In late February, my state of Idaho tried to execute a person for the first time in 12 years. According to an Idaho Statesman article, the execution team searched for an hour for a suitable vein to inject Thomas Creech with lethal drugs, but was unsuccessful. The execution was eventually aborted and he was sent back to death row.
Creech has been incarcerated for nearly 50 years and on Idaho’s death row for close to 44 of those years. He has been convicted of five murders and received his death sentence after killing a disabled inmate in his prison in 1981. According to The Associated Press, he claimed to have killed as many as 50 people, but authorities believe the number of possible killings to be closer to a dozen people.
As you can see, this man was once a bad person. “Was” is the key word in that sentence, because many people believe that Creech changed over close to five decades behind bars.
I have never met Creech, but I have spoken with a couple people who have, and they say he is a better man now — always polite, respectful and ready to help people in need. Creech is highly regarded at Idaho Maximum Security Institution, where he resides. Recently, I was being transported to an outside hospital for an MRI, and the corrections officers transporting me were having a conversation about Creech and how well-respected he was in the prison system. Even the judge who sentenced him to death and a former warden have supported taking him off death row.
Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt told The Associated Press in February that some corrections officers have “grown up” with Creech.
“I don’t want to be dismissive of what he did and the countless people who were impacted by that in real significant ways,” Tewalt told the wire service before Creech’s scheduled execution. “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.”
I believe that a person can change for the better, even someone who might have killed close to 50 people. This belief has been shaped over the nearly 22 years that I have spent behind bars. I’ve seen others change, and I have changed myself. I started a new religion during my incarceration, in large part, because of discrimination I faced from churches as a gay man. One of the things we teach is not holding people’s past against them, but accepting them as they are now.
I wish that we could view Creech’s life that way. But many people have said Creech deserves to be killed. What would that accomplish? Who would his killing serve?
In this case, it might serve family members of Creech’s victims. At least two family members have publicly called for his execution, asking for closure.
Yet, we don’t know how every family member feels; and if some disagree with his execution, then how do we decide whose feelings are more valid?
When I read interviews of victims’ families, it often sounds like they want to get on with their lives more than they want to see someone die. In several instances, family members of victims have spoken out against executions, according to a database from Death Penalty Information Center.
Sometimes, they believe the inmate can be rehabilitated. Sometimes, they believe life in prison is the right punishment — still harsh, but providing the perpetrator an opportunity to live. Others cite the fact that killing another human won’t bring their loved one back.
One quote in the database, from the daughter of a murder victim, stood out to me: “I cannot imagine what good it would do to kill a person who is incarcerated and away from the public. No one would be made safer. However, I can think of many people who would be harmed by his death — including his innocent family members and the prison workers who would be asked to carry out his execution. Not a single person would be healed.”
Other family members against executions have said they do not want to contribute to the racial disparities present in executions. As of early 2023, about 55% of people on death row were Black or Latino, compared to 33% of the U.S. population. There’s another glaring statistic from Death Penalty Information Center: “More than 75% of death row defendants who have been executed were sentenced to death for killing white victims, even though in society as a whole about half of all homicide victims are African American.”
Beyond racial imbalances, executing someone has often been torturous — and far from humane — even in modern times. One researcher identified 276 botched executions between 1890 and 2010 — 7% of all executions. For 2022, the percentage of botched executions was clocked at a whopping 35%.
People have been poked with needles for hours, like Creech. In one case, a man’s arm was cut open to insert an IV. Other people have suffered in pain for extended periods of time, instead of experiencing the quick death they were promised.
Alabama, a notoriously tough-on-crime state, called for a moratorium on executions in 2022 while it investigated multiple botched executions. But earlier this year, the state returned to executions by killing Kenneth Smith with a new method: nitrogen suffocation.
The state has claimed that Smith’s execution went smoothly, while witnesses have said he writhed violently in pain for minutes. Mississippi, Oklahoma and Louisiana also have approved the new form of execution, and other states could follow.
We had a chance to reconsider the inhumanity of executions; but instead, we just moved forward and found a new way to kill people.
I am not necessarily protesting the death penalty categorically; but if the state is going to carry out killings, then it should explain why those killings are necessary and why they benefit society.
The specter of dying as a punishment for killing someone has also not stopped murders. If a person is intent on taking a life, they are probably not going to stop and say to themselves, “I might be put to death for this.” Either they believe they will get away with killing someone or they don’t care about the consequences. It doesn’t make sense to kill someone to show that killing shouldn’t be done.
In my view, state executions just introduce pain and suffering into more people’s lives. And if it’s true that “hurt people hurt people,” as the saying goes, then we are contributing to further harm down the road.
Creech’s next execution attempt has not yet been scheduled, but the state will try again eventually.
(Additional reporting by PJP)