Anyone paying even minimal attention knows how far our criminal justice system has fallen, and how fast that fall is accelerating, particularly in blue states and cities. The focus is no longer on preventing crime and catching criminals.  It’s not on caring for victims and their families and communities. The current focus is on pretending crime isn’t a problem, avoiding arresting criminals and avoiding putting anyone in jail. Carrying out death sentences? Of course not. Josiah Lippencott at American Greatness explains one such case:

If you overlook the time he murdered a fellow inmate by beating him to death, Thomas Creech has been a model prisoner.  He writes poetry for his guards at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution (IMSI) and plays the guitar in his cell. Very sweet. 

Graphic: X Screenshot

The former warden at the prison where Creech [age 73] sits on death row supports his bid for clemency, as does the judge who sentenced him. According to Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt,  https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/02/25/idaho-to-execute-serial-killer-poet/  “Some of our correctional officers have grown up with Tom Creech… Our warden has a long-standing relationship with him… There’s a familiarity and a rapport that has been built over time.

A familiarity that caused the current warden to tear up at Creech’s near-execution.

Creech, lest we forget amongst all this sentimentality, is a serial killer.

He murdered five people in three states. Those, at least, are the killing for which he was convicted. Creech is suspected in a half dozen other cases.

Creech is among the murders on America’s death rows most worthy of execution. Unfortunately, the prison staff charged with his IV lethal injection were unable to find a vein, so Creech lives. 

This failure is not nearly so mysterious in light of the sentimentality the prison staff obviously feel toward Creech.

The warden and guards have fallen in love with a serial killer. Their sentimentality has, almost certainly, triumphed over the demands of the law. When it comes to the scum of the earth, it turns out feelings do trump facts.

The inability of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution staff to perform their legal obligations is a sign of the profound degeneration of our political order. A regime that cannot bring itself to punish serial killers is a regime in crisis.

And so it is. We have prisons for two primary purposes: to keep criminals from preying on the public, and to protect criminals from the public. When our criminal justice system fails in either or both of those necessary duties, the legitimacy of the justice system, and its civilizing influence, stand on shaky ground.

In the Creech case, the system appeared to initially work, probably largely because he was white and was arrested and prosecuted before leftist Soros prosecutors became common. His infamy was such, his crimes so horrific and voluminous, juries and judges were willing to impose the death penalty in a state that still has one and is willing to try to carry it out. Surely Creech had the benefit of decades of due process and taxpayer-funded lawyers, and still does:

Among the lessons taught to police officers, and particularly corrections officers, is never to go native. They’re dealing with manipulative, evil people, people skilled in using others, twisting their emotions, taking advantage of others. It would appear the correctional staff of the IMSI went native for Creech, and as a result, a demon yet lives. Will the state try again, or will they give up? There’s no way to know, and that kind of weak-hearted failure goes a long way toward convincing Americans the justice system can’t be trusted.

It’s unlikely Creech will ever be released, but it’s not impossible, and a great many criminals never serve their complete sentences. Many that should never be released, are, and many of those continue to prey on the innocent.

On one hand, when Americans realize the police can’t protect them, they have no legal obligation to protect anyone, they’re solely responsible for the lives of those they love and themselves, that’s a good thing, a step toward true adulthood. When they realize prosecutors won’t prosecute, legislators won’t legislate to properly punish criminals, and governors will pardon the unpardonable, that’s also a vital and necessary realization.

But when the system’s unwillingness and incompetence go too far, when Americans realize the system can’t protect them and doesn’t want to protect them, Americans will inevitably reimpose the law, and when it’s time to execute people like Creech, there will be no weak-hearted, emotional failures.

It would be best to avoid allowing the system to fall that far.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.