The question before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole is a narrow one. Should Taberon Honie, convicted and sentenced to death in the 1998 murder of his ex-girlfriend’s mother, be spared the ultimate punishment?
Honie’s case is strong and the board would demonstrate great humanity by granting his petition.
The man’s whole life up to that horrible day was a tale of abuse and neglect, alcohol and drugs, seriously impairing his judgment and his ability to control himself. He admits the crime, though he says he does not clearly remember it, shows great remorse and now pleads only to be spared the death penalty. In part because his daughter, who has already lost her grandmother, does not want to lose her father as well.
Honie does not expect to ever be released from prison. He claims, reasonably, not to be a threat to anyone ever again.
The question before the rest of us, not within the purview of the pardons board, is a larger one. Does the death penalty have a place in a civilized society?
It does not.
There is no reason to suppose that it is a useful deterrent to crime. Nearly half the states — 23, plus the District of Columbia — have abolished capital punishment. In another six, governors have halted executions indefinitely.
Globally, the death penalty is a sign of backwardness. It is forbidden across the 27 nations of the European Union in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights. Most nations that allow, and most often use, capital punishment — China, Saudi Arabia, Iran — are not places most of us would consider good examples of how to dispense justice.
Americans have tried for generations to pretend we can make executions clean and tidy, minimally painful to those put to death and not disturbing to the rest of us. We have pushed executions from gruesome displays in the public square to private, seemingly clinical, events behind closed doors.
The result has been placing upon honest and dutiful public servants the gruesome responsibility of scrounging around for the best drugs to kill someone with. That is an ever-more-difficult task, as pharmaceutical companies resist having their life-extending and life-improving products being put to life-ending purposes.
Even if Utahns have no sympathy for the condemned, we should show more care for the public employees — attorneys and administrators, guards and clerks — whose psyche cannot help but be damaged by even the most tangential participation in the workings of death. And we should remember that all of us, in whose name and with whose money our government acts, are sullied by the cold-blooding killing of now-pathetic human beings.
There was a serious attempt in the 2021 session of the Utah Legislature to end the death penalty. It fell short, despite sponsors’ valid argument that state imposition of the ultimate penalty is not in keeping with our state’s limited-government conservatism.
Other relatives of Honie’s victim implored the pardons board to allow the execution, now set for August 8, to proceed. It was, they argued, time to “just get this over.”
Understandable.
But a decision to commute Honie’s sentence to life in prison would also put an end to this story. There would be no more proceedings and no more wondering.
Better, legislative action to end the death penalty in Utah, ending such cases with life sentences, would mean no more legal dance macabre in our state.