Idaho Prosecutor Says State’s Longest-Serving Death-Row Prisoner Should Not Be Executed

The pros­e­cu­tor who sent Thomas Creech, Idaho​’s longest-serv­ing death-row pris­on­er, to jail 37 years ago now says that Creech and oth­ers sen­tenced to death in the Gem State should not be executed.

Jim Harris (pic­tured), for­mer County Prosecutor for Ada County, sought the death penal­ty against Creech in 1982. Creech, who was first sen­tenced to death in anoth­er case in 1976, has spent more time in prison than any oth­er per­son on the state’s death row, but in the years since Harris obtained a death sen­tence for Creech for a prison mur­der, the for­mer pros­e­cu­tor has become con­vinced that Creech should not be executed. 

“When I asked for the death penal­ty against Tom Creech I def­i­nite­ly did believe he should suf­fer the death penal­ty,” Harris told WIVI-TV in Boise. ​“I don’t believe quite frankly that Tom Creech, at least based on the mur­der that he com­mit­ted in the pen­i­ten­tiary, should be exe­cut­ed. And I don’t say that eas­i­ly.” Harris told WIVI that he now believes Creech’s death sen­tence is dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly severe com­pared to the less­er sen­tences oth­er pris­on­ers received for mur­ders that are worse than Creech’s prison killing. 

Harris also com­ment­ed on the waste­ful­ness of Idaho’s death penal­ty. ​“It’s a waste of time. It’s a ter­ri­ble waste of mon­ey that is expend­ed in these death penal­ty cas­es and they are nev­er going to hap­pen. So, the judges ought to sim­ply bear up and sen­tence these peo­ple for fixed life and leave it at that,” he said. Idaho hasn’t car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in sev­en years, and no exe­cu­tion dates are set for Creech or the oth­er sev­en peo­ple on death row. Only one per­son has been sen­tenced to death in Idaho since 2011. 

A 2014 study of the Financial Costs of the Death Penalty by the Idaho legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations found that Idaho cap­i­tal cas­es are more cost­ly and take much more time to resolve than non-cap­i­tal cas­es. Because courts, salaried gov­ern­ment lawyers, and oth­er stake­hold­ers did not sep­a­rate­ly track the time spent on cap­i­tal cas­es, the study could not cal­cu­late the price dif­fer­en­tial between cap­i­tal and non-cap­i­tal cas­es. However, the study found that cap­i­tal cas­es with tri­als took an aver­age of 20.5 months to reach a con­clu­sion, as com­pared to the 13.5‑month aver­age for non-cap­i­tal cas­es that went to tri­al. It also found that the State Appellate Public Defenders office spent approx­i­mate­ly 44 times more time on death penal­ty direct and post-con­vic­tion appeals than on appeals from a life sentence. 

In 2011, com­mis­sion­ers from two Idaho coun­ties voiced con­cerns about the high cost borne by coun­ties seek­ing death sen­tences, say­ing that the costs were bur­den­some for small counties.