US appeals court panel declines to delay execution of one of longest-serving death row inmates

BOISE, Idaho — A U.S. appeals court panel on Friday declined to delay Idaho’s scheduled execution next week of one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates. “This feels like it’s a delay for delay’s sake and it’s a shot in the dark.” The Idaho attorney general’s office opposed Creech’s request for a stay, arguing that Creech could have raised the issue long ago but waited until the last minute to try to forestall the execution: “This is a claim that was basically being held in the back pocket of Creech’s counsel, waiting until there was an actual execution that had been scheduled,” said Deputy Attorney General LaMont Anderson. “It was clear, once Ring was decided, that the small number of executions of judge-sentenced capital defendants would decrease in the years to follow as those defendants were executed, were granted clemency, or died of natural causes, or as their States imposed broader restrictions on executions generally.” In other words, someone was always going to be the subject of the last execution from a judge-imposed sentence, and Creech didn’t do enough to prove that the attitudes toward judge-imposed executions had notably changed in recent years. During Creech’s clemency hearing last month, the state offered new information — without supporting evidence — that Creech had committed another killing in California, that of Daniel Walker in San Bernardino County in 1974.