The view from an execution ‘free speech zone’: Somber protesters urge Utah to abolish death penalty

As the sun began setting on death row inmate Taberon Honie’s final day, the Utah State Correctional Facility was barely visible on the hazy horizon from a “free speech zone” state officials established for demonstrators nearly 2 miles south of the prison’s campus in Salt Lake City’s remote west side. 

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

The zone, which opened at 5 p.m. Wednesday near 7800 W. 700 North, was the closest public access point to the prison after state officials shut down access on the road leading to the prison, 8000 West, for security reasons leading up to Honie’s execution. 

For hours, 100-degree heat pummeled the secluded, weedy area. Media members outnumbered demonstrators until after about 9 p.m., when a handful of them began showing up as the glaring sun turned into a glowing orange sunset. 

When temperatures cooled and shadows began stretching across the remote stretch of arid wetlands, the bugs came out. By nightfall, clouds of them swarmed the floodlights state officials had set up for the zone. Mayflies coated car exteriors, even the road’s pavement. 

But the bugs did not deter about two dozen somber protesters who came to hold anti-capital punishment signs, pray and sing during Honie’s last hours alive.

Rony Charles was one of the first to arrive. He carried a sign that read, “capital punishment = barbarism.” He said he felt compelled to protest Honie’s execution because, “I don’t think anyone should have the right or the power to take another human being’s life,” regardless of any crime. 

Having moved to Salt Lake City from Haiti about 10 years ago, Charles noted his home country abolished the death penalty in 1987, and he finds it absurd that a developed country like the U.S. would still allow it. 

“We thought it was too harsh in Haiti, a third world country,” he said, describing the U.S. as “the best country in the world,” and yet, “we’re still putting people to death.” 

Janell Wilson, of Layton, carried a sign that read, “Utah’s laws make us all murderers.” As a woman of Native American descent, Wilson said Honie’s case showcased a slew of problems facing Native American communities. While she agreed Honie’s crimes were horrific, she said it’s important to acknowledge impacts on marginalized communities. To her, Honie’s crimes and his execution were a “tragedy.” 

“All of it is,” she said. “I just don’t think one murder is a reason for another. It’s backwards.” 

The family members of Honie’s victim, Claudia Benn, including her daughter Benita Yracheta, have been waiting 26 years for Honie to be put to death. Last month, they urged the Utah Board of Pardons to deny Honie’s request for clemency, which it ultimately did. 

“I understand” why they would want the death penalty, Wilson said, but she said she would tell her kids, “if anybody ever murders me, please put your hand out to that person who did it. … People aren’t innately born evil.” 

Closer to 10 p.m., organizers and members of the national anti-capital punishment group Death Penalty Action arrived with two large banner signs reading, “All life is precious” and “Do you trust the government? End the death penalty now!” 

The group, led by co-founder Abe Bonowitz, held a press conference earlier Wednesday at the Utah Capitol to deliver a petition and letter to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s office urging the state’s leaders to rid Utah “of this outdated and immoral method of punishment.” 

“Such a final and heinous decision should not be left to the discretion of flawed humans and a broken system too flawed to fix,” the letter read. 

Death Penalty Action also filed a motion in 3rd District Court to force the state to allow them to protest closer to the prison, outside of its gates, rather than in the free speech zone established nearly 2 miles away, but their request was rejected Wednesday afternoon.  

Randy Gardner, the brother of Ronnie Lee Gardner, Utah’s last death row inmate to be executed in 2010 by firing squad, was a member of the group. He said he never supported the death penalty, but his brother’s execution traumatized him. 

“I didn’t really have anybody to talk to after it happened. It was surreal that it even happened,” Gardner said. But soon after the execution he said he felt like he was “going crazy,” so he began getting involved in groups advocating to abolish the death penalty.

“I don’t want other people to feel what I felt” after his brother’s execution, Gardner said, predicting that Honie’s execution will be a traumatic experience for members of his family and Benn’s family, and it will only satisfy revenge, not justice.  

“It divides families,” he said. “It’s going to mess them up. They’re going to be joining this club.”

Gardner said he was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder after his brother’s execution. He said he “suffered for eight years,” saying he had nightmares of “me executing my kids and my mother. I’m a pretty strong-willed person, but it wouldn’t go away,” he said, until he sought therapy. 

Another demonstrator, Suezann Bosler, co-founder of Journey of Hope, a group of family members of murder victims who oppose the death penalty, also joined Death Penalty Action on Wednesday. 

Bosler and her father were attacked by a man with a knife in their home in 1986. While Bosler survived, her father didn’t. As she protested Utah’s death penalty, she tearfully recounted in graphic detail the night of her father’s murder, watching him take his last breath while she bled from a stab wound to her head. 

Her father’s killer, James Bernard Campbell, was ultimately sentenced to life in prison after he successfully appealed a death sentence. Bosler has advocated against the death penalty and in favor of learning “forgiveness.” 

While victims’ family members want closure, Bosler said capital punishment only sows bitterness. For Benn’s family, she said, “we wish and hope they can listen to us and see that (forgiveness) can happen.”

Speaking to the crowd at the free speech zone, Bosler said she was “shaking” thinking that Honie was waiting to be executed. Even though she never knew him, she said what was happening to him was “horrifying.” 

“I’m almost ashamed to be called an American,” she said. “Like our T-shirts say, ‘Do not kill in our name.’ … Why kill people who kill people to show us Americans that killing people is wrong? It is not a deterrent. It has not worked. And never will work. And I will be no part of this.” 

As the night drew closer to midnight, demonstrators uttered Catholic prayers and sang “Amazing Grace.” They encouraged anyone who wanted to pray or share thoughts to feel free to take the microphone. The group grew quieter as the clock ticked passed midnight, and they began checking their phones for confirmation of Honie’s execution. 

Minutes before the official word came from the Utah Department of Corrections, at 12:27 a pack of coyotes could be heard yipping from the distant darkness, east of the prison. 

After official word came confirming Honie’s execution, Bonowitz said, “the world is no safer. Utah is no safer. Another victim family has been created, and a victim family is soon to learn that another killing didn’t change anything for them.” 

“No amount of killing will bring back our loved ones,” he said. 

Bonowitz concluded the night by urging Utahns to mobilize and work together to abolish the state’s death penalty. 

“We did not need this execution to happen. But it did,” he said. “So the promise that I make to myself is to continue to stand up to speak out, and to say this doesn’t have to happen. … We can be safe from people who have done awful crimes and hold them accountable without executions.”

By about 12:40 a.m., demonstrators then began quietly dispersing.