Idaho corrections officials attempted to kill 73-year-old Thomas Creech late last month, but after an hour of repeated attempts to find a vein for its lethal injection drugs, they called it off. It was the state’s first execution attempt since 2012.
“We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution,” Creech’s lawyers said in a statement after the attempt, according to the New York Times. “This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution.”
His lawyers had warned that the state wasn’t prepared to carry out an execution when Creech’s death warrant was issued in October. Federal Defender Services of Idaho lawyer Deborah A. Czuba stated, “Given the shady pharmacies that the State has obtained the lethal drugs from for the past two Idaho executions, the State’s history of seeking mock death warrants without any means to carry them out, and the State’s misleading conduct around its readiness for an execution, we remain highly concerned about the measures the State resorted to this time to find a drug supplier.”
Their concerns were well-founded. “Three medical team members tried eight times through multiple limbs and appendages to establish IV access,” Corrections Director Josh Tewalt told a news conference afterward. “What they encountered in some instances was an access issue, but in others where they could establish access, it was a vein quality issue that made them not confident in their ability to administer chemicals through the IV site.
“This isn’t a ‘do it at any cost’ process… our first objective is to carry this out with dignity, professionalism, and respect.”
Tewalt said Creech’s death warrant has expired, and there is no time frame for when they will attempt to kill him again.
Creech has been on death row longer than any other person in the state’s history. He was convicted of five murders in three states. He was initially sentenced to death for killing two people in Idaho in 1974 but was resentenced to life in prison. In 1981, he was accused of killing another imprisoned person but was sentenced to death by a judge, not a jury. His lawyers had argued that his sentence should be stayed because in 2003, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne signed into law a bill that called for juries to sentence defendants in capital cases. They argued that his execution would violate the new law. His appeal was turned down by both the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
