SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Tuesday denied a reprieve to death row inmate Taberon Honie, who is set to be executed by the state at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 8.
Honie’s defense team had sent a letter to Cox asking for a temporary reprieve from the execution, claiming the process was “shrouded in secrecy.” The letter asked Cox to instruct the Utah Department of Corrections to update its protocols, which have remained static since 2010.
In a letter addressed to defense attorneys Therese Day and Eric Zuckerman and obtained by ABC4.com, Cox denied that reprieve. The entire letter can be read below.
“Indeed, it is not clear to me that any benefit would come from delaying Mr. Honie’s sentence further,” Cox stated.
Honie’s defense team had claimed their request for a reprieve was important for transparency, as there have been some questions over the lethal injection being used to execute him. They stated the state was in a “hasty rush to prepare for an execution.”
“I also must strongly disagree with how you have characterized the efforts of the Utah Department of Corrections in your request,” stated Cox’s letter in response. “The Department has gone above and beyond in planning and preparing for Mr. Honie’s execution. It is my understanding that the majority of concerns in your request were previously raised in court. In fact, in reviewing these concerns, the court found the Department has provided Mr. Honie with more than the law requires.”
Judge Lina Jones recently ruled in favor of the Utah Department of Corrections, finding that “a prisoner has no constitutional right to an execution protocol.”
Some still question how the state is proceeding.
Richard Mauro, executive director of the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association, agreed with the claim from Honie’s attorneys that the execution process in this case has not been transparent.
“The government has taken the position that it doesn’t need to be a transparent process,” he said. “That’s antithetical to our democratic process.”
Part of the push for a reprieve in Honie’s case stemmed from questions about how he will be put to death. Just weeks ago, the state planned to use a three-drug cocktail that had not been tried before. But after Honie’s attorneys objected, the state decided to use pentobarbital.
Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Utah made the right decision to switch from an untested combination of drugs to one that’s been proven to work.
However, she said the state needs to be more transparent about how the execution process will work.
“We need to understand the training the staff have, how those drugs were procured, where they’re being stored and just understanding that this drug has been used in other executions does not delay the many, many concerns about how it will be used,” she said. “In many other executions this drug has been used and unfortunately has resulted in botched executions.”
Honie is set to be executed shortly after midnight Thursday. ABC4 will have a team of reporters covering the execution.
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