BOISE, Idaho — Federal Defense Attorneys have issued a challenge to the death sentence for Thomas Creech, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1983 for killing fellow inmate David Dale Jensen.
Citing the 2002 US Supreme Court change in judicial practices requiring a jury trial for all death penalty cases, Defense Attorneys claim the original sentencing would be considered unconstitutional. Now they are asking that his case be retried in congruence with today's laws, in front of a jury.
In 1981, he and Jensen were involved in a jail fight that resulted in the death of Jensen. Creech was convicted of his murder, and sentenced to death at the sole discretion of the presiding judge, Robert Newhouse.
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In October of this year after being on death row for 40 years, Creech requested a stay of execution, providing statements from the Judge who sentenced him, as well as members of the jail personnel, asking to have his death sentence reduced to life in prison.
His clemency hearing before the Idaho Commission on Pardons and Parole is scheduled for January 19.
Creech was originally convicted in 1975 of committing two murders, though he claims to have committed 40 murders in various states.
