum” drugs and filled with outlandish tales of occult-driven human sacrifice and contract killings for a powerful motorcycle gang.
Official estimates vary, but authorities tend to focus on 11 deaths. Creech's attorneys did not immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press.
In 1973, Creech was tried for the murder of 70-year-old Paul Schrader, a retiree who was stabbed to death in the Tucson, Arizona, motel where Creech was living. Creech used Schrader's credit cards and vehicle to leave Tucson for Portland, Oregon. A jury acquitted him, but authorities say they have no doubt he was responsible.
The next year, Creech was committed to Oregon State Hospital for a few months. He earned a weekend pass and traveled to Sacramento, California, where he killed Vivian Grant Robinson at her home. Creech then used Robinson's phone to let the hospital know he would return a day late. That crime went unsolved until Creech later confessed while in custody in Idaho; he wasn't convicted until 1980.
After he was released from the Oregon State Hospital, Creech got a job at a church in Portland doing maintenance work. He had living quarters at the church, and it was there he shot and killed 22-year-old William Joseph Dean in 1974. Authorities believe he then fatally shot Sandra Jane Ramsamooj at the Salem grocery store where she worked.
Creech was finally arrested in November 1974. He and a girlfriend were hitchhiking in Idaho when they were picked up by two painters, Thomas Arnold and John Bradford. Creech shot both men to death and the girlfriend cooperated with authorities.
While in custody, Creech confessed to a number of other killings. Some appeared to be fabricated, but he provided information that led police to the bodies of Gordon Lee Stanton and Charles Thomas Miller near Las Vegas, and of Rick Stewart McKenzie, 22, near Baggs, Wyoming.
Creech initially was sentenced to death for killing the painters. But after the U.S. Supreme Court barred automatic death sentences in 1976, his sentence was converted to life in prison.
That changed after he killed Jensen, who was serving time for car theft.
Creech's supporters say decades spent in a prison cell have left him changed. One death row prison staffer told the parole board last month that while she cannot begin to understand the suffering Creech dealt to others, he is now a person who makes positive contributions to his community. His execution date will be difficult for everyone at the prison, she said, especially those who have known him for years.
“I don’t want to be dismissive of what he did and the countless people who were impacted by that in real significant ways," said Tewalt, the corrections director. “At the same time, you also can’t be dismissive of the effect it’s going to have on people who have established a relationship with him. On Thursday, Tom’s not going to be there. You know he’s not coming back to that unit — that’s real. It would be really difficult to not feel some sort of emotion about that.”

https://apnews.com/article/creech-idaho-death-row-serial-killer-execution-b742b8296d6609956708cb45fb6e5ebb

15 February 2024 :

February 13, 2024 - Idaho. House OKs HB 515 expanding death penalty to child rapists
Passed 57-11 mainly along party lines Tuesday, House Bill 515 amends the statute covering lewd conduct with child under age 12 with aggravating circumstances to carry a penalty of capital punishment.
The move positions the state to join Florida in adopting a controversial measure that conflicts directly with Supreme Court precedent saying such executions would violate the Eighth Amendment.
The bill’s sponsor is Rep. Bruce Skaug, a Republican. Legislation now goes to the Senate for consideration.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article285399932.html
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/complete-waste-of-taxpayer-dollars-idaho-legislators-advance-bill-to-execute-child-rapists-in-gamble-that-supreme-court-will-uphold-similar-florida-law/