On Tuesday, people in Utah will talk about whether or not a guy who is scheduled to be put to death next month should not be put to death for a murder that happened in 1998 and instead stay in prison for life.
On Saturday, state officials said they were no longer going to use an untested mix of drugs to kill Taberon Dave Honie, which his lawyers said could have caused him “excruciating pain.” The parole board meeting is now scheduled for Monday. Pentobarbital is the drug that will be used instead.
The state Department of Corrections says that the execution on August 8 would be Utah’s first since Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by a firing squad in 2010.
Honie’s lawyers said that his violent and traumatic youth, along with his long-term drug use, a previous brain injury, and being very drunk, made him act the way he did when he broke into and killed his girlfriend’s mother.
They said that Honie, who was born on Arizona’s Hopi Indian Reservation, should have been sentenced by a jury instead of a judge because they got bad legal advice. A jury might have been more sympathetic and saved him the death penalty.
In a commutation petition sent last month, they said, “Mr. Honie has always shown genuine regret and sadness… from the moment he was arrested.” They also said that Honie has a grown daughter and should be forgiven.
Lawyers for the state asked the board to turn down the request.
They said that the judge who punished Honie had already taken into account how sorry he was, how hard his childhood was, and how drunk he was when he killed Claudia Benn, 49. According to court papers, Honie, who was 22 at the time, broke a glass door to get into Benn’s house while she was there with her grandchildren. She then severely beat Benn and cut her in the throat, vagina, and around the anus.
Records show that when police arrived at the house, he was covered in blood.
Honie says the board should be kind to him because he killed Claudia, which is what the state’s lawyers wrote. “The commutation petition itself is a long deflection of responsibility that never once acknowledges any of the savage acts he inflicted on Claudia or her granddaughters.”
Honie was found guilty of aggravated murder in 1999.
Honie has asked for a commutation, and a meeting has been set for two days. A choice will likely be made later.
Honie’s execution warrant was signed last month, even though defense lawyers were against it because they were worried about the killing drugs that were going to be used. Corrections officials decided to switch to pentobarbital, which has been used in many states before after Honie’s lawyers filed a lawsuit over the issue.
There is proof that pentobarbital can also cause unbearable pain. For example, it was used in federal executions during the last few months of Donald Trump’s presidency.
