SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's Department of Corrections said Wednesday it will consider a new drug cocktail to execute Taberon Honie next month.
In a new lawsuit filed last week, Honie's lawyers challenged the unique three-drug combination the state intends to use to kill Honie by lethal injection. The state has sought to use ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride — which has never before been tried.
But in their lawsuit, Honie's lawyers brought up a different drug that the Utah Department of Corrections now believes it can do.
"Honie does not suggest that a method of execution must be instantaneous or painless to meet constitutional standards. However, a method of execution must refrain from causing unnecessary or superadded pain or suffering. As discussed above, execution by a single dose of pentobarbital is feasible, can be readily implemented by the UDC, and would significantly reduce the risk of severe pain inherent in UDC’s current Protocol. Defendants, therefore, are constitutionally obligated to employ such methods," Honie's attorney, Eric Zuckerman, wrote in the lawsuit.
So on Wednesday, the Utah Department of Correction's lawyers told a judge during a hearing they would look to change the drug combination to what Honie's lawyers wanted.
"We stand by the three-drug combination as an effective and humane method. However, the defense has proposed pentobarbital as an acceptable alternative, and we have been looking into the feasibility of obtaining it," the department said in a statement to FOX 13 News.
Honie is slated to be executed on August 8 for the 1998 murder of Claudia Benn in Cedar City. He was accused of breaking into the home of his ex-girlfriend's mother, slitting her throat and sexually assaulting her with a knife. Honie has exhausted most of his appeals. Recently, the Utah Supreme Court refused to consider a challenge.
Honie has a commutation hearing before the Utah Board of Pardons & Parole next week. The board has the sole authority in Utah to convert his death sentence to life in prison.
