Utah has chosen the three drugs it will use to carry out lethal injection, corrections officials announced Friday — three days before a death row inmate will appear in court to determine if his execution should go forward.
The announcement also comes just a day after his attorneys argued to call off the execution because the state hadn’t given him and other condemned prisoners adequate notice of which drugs would be used.
The department chose ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride “on the recommendation of medical professionals,” according to a news release. Utah law requires lethal injections be conducted with “sodium thiopental or other equally or more effective substance sufficient to cause death.”
It’s illegal to import sodium thiopental, a fast-acting barbiturate, and the only U.S.-based supplier stopped production in 2011.
“Ketamine serves as an anesthetic, Fentanyl relieves pain, and Potassium Chloride stops the heart,” the department said.
Officials announced the lethal injection drugs ahead of Taberon Honie’s Monday hearing, where 5th District Court Judge Jeffrey C. Wilcox will hear arguments to determine whether to issue an execution warrant.
Utah uses lethal injection to execute those sentenced to death after May 2004. Those sentenced earlier have the option to die by firing squad.
Honie was convicted and sentenced in 1999 for the murder, sexual assault and mutilation of 49-year-old Claudia Benn. He has made several unsuccessful attempt to appeal his conviction, arguing that a better defense could saved him from the death penalty, that a prosecutor made a racist comment at the trial, that it wasn’t clear if Benn was alive when she was sexually assaulted (the aggravating factor that resulted in the option for the death penalty) and that the death penalty is unconstitutional.
He hasn’t yet chosen which execution method would be used, and his attorneys argue he hasn’t been able to properly vet his choices.
Utah’s chosen drug combination is “experimental” and have never been used in an execution, Honie’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Eric Zuckerman, said in a statement provided to The Salt Lake Tribune. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Nebraska has used fentanyl in an execution, but no states have used ketamine.
“For over a year, the state of Utah has repeatedly refused to disclose any information about the drugs it intends to use in executions by lethal injection,” Zuckerman said. “Now, only after seeking a warrant of execution for Mr. Honie, the state has identified an experimental drug combination that is untested and has never been used in an execution before.”
He added that Wilcox should refuse to issue an execution warrant until ongoing legal challenges to Utah’s execution protocols are resolved, which would provide assurance that executions will comply with state and federal laws.
Zuckerman was among the attorneys who filed a petition with the Utah Supreme Court on Wednesday on behalf of Honie and four other condemned prisoners to call off their executions. The attorneys argued that the state hadn’t indicated which drugs would be used for lethal injections and the inmates couldn’t properly evaluate their options and that, regardless, both available methods of execution were unconstitutional.
Honie and those same inmates — Ralph Menzies, Troy Kell, Douglas Carter and Michael Archuleta — recently filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s current execution methods, arguing both lethal injection and death by firing squad amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Third District Court Judge Coral Sanchez dismissed the lawsuit in December.
Sanchez said the men did not support their argument that the law called for a “painless execution, not just an execution without severe pain.”
The inmates’ attorneys appealed that ruling in May.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office also has sought an execution warrant for Ralph Menzies in recent months — though that process has been slowed after Menzies’ attorney argued that the death row inmate has dementia and cannot be executed because he isn’t competent. An evidentiary hearing about Menzie’s mental state is scheduled for November.
