Spotlight on Utah’s Death Penalty

The cap­i­tal charges filed against Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal activist Charlie Kirk on September 10^th, have drawn new atten­tion to Utah’s death penal­ty. Although Utah was among the first states to rein­state the death penal­ty after it was inval­i­dat­ed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972, and the first to per­form an exe­cu­tion in the mod­ern era, exe­cu­tions have been rare over the last 50 years. Just eight peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed in Utah since 1977. In 2024, the state exe­cut­ed Taberon Honie, end­ing a 14-year hia­tus in exe­cu­tions. Utah juries have sen­tenced 26 peo­ple to death in the mod­ern era but have not done so since 2008.

Mr. Kirk’s high-pro­file mur­der result­ed in Utah offi­cials declar­ing they would seek the death penal­ty even before Mr. Robinson was arrest­ed; cap­i­tal charges were filed on September 16. The deci­sion to cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cute Mr. Robinson has sig­nif­i­cant impli­ca­tions – in terms of the required time, mon­ey, and resources. Reuters not­ed the high cost of death penal­ty cas­es in Utah. ​“Utah’s 2017 study of the death penal­ty also found pur­su­ing the death penal­ty adds an aver­age $1.5 mil­lion in costs for the state, over the usu­al cost of cas­es seek­ing a life sen­tence,” in line with data from oth­er states. Death penal­ty cas­es are also longer and more resource inten­sive, requir­ing months of prepa­ra­tion and inves­ti­ga­tion before pro­ceed­ing to trial.

In 2022, two Republican leg­is­la­tors pro­posed leg­is­la­tion to end Utah’s death penal­ty. The leg­is­la­tion gar­nered sup­port from vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, busi­ness lead­ers, and a bipar­ti­san coali­tion of Utah pros­e­cu­tors. One of those pros­e­cu­tors, Utah County Attorney David O. Leavitt, had pledged not to seek death sen­tenced dur­ing his tenure, say­ing, ​“What I have wit­nessed and expe­ri­enced since decid­ing to seek the death penal­ty is that regard­less of the crime, seek­ing the death penal­ty does NOT pro­mote our safe­ty.” The Wall Street Journal  wrote at the time that Mr. Leavitt’s deci­sion was part of ​“a grow­ing move­ment of con­ser­v­a­tives across the coun­try push­ing for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” The bill to repeal and replace Utah’s death penal­ty ulti­mate­ly failed in com­mit­tee on a 6 – 5 vote.

As report­ed by Reuters and USA Today, pros­e­cu­tors’ deci­sion to seek a death sen­tence is only the first step in Mr. Robinson’s case. The tri­al will like­ly not take place for sev­er­al years, and a death sen­tence can only be imposed if all 12 jurors unan­i­mous­ly agree it is the appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment. Even if a death sen­tence is imposed, there are both manda­to­ry and dis­cre­tionary appeals, which can take 20 years or more. As DPI’s Executive Director, Robin Maher, told USA Today, ​“a lot is still unknown.”