Idaho update 5/17 (Man Convicted Of 1984 Blackfoot Murder To Be Executed)

From the Republic Man Convicted Of 1984 Blackfoot Murder To Be Executed

A 7th District Judge has signed a death warrant for condemned inmate Richard Albert Leavitt, ordering that he be executed by lethal injection.

Barring any last-minute court intervention, Leavitt will be put to death on June 12.

Leavitt was convicted in the July 18, 1984, brutal death of Danette Elg in Blackfoot. Prosecutors said he stabbed her repeatedly with exceptional force, and then cut out her sexual organs. Leavitt’s defense attorneys have argued that he sustained brain damage and has a mental disorder that contributed to his actions.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider Leavitt’s appeal Monday, and Judge Jon Shindurling signed the death warrant Thursday.

If Leavitt’s execution moves forward as planned, he will become the second person executed by the state in the last seven months. Paul Ezra Rhoades, who was convicted of killing three people in eastern Idaho in 1987, was put to death on Nov. 18, 2011.

Before Rhoades’ death, executions were rare in Idaho, with only one other inmate put to death in the last half-century. But several death row inmates appear to be reaching the end of the appeals process, and last year Idaho Department of Correction officials predicted there could be as many as four people executed before the end of 2013.

Leavitt’s defense attorneys have tried several times to get his death penalty overturned. In 2007, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill agreed after concluding defense attorney David Parmenter was ineffective for failing to investigate if brain damage found years later could explain Leavitt’s personality disorders at the time of the crime. But in a divided opinion issued in 2011, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Winmill and put Leavitt back on death row.

Leavitt, who has long maintained his innocence, was arrested after authorities discovered Elg’s body in her blood-spattered bedroom four days after she’d been killed. During his trial, a court-appointed psychologist who examined Leavitt said he had an antisocial personality disorder and intermittent explosive disorder, which could cause him to lose control of aggressive impulses.

Former district Judge H. Reynold George noted that Leavitt came from a law-abiding family, was married and steadily employed before his arrest and that while he had a criminal record, it mostly contained misdemeanors and traffic infractions.

Still, George said at the sentencing, those mitigating factors were only “feathers on the scale when balanced against the grossly inhumane act of murder that went beyond all decency.”

In April, Leavitt was one of four death row inmates to sue the state, contending Idaho’s new execution procedures give too much power to prison officials, create a risk of severe pain and would allow unqualified workers to carry out medical procedures. In the lawsuit Leavitt, Thomas Creech, James Hairston and Gene Stuart ask a judge to stop all executions until the problems are fixed.

That lawsuit is still active; the state has asked U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to throw it out because Idaho’s protocol matches the procedures in other states that have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read more:

• Idaho Update (4/10/12) 4 death row inmates sue over Idaho’s newest lethal injection procedures
• Another execution this year?
• Idaho killer Lacey Sivak faces new death penalty hearing
• The state of the death penalty (Idaho Edition)
• UPDATE: Idaho has executed Paul Ezra Rhoades
• The last hours of Paul Ezra Rhoades
• UPDATE: Supreme Court refuses to block Idaho execution scheduled for tomorrow
• Ninth Circuit affirms denial of Rhoades stay while the ACLU of Idaho says Idaho execution procedure violates 2002 Ninth Circuit ruling
• Federal judge denies stay for Rhoades
• Idaho’s Catholic Governor stands by the death penalty in lead-up to the state’s first execution since ’94
• Federal Judge will try to rule by Monday on Idaho lethal injection protocol with Rhoades’ execution date looming
• Idaho corrections officials continue to ready themselves to execute Rhoades as his family calls for mercy
• Idaho commission clears the way for state’s first execution since 1994
• Idaho Attorney General Death Penalty Case Status Update
• Idaho Department of Correction Death Row Page
• Death Penalty Information Center Idaho Page