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SALT LAKE CITY — Taberon Dave Honie was 23 years old when he was sentenced to die in 1999.
Now 48, Honie has spent more than half of his life on death row. Just after midnight on Thursday morning, he is scheduled to become the eighth person executed by the state of Utah since 1977 after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty the year before.
It will be the first execution at the new Utah State Correctional Facility that officially opened in July 2022 and the first in the state since 2010.
The crime
Late on the evening of July 9, 1998, Honie, 22, broke into the Cedar City home of his ex-girlfriend's mother, 49-year-old Claudia Marie Benn, by smashing a rock into a glass door. Benn tried to protect herself and her three young granddaughters with a butcher knife. Honie turned the knife on her, cut Benn's throat and sexually assaulted her with the knife. He also beat her severely on her face and head. The children had blood on them when police found them.
Honie, who was extremely intoxicated, claims he went to the home to fall asleep under the porch. But he got into an argument with Benn before brutally killing her.
On April 30, 1999, Honie informed Judge Robert T. Braithwaite that, if convicted, he would let the judge decide his sentence instead of a jury. With a jury, all 12 jurors would have to unanimously agree on the death penalty for that sentence to be carried out.
"It's not anything a judge would want to do. It's the last thing a judge would want to do, to impose a death penalty. But if I felt it was appropriate, and the facts and circumstances of the case, I would impose it," Braithwaite said, according to a court transcript of the hearing. "I haven't made my mind up in this case ... I don't have a philosophical opposition to the death penalty. That's not what I would want to do, but I would do it if it's appropriate."
On May 18, 1999, Honie was convicted of aggravated murder and Braithwaite sentenced him to death.
"It was not a sentence I gave to the defendant; he earned it. If this isn't a death penalty case, I don't know what is," the judge said at the time.
The appeals
The death sentence was immediately stayed, however, pending Honie's appeals.
In 2002, both Honie's conviction and sentence were upheld by the Utah Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court opted not to hear his case.
Honie then filed a petition for post conviction relief, which was denied, and the decision was upheld by the Utah Supreme Court in 2014.
In 2015, Honie filed a federal petition for habeas corpus, which is used to ask for another court hearing to either challenge a conviction or the conditions in which an inmate is being held. That petition was denied in 2019 and the decision upheld by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 11, 2023.
The U.S. Supreme Court then denied a petition for writ of certiorari, which is a request to have the nation's high court order a lower court to send up a case for review. At that point, Honie's legal appeals were over.
"He has exhausted state and federal remedies challenging his conviction and sentence, Therefore, no legal reason exists to delay issuing an execution warrant," the state said in its execution warrant filed on June 10.
On June 18, Honie filed a petition asking the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole to commute his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The five-member board agreed to consider it and hold a hearing. On July 22 and 23, Honie and his attorneys testified before the board that Honie's extensive substance abuse and alcohol use, the psychological trauma he endured as a child, his mental health as an adult and his rough upbringing on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona should have been considered as mitigating factors during his sentencing.
He also claimed, according to his petition for commutation, that he tried to rescind his decision to have a judge sentence him but was told he couldn't, and that two jurors later claimed they would not have voted for the death penalty.
But prosecutors testified to the board that the death penalty is reserved only for Utah's worst crimes, and this is one of them. Relatives of Benn testified they believe Honie should be put to death.
On July 26, the Utah Board of Pardonsand Parole rejected Honie's commutation request and said the Utah Department of Corrections should continue with its preparations for his execution by lethal injection.
Honie also asked Gov. Spencer Cox last week to issue an order for temporary reprieve because of questions over how the preparations for the execution were being handled by the department. His attorneys noted the state originally said it would use an experimental three-drug cocktail of ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride for the execution, but later stated it had acquired pentobarbital for about $200,000.
"Information about the source of the pentobarbital is being kept secret from both Mr. Honie and the public," his attorneys argued to Cox. "The Department (of Corrections) refuses to provide any original documentation verifying the source's licensing and other relevant legal compliance, or the drug's validity, including a certificate of analysis."
On Tuesday, Cox denied the request, stating the department has "gone above and beyond in planning and preparing for Mr. Honie's execution."
Cox also noted in his reply that, unlike the governors of other states, "I do not have the authority to grant clemency or commute sentences. I am only given the authority to grant temporary reprieves that last until reviewed by the Board of Pardons and Parole."
