Death row inmate Taberon Honie stands up as he leaves the Utah Board of Pardons commutation hearing Tuesday, July 23, 2024, at the Utah State Correctional Facility, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)
A judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit from death row inmate Taberon Honie, rejecting arguments from his attorney that prison officials are not prepared and that inconsistencies in their current plan could lead to a “botched execution.”
When asked whether he would appeal the ruling, Honie’s attorney Eric Zuckerman said he is evaluating all options. But the window is closing fast, with Honie’s execution by lethal injection still planned for Aug. 8.
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“The Department of Corrections is going to carry out an execution without written or accurate protocols. I don’t know why they want to do that, but it’s dangerous,” Zuckerman said to reporters after the hearing.
But in her ruling, 3rd District Judge Linda Jones said Honie did not actually identify any injuries he would suffer because of inconsistencies in the state’s execution protocol, while “the potential injury he identifies is speculative at best.” Jones also said the state is allowed to adopt new rules to the execution protocol, invalidating Honie’s complaint that the changes violated Utah law.
Honie was sentenced to death in 1999 for the murder and sexual assault of Claudia Benn, the mother of his ex-girlfriend. Honie, according to court documents, broke into Benn’s house, killed her, and mutilated her body while her three grandchildren were in the house. He would later admit to molesting one of the children after the murder.
The ruling is the latest setback in Honie’s attempt to avoid the death penalty . Last week, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole denied his request to instead spend the rest of his life in prison after several of Benn’s relatives spoke in favor of his execution .
Taberon Honie’s request to avoid death penalty denied as state moves forward with execution plan
On Tuesday, the Department of Corrections confirmed the execution is still planned for Aug. 8, telling Utah News Dispatch “We have been meticulously planning to carry out our statutory responsibility for several months, and continue to do so.”
Honie sued prison officials earlier this month , objecting to several aspects of the state’s plan to execute him — among them, the cocktail of ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride, which Zuckerman argued could cause unnecessary pain and suffering, a violation of Honie’s constitutional rights.
In the complaint, Zuckerman asked the state to instead use pentobarbital, which is often prescribed for seizures but in high doses can stop the heart.
The Utah Department of Corrections did just that — it acquired pentobarbital , spending about $200,000 in hopes that it would end the litigation, said David Wolf with the Utah Attorney General’s Office.
Twelve of the country’s 24 executions carried out in 2023 used pentobarbital and Wolf called the drug “the gold standard.” Most of the lawsuit was dismissed, but Zuckerman maintained that the state’s execution protocol is riddled with errors and inconsistencies, scattered across multiple documents.
On Tuesday, he argued the two remaining claims in the lawsuit — that Honie’s rights were violated because he didn’t have enough time to review the execution plan; and that the Department of Corrections violated Utah code because the protocol and procedures are conflicting, inconsistent and outdated.
It’s not currently clear, Zuckerman argued, how many backup doses of pentobarbital the state plans to have, how to administer the backup doses, whether the syringes will be labeled, how many syringes should be on hand, and whether a doctor or prison safety official will handle the drugs. Plus, Zuckerman said the protocol isn’t clearly outlined like other protocols in years past, which could create logistical issues.
“It’s just sort of all over the place and we’re talking about a real risk here,” Zuckerman told the court. “Utah hasn’t done a lethal injection execution in over 20 years … the accuracy is critical.”
Wolf clarified most of these details in Tuesday’s hearing, to which Zuckerman responded, “This is the first we’re hearing of this.”
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Zuckerman also accused the state of withholding information until the last minute as the lawsuit progressed, telling the judge “every single hearing I’ve had in this case, they’ve dropped a bombshell of information on us the night before.”
“This whole thing is ridiculous because the solution is so simple. All we’re asking the state of Utah to do is create an accurate protocol. Why is it so hard? There hasn’t been an execution by lethal injection in Utah for 25 years,” said a frustrated Zuckerman, before turning to the state’s attorneys to say: “Update the protocol.”
Wolf pushed back on the arguments, telling the court that much of the protocol is in place because Honie requested pentobarbital. The “inconsistencies” that Zuckerman is concerned about are actually just changes to the state’s existing protocol.
“This suggestion that there’s no coherent policy in place to execute Mr. Honie is simply not true,” Wolf said. “These protocols were adopted at Mr. Honie’s request. They’ve been affirmed by court after court.”
Since Honie’s original argument revolved around the untested cocktail of ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride, it doesn’t hold water now that the state obtained pentobarbital, Wolf said. None of Zuckerman’s argument’s on Tuesday were in the original complaint filed on July 11, Wolf told the judge.
“He can’t stand up here and say pentobarbital is an untested protocol. It’s the gold standard, it’s the mainstay,” he said.
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