Utah officials announced on Saturday that they are abandoning plans to use an untested lethal drug combination for the execution of Taberon Dave Honie, scheduled for August 8, 2024. Instead, they will seek a drug that has been previously used in executions in other states.
Defense attorneys for Honie, 49, had filed a lawsuit to prevent the use of the drug combination, arguing it could cause "excruciating suffering."
Honie, convicted of the 1998 murder of Claudia Benn, his girlfriend's mother, faced execution next month, which would be Utah's first since Ronnie Lee Gardner's firing squad execution in 2010. Despite years of unsuccessful appeals, Honie’s execution warrant was signed last month, prompting objections from his defense team regarding the planned drug protocol.
The initial plan involved administering ketamine and fentanyl, followed by potassium chloride to stop Honie’s heart. Defense attorneys argued that ketamine and fentanyl would not sufficiently prevent Honie from experiencing pain during the execution.
In response, the Utah Department of Corrections decided to use a single drug, pentobarbital, instead. Glen Mills, a spokesperson for the agency, stated that the state filed court documents late Friday to dismiss the lawsuit. "We will obtain and use pentobarbital for the execution," Mills said, maintaining that the previously proposed three-drug combination was still considered effective and humane by the agency.
Previously, state officials acknowledged that they were unaware of any executions that had used the proposed drug combination. Pentobarbital, however, has been used in executions by at least 14 states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Nonetheless, there have been reports of pentobarbital causing extreme pain in federal executions during the final months of Donald Trump's presidency.
Honie’s attorney, Eric Zuckerman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, a hearing is scheduled for Monday regarding Honie’s plea to the state parole board to commute his death sentence to life in prison.
Honie’s lawyers argued in a petition last month that his violent and traumatic childhood, chronic drug abuse, a previous brain injury, and extreme intoxication contributed to his behavior when he killed Benn. They also criticized the legal advice Honie received, which led to his sentencing by a judge instead of a potentially more sympathetic jury that might have spared him the death penalty.
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