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

By GENE JOHNSON and REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A U.S. appeals court panel has declined to delay Idaho’s scheduled execution next week of one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates. Thomas Creech was sentenced to death in 1983 for killing a fellow prison inmate, David Jensen, with a battery-filled sock. The 73-year-old Creech had previously been convicted of four murders and was already serving life in prison when he killed Jensen. He is also suspected of several other killings dating back half a century. His attorneys had asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to delay Creech’s death by lethal injection, set for Wednesday.