‘I’m not a threat’: Death row inmate Taberon Honie speaks at hearing, asks for life sentence

SALT LAKE CITY ( ABC4 ) — Monday marked day one of the several-day commutation hearing for death row inmate Taberon Dave Honie, 48, whose execution has been scheduled for Aug. 8.

Honie was convicted of aggravated murder in May 1999 for the death of Claudia Benn, 49, who was his girlfriend’s mother. He was sentenced to death that same month.

The commutation hearing that began on July 22 was centered around Honie’s defense working to convince the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole to change Honie’s sentence from the death penalty to life in prison.

Honie himself spoke at the hearing on Monday, in addition to his mother, his daughter, and his counsel. Honie discussed the day in 1998 when he killed Benn.

“That’s the part that I’m torn apart about,” Honie said at the hearing. “How can I come and ask you guys to spare me when I took her? I have no answer.”

Honie told the board he did not plan to kill Benn and said he would not have done so if he were in his “right mind.”

“The crime that happened is not me,” Honie said. “It’s something I did, but it’s not me.”

However, attorneys for the state argued that Honie said he intended to kill Benn hours before he did so. Honie said he was asking the board to “allow [him] to exist.”

Honie’s defense offered testimony regarding trauma from Honie’s childhood, including longstanding substance abuse issues in his parents and himself. Honie also told the board he has changed while he has been incarcerated.

“I’ve shown that I can exist in prison,” Honie said. “I’m not a threat to the public, I’m not a threat to anyone.”

Earlier this year, the state of Utah filed a warrant to move forward with Honie’s execution after he had attempted to appeal his case. The death warrant was signed in June , and after that, Honie filed a petition for extraordinary relief that was later denied.

In the days before the July 22 hearing, officials scrapped the untested drug combination — ketamine, fentanyl, and potassium chloride — that was originally scheduled to be used in Honie’s execution.

Honie’s lawyers said that combination could cause “excruciating pain” and corrections officials switched the drug for the execution to pentobarbital, which is a drug that has been used in both federal executions and executions in other states.

The Associated Press has contributed to this story.

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