Utah one of three states to resume executions in 2024 after lengthy hiatus, report finds
Dec 23, 2024, 10:29 PM
SALT LAKE CITY – Shortly after midnight on August 8, the Utah Department of Corrections executed Taberon Honie for the brutal murder of Claudia Benn in 1998.
Honie, 48, was the first death row inmate executed in Utah in 14 years. His lethal injection made Utah one of three states to resume executions in 2024 after more than a decade, according to the Death Penalty Information Center’s newly released annual report.
A couple months earlier, an Idaho jury sentenced Chad Daybell to death in a triple murder case. The sentence was one of 26 new death sentences this year nation-wide, up from 21 in 2023.
Despite the uptick, Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, noted long-term trends show a significant decline in use of the death penalty.
“20 years ago, we had five times more death sentences than we do this year,” she said.
The Washington D.C. based nonprofit tracks capital punishment cases across the country, but does not take a position on the death penalty.
According to the annual report, Gallup polling shows public support for the death penalty is at 53%, a five-decade low.
“But when you dig down into these numbers, you see sharp generational differences,” Maher noted. “For people between the ages of 18 and 43, a majority of those generations disapprove of the death penalty.”
States utilizing the death penalty have also moved further away from government transparency, the report found.
“Secrecy is a trend we are seeing in every single death penalty state that is using the death penalty actively,” Maher said. In Utah, the Legislature passed and Gov. Spencer Cox signed S.B. 109 this year, keeping secret the identities of those helping to carry out executions and supply lethal drugs.
Officials have said they would have a difficult time carrying out executions without those protections, but Maher isn’t so sure.
“I am not persuaded that this is a function they cannot go forward with without using secrecy, we did it for many, many years without these provisions in place,” she said. “This is a government function. These are taxpayer dollars. So, the public has a right to know and understand exactly what the government officials are doing with respect to the death penalty.” Utah’s Department of Corrections did offer financial transparency, releasing a cost breakdown for Honie’s execution, which cost taxpayers more than $280,000.
KSL also asked the Attorney General’s Office for an estimate of the legal costs of litigating the 25-year case. The office sent a statement saying, in part, “There is no way to determine the full figure spent in carrying out his sentence.”
“It’s a well-known government function to keep track of costs because you have auditors and you have accountability to the public and you need to justify how you are spending taxpayer funds,” Maher said. “It may be uncomfortable to reveal that true number because the public is increasingly disapproving of the amounts of money and the kind of effort and resources that it takes to carry out executions.”
The state of Utah is poised to continue carrying out death sentences in 2025. If death row inmate Ralph Menzies is found competent, he could face execution by firing squad in the Spring.
