Four days before Utah executed Taberon Honie on Aug. 8, the public was invited to take part in a discussion about the state's death penalty at the Blessed Sacrament Parish Center in Sandy City. 

Michelle Beasley and Randy Gardner, parishioners of the Catholic Blessed Sacrament Parish, organized the event and invited national leaders from "Death Penalty Action," an organization fighting to end the death penalty in the United States, to provide information and lead the discussion.

“I had passion, but no credibility or understanding of what to do next,” Beasley said. “As a Catholic, I believe life is sacred from conception to natural death. I was outraged, embarrassed and disappointed that my state would kill someone by law.”

Beasley said the goal of the event was geared toward having “a conversation, not an argument,” and to “find like-minded people to join us in the short time we had prior to Mr. Honie's death,” which is why she reached out to Death Penalty Action leadership.

The event came together in less than a week with about 30 people attending the Sandy event.

Founder of Death Penalty Action, Abraham Bonowitz, said the goal of conversations like the one in Sandy and others he’s hosted in the past is to bring the public together, discuss and inform, regardless of viewpoints or faith.

“We were in a church because that's who invited us,” Bonowitz said. “We would easily have done that in a hotel ballroom or a restaurant or whatever space.”

Bonowitz has been actively advocating against the death penalty since the 1990s and has been hosting conversations around the United States since the group was formed in 2017. Bonowitz said the group has 500,000 email subscribers globally and nearly 2,500 in Utah. 

“We invited the public to come and ask their questions and bring their challenges,” Bonowitz said. 

Some who attended the event vocally expressed they weren’t sure where they stood with the death penalty policy. Time was given to ask questions and voice concerns.

No one at the event directly spoke of an opposing viewpoint in favor of the death penalty. However, in a 2021 Pew Research Center poll, a majority of Americans (60%) were “somewhat in favor” or “strongly in favor” of the death penalty.

Arguments for capital punishment include better public safety from any future harm from the convicted, protecting and giving closure to victims’ families, and taking a life in exchange for the lost life, per the Death Penalty Information Center. 

Several speakers, including Gardner (whose brother was the last person to be executed in Utah in 2010), SueZann Bosler and Charles Keith, shared their intimate experiences with the death penalty and why they advocate for its abolishment. 

“What we try to do is provide voices of experience on the issue, people who have a deep connection to it,” Bonowitz said.

In Keith’s case, his brother was wrongly convicted and on death row for more than a decade.

“As we sat and watched my brother become a victim, we also became victims because we knew he was innocent,” Keith said during the event.

The conversation focused on questions like “How can you save a life after they’ve taken the life of someone else in such a heinous way?” and “If we want to oppose the death penalty in Utah, how do we go about it?”

Bonowitz said the money spent on executions could do more good helping victims like those who spoke and work with people to prevent capital crimes before they happen at all. In the case of Honie, the state spent $280,000 per the Salt Lake Tribune. 

Jeanetta Williams, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Salt Lake Chapter, was also at the event and urged attendees to call the state government and be “voiceful.”

On Aug. 8, Honie was Utah’s first prisoner to be executed in the state since 2010 when Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by firing squad, per the DPIC. A total of eight people have been executed in the state since 1976.

“The event on Aug. 4 began an emotional week,” Beasley said. “I was shocked when people I expected to join voices with ours fell silent and looked away. Conversely, I was surprised when others thanked me for speaking out. I know in my heart capital punishment is wrong.”

“It is important to keep the conversation going,” she said.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Death Penalty Action was founded in 2019 and currently has 1.5 million global subscribers. The founding year has been corrected to 2017 and the number of global subscribers to 500,000.