Utah attorneys are expected to ask a parole board on Tuesday to deny a death row inmate’s request to spare his life before his scheduled release. Execution on August 8.
Representatives for the 49-year-old victim, Claudia Benn, were scheduled to testify before both sides delivered closing arguments during a sentencing hearing at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City.
Prisoner Taberon Dave Honie testified Monday that he was not in his “sane” state of mind when he murdered his girlfriend’s mother in 1998 after a day of heavy drinking and drug use. He asked the five-member parole board to commute his sentence to life in prison.
Utah Board of Pardons & Parole Board chairman Scott Stephenson said a decision would be made “as soon as practicable” after the parole board hearing.
Honie told the Utah parole board that he never intended to kill Benn and that he doesn’t remember much about the killing, which occurred when Benn’s three grandchildren, including Honie’s 2-year-old daughter, were at her home.
“I earned my place in prison. What I am asking this board to consider today is, ‘Would you allow me to exist?’” he said.
Attorneys for the state have called on the board to deny the request for a lesser sentence. They described his plea for a reduced sentence as a “disclaimer of responsibility that never once acknowledges the barbaric acts he committed against Claudia or her granddaughters.”
According to the state Department of Corrections, it would be the first execution in Utah since Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by firing squad in 2010.
Honie was convicted of aggravated murder in 1999.
After decades of failed appeals, his execution warrant was signed last month, despite defense objections to the planned lethal combination of the tranquilizer ketamine, the anesthetic fentanyl and potassium chloride to stop his heart. Honie’s attorneys sued and prison officials agreed to switch to pentobarbital.