Court Gives Creech Chance To Display His Talent With Guitar

In an unusual development in a death penalty sentencing hearing, convicted slayer Thomas Eugene Creech will be given a chance to practice on the guitar to display his musical talent.

Creech went before 4th District Judge Robert Newhouse to be sentenced for the fourth time for killing a prison inmate nearly 14 years go. Three times previously, Newhouse has sentenced Creech to death, but federal and state appeals courts have overturned all the sentences.

The latest sentencing hearing is expected to take at least a couple of days.

Defense attorney Rolf Kehne said before Creech went to prison, he was considered an accomplished musician and has written several songs. Kehne said he wanted recordings of Creech’s music put into the file, both to show his talent and for later appeals.

“I heard a half-hour of his music on the radio. Why don’t you put that in?” asked Newhouse.

Kehne said they had no idea where that might be found.

Eventually, the attorneys agreed that Creech could use Kehne’s guitar to practice at the Maximum Security Prison south of Boise.

But it will be in a secure room at the prison. And Creech will have to get along with non-metal strings. He can’t take the guitar back to his cell on Death Row.

Bourne said he didn’t want the process to drag on for days or months while Creech practices on the guitar.

Creech, 44, a native of Ohio, has spent most of his adult life in prison in Idaho, most of the time under death sentence.

He was first sentenced to death in the middle 1970s for shooting two men in Valley County. Idaho’s death penalty law was ruled unconstitutional and Creech was resentenced to life imprisonment.

In May, 1981, he pleaded guilty to hitting another prison inmate in the head with a stocking filled with batteries, killing him. The court battles have been going on since.

Before testimony started before Newhouse, the judge denied one defense motion and took others under consideration.

Newhouse denied the defense’s request for a jury to rule on issues of fact and to advise the judge whether to impose the death penalty again. The judge said the Idaho Supreme Court has many times upheld the Idaho law allowing judges to sentence in death penalty cases.