Honie v. State

• Decision Date: 30 May 2014
• Docket Number: No. 20110620.,20110620.
• Citation: 2014 UT 19,342 P.3d 182
• Parties: Taberone Dave HONIE, Petitioner and Appellant, v. STATE of Utah, Respondent and Appellee.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

342 P.3d 182
2014 UT 19

Taberone Dave HONIE, Petitioner and Appellant
v.
STATE of Utah, Respondent and Appellee.

No. 20110620.

Supreme Court of Utah.

May 30, 2014.

342 P.3d 187

Jon M. Sands, Therese M. Day, David A. Christensen, Salt Lake City, for petitioner and appellant.

Thomas B. Brunker, Salt Lake City, for respondent and appellee.

Justice PARRISH authored the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice DURRANT, Associate Chief Justice NEHRING, Justice DURHAM, and Justice LEE joined.

Justice PARRISH, opinion of the Court:

INTRODUCTION

¶ 1 In May 1999, Petitioner Taberone Dave Honie was convicted of aggravated murder. Mr. Honie waived his right to a jury at sentencing and was subsequently sentenced to death by the trial judge. Following an unsuccessful direct appeal, Mr. Honie sought postconviction relief pursuant to the Utah Post Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA). This case comes before the court on appeal from a grant of summary judgment denying Mr. Honie postconviction relief on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel. Mr. Honie also brought a motion under rule 60(b) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure to set aside the postconviction court's final judgment. That motion was also denied and Mr. Honie appealed. We have consolidated the appeals for review and decision.

¶ 2 On appeal, Mr. Honie argues that the postconviction court erred when it granted the State's motions for summary judgment. He also claims that the postconviction court abused its discretion in denying his rule 60(b) motion. We hold that Mr. Honie has failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to the first set of claims and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in regard to its rule 60(b) denial. We accordingly affirm the postconviction court's grant of summary judgment and denial of rule 60(b) relief.

BACKGROUND

¶ 3 Mr. Honie was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death. This court affirmed his conviction and sentence on direct appeal. State v. Honie, 2002 UT 4, 57 P.3d 977 (Honie I ). Mr. Honie subsequently filed a petition for postconviction relief, alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Although we previously detailed the facts of Mr. Honie's crime in Honie I, we briefly restate the relevant facts here.

I. THE MURDER OF CLAUDIA BENN

¶ 4 On July 9, 1998, Mr. Honie murdered Claudia Benn. At approximately 8:00 p.m. on the evening of the murder, Mr. Honie telephoned Carol Pikyavit, the victim's daughter, asking her to come see him at the house where he was staying. Carol refused, telling Mr. Honie she needed to go to work. Mr. Honie became upset and threatened that if Carol did not come to meet him, he would kill her mother and her nieces.

¶ 5 Between his first telephone call at 8:00 p.m. and the time Carol left for work, Mr. Honie telephoned twice more. Carol and her sister, Benita, left for work at approximately 10:30 p.m., leaving their three children with Claudia.¹ The children were dressed and ready for bed when Carol and Benita left.

¶ 6 Around 11:20 p.m., a cab driver picked up Mr. Honie. Although the cabdriver could tell that Mr. Honie was intoxicated, Mr. Honie

342 P.3d 188

was still able to give him directions to the victim's neighborhood.

¶ 7 At approximately 12:20 a.m., several police officers arrived at the victim's home in response to a neighbor's 911 call. Upon arriving at the victim's home, the officers noticed that a sliding glass door had been broken, permitting entry to the home. The officers ordered the occupants of the house to exit and discovered Mr. Honie leaving the home through the garage. An officer commanded Mr. Honie to put his hands up and ordered him to the ground. Mr. Honie complied. Upon seeing blood on Mr. Honie's arms from his fingertips to his elbows, the officer asked Mr. Honie where he got the blood. Mr. Honie responded, “I stabbed her. I killed her with a knife.”

¶ 8 After arresting Mr. Honie, the officers inspected the victim's home. Inside, they discovered the victim's partially nude body lying face down on the living room floor. A large blood-stained kitchen knife lay near her head.

¶ 9 The victim's three grandchildren were also found inside the home. Two of the children had some blood on them, and one child, D.R., “was covered, literally, head to toe with blood.” In addition, D.R. was found only wearing a t-shirt; she was not wearing the underwear she had on when her mother left for work. D.R.'s underwear was never recovered from the scene of the murder. D.R. was given new underwear the night of the murder, but the social worker taking care of D.R. later noticed blood on them. The blood was later determined to be D.R.'s. Upon examining D.R., a physician at Primary Children's Medical Center determined that the bleeding was caused by abrasions in her genital area that were consistent with rubbing or fondling. The physician also estimated that D.R.'s injury was inflicted less than twenty-four hours before her examination.

¶ 10 The postmortem examination of the victim revealed that Mr. Honie brutally slit the victim's throat, cutting her neck from ear to ear. Four “start marks” on the victim's neck ran together into a deep cut that ran from the front of her neck through to her backbone. In addition to the neck wounds, Mr. Honie mutilated the victim's lower body, stabbing her multiple times in her genitalia.

¶ 11 After his arrest, Mr. Honie was taken to the Iron County Jail where Officer Lynn Davis interviewed and photographed him. Officer Davis interrogated Mr. Honie three separate times on the morning following the murder. Over the course of his interviews with Officer Davis, Mr. Honie admitted he had argued with the victim prior to breaking into her home by smashing the sliding glass door with a rock. Mr. Honie also told Officer Davis that he attempted to penetrate the victim's anus with his penis, but decided not to after realizing the victim had died. In each of the interviews, however, Mr. Honie expressed remorse for killing the victim, stating repeatedly that Claudia was not meant to die.

II. MR. HONIE'S TRIAL, CONVICTION, AND DEATH SENTENCE

¶ 12 The State charged Mr. Honie with aggravated murder in violation of Utah Code section 76–5–202. At trial, the State presented evidence of numerous aggravating factors,² including the evidence of D.R.'s condition the night of the murder. The State argued that Mr. Honie had molested D.R. on the night of the murder and urged the jury to find aggravated sexual abuse of a child as an aggravating factor.

¶ 13 Mr. Honie's counsel openly admitted his client's guilt, stating, “I know in this case there is no question of Mr. Honie's guilt. You are going to find him guilty. The question in this case is going to be one of punishment.” Thus, rather than contesting Mr. Honie's guilt, trial counsel chose to focus on the sentencing phase of the trial by highlighting Mr. Honie's expressions of remorse and attempting to counter the aggravating factors proffered by the State.

342 P.3d 189

¶ 14 The jury convicted Mr. Honie of aggravated murder, finding five aggravating factors: (1) object rape, (2) forcible sodomy, (3) aggravated sexual assault, (4) burglary, and (5) aggravated burglary. The jury, however, could not reach unanimity on a sixth aggravating factor: aggravated child sexual abuse.

¶ 15 Mr. Honie waived his right to a jury at the sentencing phase. Following an extensive colloquy with the judge prior to trial, Mr. Honie signed a jury waiver indicating that he had discussed the waiver and its ramifications with trial counsel. In the colloquy, Mr. Honie stated he understood that he was waiving his right to be sentenced by a twelve-person jury and that his sentence would instead be determined by a single judge. Mr. Honie also stated that he waived the jury voluntarily.

¶ 16 During the sentencing phase, trial counsel chose to highlight Mr. Honie's family and personal background, as well as Mr. Honie's statements of remorse to the police following his arrest. Dr. Nancy Cohn, a forensic psychologist, testified on Mr. Honie's behalf. In addition to proffering testimony concerning Mr. Honie's personal history, including his mental and physical condition, Dr. Cohn testified as to Mr. Honie's remorse. Specifically, Dr. Cohn indicated that Mr. Honie began crying when he admitted to her that he molested D.R. the night of the murder.

¶ 17 The trial judge found that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and sentenced Mr. Honie to death in accordance with section 76–3–207 of the Utah Code. The judge specifically found four aggravating factors: (1) that the murder involved object rape, (2) that the murder was committed in the course of an aggravated sexual assault, (3) that Mr. Honie was engaged in committing aggravated burglary at the time of the murder, and (4) that during the murder Mr. Honie also engaged in aggravated sexual abuse of D.R. The court also noted Mr. Honie's criminal history, including a prior drunken assault on Carol, and the impact Mr. Honie's crime had on the victim's family. In addition, the court considered the mitigation evidence offered by Mr. Honie, including evidence of his intoxication at...