Gov. Cox denies reprieve for Honie’s execution

SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Spencer Cox said Tuesday he would not grant a reprieve for Taberon Honie who is scheduled to be executed. Honie will remain scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

“After thorough review, I am denying your request for a temporary reprieve,” Cox said, in a letter responding to the one Honie’s attorneys sent Thursday.

Cox said he has the authority through Utah law to grant reprieves for the majority of convictions, but noted that he doesn’t have the authority to grant clemency or commute sentences, as some other governors do. Therefore, his reprieve if he had granted it, would only last until the Board of Pardons and Parole reviewed it, which he said “would likely occur by the next business day.”

The Board of Pardons and Parole previously declined to commute Honie’s sentence on Jul. 26.

Cox also called out Honie’s attorneys, Therese Day and Eric Zuckerman, for the way they “characterized the efforts of the Utah Department of Corrections.”

“The department has gone above and beyond in planning and preparing for Mr. Honie’s execution,” he wrote. “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.”

Cox concluded that a reprieve would not yield “any benefit.”

Honie is sentenced to die for the brutal murder of his ex-girlfriend’s mother, 49-year-old Claudia Benn, in front of her grandchildren in 1998. After his scheduled execution on Thursday, Honie will be the first Utahn to die by lethal injection in nearly 25 years.