How a law passed earlier this year made executions in Utah a more secretive process

There are still unanswered questions in the wake of the execution of Taberon Honie earlier this month, Utah’s first capital punishment in over a decade and first lethal injection since 1999.

Where did Utah buy the lethal injection drug, pentobarbital? And who administered it? What were the credentials of the execution team?

Those details will likely remain unclear, even for Honie’s attorneys, after a new law passed last legislative session increased the secrecy surrounding executions in Utah, part of a nationwide trend to conceal the source of lethal injection drugs and the identity of those who administer them.

Passed with unanimous approval from both the Utah House and Senate and signed by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Feb. 16, SB109 is nearly 1,000 lines long and imposed various tweaks to how the Department of Corrections operates. It increased coordination between county jails and prisons, directed the Utah Department of Health and Human Services to provide health care to inmates, created a reentry division to help inmates after their release, and allowed corrections staff in some instances to use their state vehicle while off-duty.

A late amendment, the bill also prevents the release of certain records related to executions, including any “identifying information” of the people who take part in the process — that includes the medical team, corrections workers, contractors, consultants, executioners administering the drugs, and other staff or volunteers.

For instance, the two corrections officers who escorted journalists to the death chamber before Honie’s execution weren’t wearing name tags.

Utah executes Taberon Honie by lethal injection, first capital punishment since 2010

The law also blocks the release of any identifying information of the person who manufactures, supplies, compounds or prescribes drugs, medical supplies and equipment used in an execution.

Not only does the law bar the public’s access, it prevents the records from being used as evidence during court proceedings and being released during discovery, the process where all relevant documents are made available during a lawsuit.

Honie was executed shortly after midnight on Aug. 8. It took about 17 minutes from when the drugs were administered to when his heart stopped, and in that time, Honie did not appear to suffer.

But in the weeks leading up to the execution, Honie’s attorneys said there were several red flags that they were unable to investigate because of the new law. That includes verifying where the drugs came from and the credentials of who administered them.

“The Department of Corrections’ overboard reliance on the secrecy statute to withhold all relevant information about execution drugs and personnel prevents prisoners and the public from verifying that executions are carried out in compliance with the written procedures, state law and the Constitution,” said Honie’s attorney, Eric Zuckerman, in a statement to Utah News Dispatch.

The Utah State Correctional Facility is pictured from a “free speech zone” set up about two miles from the facility in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024 as the state prepared to execute death row inmate Taberon Honie just after midnight. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

The legislation mirrors policies passed in other death penalty states — from January 2011 to August 2018, 17 states conducted 246 lethal injection executions, according to a report from the Death Penalty Information Center, a national nonprofit organization that provides data and analysis on issues concerning capital punishment. Every state except Delaware, which abolished the death penalty in 2016, has passed laws to hide information related to the drugs and who administers them.

For instance, Texas, which conducted 89 executions during that time frame, has a law concealing the identity of anyone who “uses, supplies, or administers a substance during the execution” and “any person or entity that manufactures, transports, tests, procures, compounds, prescribes, dispenses, or provides a substance or supplies used in an execution.”

At least two states, Arkansas and Virginia, have exceptions that allow some of that information to be released during litigation. Utah’s law has no such carveout.

The bill was sponsored by Utah Sen. Derrin Owens, R-Fountain Green, one of several lawmakers who witnessed Honie’s execution. In a statement to the Dispatch, Owens said the bill established a “firewall that maintains a clear separation between public entities and suppliers.”

“This bill enhances privacy for businesses and helps the state procure critical supplies. SB109 will improve the effectiveness and fairness of the criminal justice system while addressing logistical challenges,” Owens said.

Without some guarantee of anonymity, officials with the Department of Corrections said it would be almost impossible to obtain the drugs or hire contractors to carry out executions.

Last October, the Utah Attorney General’s Office contacted the Department of Corrections, letting them know that Honie was nearing the end of his appeals, said Brian Redd, executive director of the Utah Department of Corrections. That’s when the department started looking for lethal injection drugs — but pharmacies and medical personnel are often reluctant to participate in executions.

Sometimes the reluctance is based on ideology or religion. Other times it’s a fear of public backlash.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer sells drugs like potassium chloride or fentanyl under the condition they will not be used in a lethal injection; the European Union outlawed selling drugs to be used in executions; the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics states physicians “must not participate in a legally authorized execution.”

“We weren’t having any luck getting anyone to cooperate with us,” said Redd. “The law that was passed just enabled us to give some confidence to the medical professionals that assisted us in being able to communicate. That allowed us to do our job.”

Death row inmate Taberon Honie leaves for break during the Utah Board of Pardons commutation hearing Tuesday, July 23, 2024, at the Utah State Correctional Facility, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)

But the law was the subject of controversy leading up to Honie’s execution and Zuckerman, his attorney, accused the process of being “shrouded in secrecy” in a letter to the governor.

In the letter, Zuckerman described an “extreme level of secrecy.” That includes the “secret, anonymous source” who sold the state pentobarbital for $200,000, which Zuckerman said “was more than twice what any other state has paid”; the department refusing “to provide any original documentation verifying the source’s licensing and other relevant legal compliance”; and the inability to verify the storage conditions of the pentobarbital, “raising serious concerns about whether the drug has already been tainted.”

“Transparency is the hallmark of a free society, yet this process has been anything but transparent,” Zuckerman wrote to Cox, asking the governor to pause the execution, a request that was ultimately denied.

Redd pushed back on that criticism in an interview last week.

“We’re trying to be a very transparent organization. Our administration has made that decision, and I think our record over the past year and a half probably speaks to that. But this is one area where in order to fulfill our statutory duty, it just had to be put in place,” he said, telling Utah News Dispatch the department vetted the medical professionals and the chemicals used in the execution to make sure everything was up to date. The pentobarbital came with a certificate of authentication, he said.

Prior to the bill, the Department of Corrections would have still tried to keep certain information related to executions private. If someone requested the identity of the police officers who participated in the firing squad execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010, for example, the department would have argued those were protected records. But there’s still a chance that information could have been released in court proceedings — now, SB109 makes it clear what can and can’t be released.

Honie, 48, was pronounced dead at about 12:25 a.m. on Aug. 8 after being injected with two doses of pentobarbital. He was sentenced to death in 1999 for the violent murder of his ex-girlfriend’s mother, Claudia Benn, after breaking into her home and sexually assaulting her.

Utah News Dispatch was among the media witnesses for the execution.

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X.