Last Friday, officials in Utah denied clemency to Taberon Honie, who is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 8 for the stabbing death of his girlfriend’s mother in 1998. As the Associated Press reported, the decision “was announced in a one-paragraph notice from Scott Stephenson, chair of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole. 'After carefully reviewing all submitted information and considering all arguments from the parties, the board does not find sufficient cause to commute Mr. Honie’s death sentence.’”

Honie had asked the board to commute his sentence by claiming that he is “not the same person he was when he killed the woman after a day of drinking and using drugs.” He told them, “I’ve shown I can exist in prison. I’m not a threat to the public. I’m not a threat to anyone.”

According to a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center, “Mr. Honie’s legal team shared evidence about his traumatic upbringing on the Hopi reservation, in a home without running water or electricity. Mr. Honie’s parents… suffered from alcoholism as adults and fought constantly, neglecting Mr. Honie and his siblings and leaving them to wander the reservation alone. Mr. Honie first tried alcohol at age 5 and experienced several serious head injuries as a child.”

Honie asked the Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare his life so he could continue to be a helpful presence “for his mother and his daughter, who is in recovery for substance abuse.”

They were unpersuaded.

A new Death Penalty Information Center study highlights the reasons and arguments that clemency boards and governors have found persuasive when considering commutations or pardons in capital cases. That report underscores why Honie was unsuccessful.

It found that clemency in capital cases is most often granted where there is evidence of disproportionate sentencing of different offenders who commit the same crime or of possible innocence. Neither was present in Honie’s case.

The Death Penalty Information Center report shines a light on the things that move decision-makers to exercise their vast discretion to........

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