By Zach Kyle
Idaho Falls Post Register
BLACKFOOT, Idaho — A Blackfoot man convicted of a brutal 1984 murder will be executed June 12, barring court intervention.
Richard “Rick” Leavitt has been on death row for 26 years.
Leavitt was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Danette Elg, then 31, in her Blackfoot home. Elg was stabbed 15 times. Her sex and reproductive organs were removed.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider Leavitt’s appeal Monday and 7th District Administrative Judge Jon Shindurling issued the death warrant Thursday.
The Idaho Supreme Court upheld Leavitt’s conviction in 1989. His death sentence was upheld in 1990 by the Idaho 7th District Court.
If Leavitt’s execution moves forward as planned, he will become the second person executed by the state in the past seven months. Paul Ezra Rhoades, who was convicted of killing three people in eastern Idaho in 1987, was put to death Nov. 18.
Before Rhoades’ death, executions were rare in Idaho, with only one other inmate put to death in the past 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 executions 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 that defense attorney David Parmenter was ineffective for failing to investigate whether brain damage found years later could explain Leavitt’s personality disorders at the time of the slaying. But in a divided opinion issued last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Winmill and put Leavitt back on death row.
Leavitt, who long has maintained his innocence, was arrested after authorities discovered Elg’s body in her blood-spattered bedroom four days after she’d been killed.
Leavitt and Elg had met several times through mutual friends, according to previous reports.
On July 16, 1984, Elg reported to Blackfoot police that a male she thought was Leavitt had tried to break into her window before running out of her yard.
Investigators estimated Elg was killed in her bedroom the next day. Elg’s body was found July 21 after Leavitt and other friends reported her missing.
According to Post Register reports at the time, Blackfoot police supervised as Leavitt and others broke into Elg’s home and found the body.
Leavitt initiated the contact with police and Elg’s friends, but once at the house, he refused to enter.
In the days before Elg was found, Leavitt called an acquaintance who was a former ambulance driver. The man later testified that Leavitt asked him how long a dead body takes to smell.
Experts testified Leavitt’s blood was found on the scene.
A psychologist testified that Leavitt had intermittent violent behavior disorder. The defense argued the disorder made determining premeditation - a key factor in a first-degree murder charge - impossible.
The jury didn’t believe that argument.
“It was just a compound of all the evidence put together that pointed to him,” a juror told the Post Register after the verdict.
Three months later, Leavitt was sentenced to death.
Former district Judge H. Reynold George noted that Leavitt came from a law-abiding family and 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 remains active. But 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.
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