SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court is considering reviving a lawsuit filed by three death row inmates that challenges the state's death penalty laws, ultimately seeking to end capital punishment in the state.
On Wednesday, the state's top court heard arguments over whether to reinstate the litigation in a lower court. It was filed by Michael Anthony Archuleta, Troy Kell and Ralph Menzies (who died last year before he could be executed but is still listed as a plaintiff).
"It will affect every prisoner on Utah’s death row now and going forward," said Amy Marie Fly, an attorney representing the inmates.
A lower court judge dismissed the lawsuit last year in part on statute of limitations grounds. Wednesday's arguments focused largely on that and execution protocols that are enacted by the Utah Department of Corrections.
"What would make us think these claims are really ripe to be addressed when all the evidence we have suggests they’re not even following the 2010 protocol?" asked Justice Diana Hagen.
Fly argued that a statute of limitations should not apply at all, giving inmates facing a death sentence the opportunity to challenge the method of execution. Utah uses firing squad and lethal injection.
Fly told the justices about issues they discovered while litigating the execution of Taberon Honie. He was put to death in 2024 for the 1998 murder of Claudia Benn in Cedar City.
"Mr. Honie was injected with twice the dose of lethal drugs that was required. It wasn’t because it was medically necessary, it was because the syringe had already been prepared and they didn’t want to waste it," she said. "That’s what arbitrary decision-making looks like. And it happened during the execution. We had no advance notice of it."
But assistant Utah Solicitor General Joshua Davidson argued that giving death row inmates no statute of limitations would invite repeated legal challenges.
"It would encourage delay, discourage the exercise of diligence and frustrate the state’s and the surviving family’s strong interest in implementing the death penalty in a timely fashion," Davidson told the Court.
But Justice Hagen pointed out that with a statute of limitations, there would be another cycle of litigation if inmates have to keep suing for things that may not even emerge ultimately as they head toward the death chamber.
"I do have concerns about how we’re going to engage all these levels of the court and counsel and all court resources to decide issues that may not be presented at the time of execution," she said.
Countered Davidson: "If there's a significant change."
The Court took the case under advisement with no timeline for a ruling. Randy Gardner, an anti-death penalty activist who is the brother of Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was executed by firing squad in 2010, told FOX 13 News he hoped the Court would let the lawsuit move forward.
"We have four active death penalty cases going on right now, which is a whole other situation that could cost millions," he said.
The Utah State Legislature this year passed a bill that speeds up some of the appeals processes in capital punishment cases. Governor Spencer Cox recently signed it into law.
