Utah prison officials are expecting to spend $200,000 for the lethal injection drug they now plan to use to execute Taberon Honie, after changing course when the death row inmate’s attorney raised questions about the state’s original plan to use an untested three-drug cocktail.
That’s twice the amount that Idaho corrections officials paid to obtain the same amount of pentobarbital last year, according to news reports. And it’s 25 times more than the estimated cost of $7,900 for the three-drug combination of ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride that the Utah prison initially planned to use.
But Glen Mills, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Corrections, said that prison officials are planning to move forward with getting the pricier three doses of pentobarbital because officials believe the costs to fight Honie in court over the novel three-drug combination would exceed $200,000.
Scrapping the earlier plan to use the three-drug combination in favor of pentobarbital did whittle down Honie’s lawsuit. Attorneys on Wednesday agreed to dismiss claims challenging the untried drug mixture, which his legal team had argued could subject him to a painful death in violation of the state’s constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Prison officials have also offered a way for Honie’s lawyers to call a judge and ask them to stop the execution, currently scheduled for Aug. 8, if something goes wrong during the lethal injection and Honie appears to be suffering. Prison officials initially said they would not allow Honie’s attorney to have a communication device in the prison, which was another aspect he was challenging in his lawsuit. That claim was also dismissed Wednesday as part of a stipulation.
The lawsuit hasn’t been entirely settled, though. Attorneys will argue next Tuesday over two key issues: Whether Honie had enough notification to research the drug the prison plans to use and whether the prison needs to update its execution protocol.
That protocol has been in place since 2010, and reflects the use of “sodium thiopental or other equally or more effective substance sufficient to cause death.” It is illegal to import sodium thiopental, a fast-acting barbiturate, and the only U.S.-based supplier stopped production in 2011.
Honie has been on death row for 25 years. In July 1998, Honie called his ex-girlfriend and demanded she visit him, threatening to kill her family if she refused. Later that evening, sometime before midnight, Honie took a cab to the house of Claudia Benn, his ex-girlfriend’s mother. He broke the door in with a rock and then beat, bit, stabbed and sexually assaulted Benn as he killed her, court documents state.
Honie’s lawsuit is one of his last chances to stop his scheduled execution. Earlier this week, he also asked the Utah parole board for clemency. The board is now considering that request and is expected to issue a decision before his execution date.
In declarations filed last weekend, Randall Honey, chief of prison operations, and UDC Executive Director Brian Redd described the state’s attempts to acquire pentobarbital.
Officials reached out to 12 states, which “either did not respond, or replied stating that due to their laws, they could not provide any information related to their supply of pentobarbital,” Honey said. The drug is an authorized execution option in at least 10 other states.
Honey said he also contacted an unnamed pharmacist “who told me that they could also not procure pentobarbital.” That pharmacist suggested instead to use the three-drug combination of ketamine, fentanyl, and potassium chloride. Mills, the corrections spokesperson, would not say Thursday whether the state paid this pharmacist for his or her opinion, or how much.
At a June hearing, lawyers with the Utah attorney general’s office presented the plan to use the three drugs during a hearing when asking for Honie’s death warrant — which the judge signed.
Following news coverage of that hearing, Redd said, “I was contacted by an individual who ... informed me that they could get me in touch with a supplier of pentobarbital.”
Redd contacted the supplier. And now, Honey wrote, prison officials say they will be able to get the supply of pentobarbital in an “appropriate and legal way” at least three days before Honie’s scheduled execution.
