By Ruth Brown, Idaho Reports
The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole denied a request for a second commutation hearing for Thomas Creech, whose execution date looms on Nov. 13.
The decision was made in a Tuesday executive session, not in an open public meeting. In a 5-1 vote, the Commission decided not to grant him the hearing, with 1 member recusing from the vote.
Creech’s request for a hearing came after being one of the only people in the country to survive an execution attempt. On Feb. 28, the medical team could not establish an IV line to carry out his execution by lethal injection and the Idaho Department of Correction called off his execution.
In Creech’s first hearing on Jan. 19, the commission voted 3-3 on whether to grant him a commutation recommendation. The tie vote means the recommendation failed. Commissioner Patrick McDonald recused himself from the hearing and would have been the tie-breaking vote.
Creech, 74, is on death row for the 1981 beating death of fellow inmate David Jensen in Ada County.
The basis of the request
Creech’s request for a second commutation hearing revolves around multiple issues – mercy, but also an issue brought by an Ada County deputy prosecutor in his first commutation hearing.
In his request for clemency, Creech’s attorneys say “the prosecutor told the Commission that it should deny a commutation because Mr. Creech had ‘gotten away with the murder of Daniel Ashton Walker’ in San Bernardino,” California. Creech has never been charged or convicted in the 1974 Walker homicide. His attorneys argue the accusation had never publicly been made against Creech until the commutation hearing.
Daniel Walker is still listed as a homicide cold case on the San Bernadino County Sheriff’s website.
Doug Walker, brother of Daniel Walker, agreed to speak to the Commission. He also wrote a letter requesting the hearing be granted, saying it wasn’t until Creech’s hearing that he’d heard about Creech being a suspect.
“Then on January 16, 2024, I start getting phone calls, first from (San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department) from cold case detective Justin Carty and then from Ada County prosecutor Jill Longhurst. And now they are saying they have a suspect, he confessed in 1974, but the confession was misfiled and they just found it recently,” Doug Walker wrote in the letter. “I have a lot of questions, which they either can’t or don’t want to answer. What I’m being told doesn’t seem to match what I know about Dan’s death. I want to see documents, I need more information.”
Creech’s counsel wrote in its application that granting a commutation hearing would create space for discovery. They also argue that attempting to execute Creech a second time is cruel and unusual punishment, although a district judge denied a constitutional claim on those grounds in September.
A plea for mercy
“He is the only person in American history who would be placed on a gurney, wheeled to an execution chamber, stabbed with needles, wheeled out, and then forced to go through the same nightmare again months later,” Creech’s attorneys wrote. “Is that the kind of history Idaho wants to make? There is no need for Idaho to rush into this morbid experiment.”
IDOC changed its execution policy in October to allow for a central vein to be accessed for execution by lethal injection, rather than just the peripheral veins they attempted to access on Creech in February. One day after IDOC announced the policy change, the state sought Creech’s latest death warrant.
Creech’s attorneys also argue that other states have done public inquiries after failed executions, unlike Idaho.
“Rather than following the lead of these more conscientious states, Idaho has decided to bury its head in the sand,” attorneys say in the application. “Not a single report has been issued about why Mr. Creech’s execution went off the rails only eight months ago. With so little transparency from the authorities, the public has no reason to trust that the state is discharging its responsibilities with the dignity and integrity that is necessary when it comes to life and death.”
Ruth Brown | Producer
Ruth Brown grew up in South Dakota and her first job out of college was covering the South Dakota Legislature. She’s since moved on to Idaho lawmakers. Brown spent 10 years working in print journalism, including newspapers such as the Idaho Statesman and Idaho Press, where she’s covered everything from the correctional system to health care issues. She joined Idaho Reports in 2021 and looks forward to telling stories about how state policy can impact the lives of regular Idahoans.