Ralph Menzies will not die by firing squad next week after the Utah Supreme Court announced late Friday afternoon that more evaluation is needed to determine whether the death row inmate is competent to be executed.
It’s the latest delay in a death penalty case that has dragged on for decades after Menzies in 1986 kidnapped and killed a young mother, Maurine Hunsaker, who had been working at a gas station. Friday’s decision only deepened the anguish felt by Hunsaker’s family, who in recent weeks have been vocal about the frustration they’ve felt waiting for the day that Menzies would be executed. Watching her killer die, Hunsaker’s family members have said, will bring them the closure that’s eluded them for nearly 40 years.
But Menzies has vascular dementia, and his attorneys have argued that the disease has progressed to the point where he can no longer understand what is happening. Utah’s and the United States’ constitutions prohibit the government from executing someone if they don’t understand that they are being executed and the reasons why.
Third District Court Judge Matthew Bates concluded in an early July ruling that while Menzies did have dementia, he was not so mentally impaired that the death penalty could not be carried out. Soon after, he signed a death warrant for Menzies and set a Sept. 5 execution date.
Bates based his legal conclusion on expert evaluations that were completed a year ago. But Lindsey Layer, one of Menzies’ attorneys, told the Utah Supreme Court earlier this month that her client’s mental state has continued to decline and he can no longer clearly answer why Utah officials were planning to execute him.
Menzies’ attorneys had asked for another evaluator to assess the inmates’ competency at the current moment, but Bates denied that request.
The Utah Supreme Court on Friday determined that Bates was wrong, saying that Menzies’ dementia and its progressive effects “call into question whether he remains competent to be executed.” His attorneys had brought forward enough evidence about his decline that a district court judge needs to have Menzies’ competency evaluated, the justices said — even if that means delaying that case once more.
In its Friday ruling, the Utah Supreme Court vacated the death warrant Bates had issued.
The justices acknowledged in their ruling that the uncertainty about Menzies’ competency has caused “immense suffering” to Hunsaker’s family, but said they needed to follow the law.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A photograph of Maurine Hunsaker during Ralph Menzies’ commutation hearing.
Matt Hunsaker, who was 10 when his mother was murdered, said in a text message that his family was “obviously very distraught and disappointed” after the ruling, and asked for privacy.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Layer said in a statement Friday that Menzies’ legal team was pleased that the state’s high court “has ensured Mr. Menzies will not be executed without the benefit of an updated, independent competency evaluation.”
“It has been more than a year since his last evaluation, during which time his dementia has significantly worsened,” she said. “He’s tethered to an oxygen tank, uses a wheelchair, is confused and disoriented, and no longer understands why the State of Utah is trying to kill him.”
‘Shoot me’
In 1986, Menzies kidnapped Hunsaker, who was 26, while she was working at a Kearns gas station. He held her hostage in the Storm Mountain area of Big Cottonwood Canyon overnight, before strangling her and cutting her throat. Two days after he kidnapped her, a hiker found Hunsaker’s body.
Menzies has always denied he killed Hunsaker, but prosecutors presented enough evidence at trial that a jury found him guilty. Prosecutors noted that Hunsaker’s purse was found in Menzies’ home, and other forensic evidence confirmed she had been in the car Menzies was driving. Hunsaker’s ID was also found discarded at the Salt Lake County jail, shortly after Menzies had been arrested and booked into jail on an unrelated charge on the day after her body was found.
According to Tribune archives, when a judge announced he was sentencing Menzies to death and asked what method the inmate preferred, Menzies appeared distracted, then answered, “Huh? Oh, shoot me.”
Menzies was a brash younger man then, a 29-year-old who hurled obscenities at prosecutors during breaks, and doodled on a legal pad as a witness testified about the brutal abuse he endured as a child at the hands of his stepfather.
Now, nearly 40 years later, Menzies sits quietly in a wheelchair, his hands and legs shackled, clear tubes pushing oxygen through his nose. The 67-year-old doesn’t speak — even at his commutation hearing, where his attorneys unsuccessfully pleaded for mercy from Utah’s parole board.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Death row inmate Ralph Menzies is brought into court in July.
His attorneys have said that he doesn’t understand what’s happening in court anymore.
A ‘substantial change in circumstances’
But has Menzies’ dementia worsened to the point where he can’t be executed under the law? While the Utah Supreme Court called off next week’s execution, it didn’t make a determination on this question. It ordered that the case be remanded back to Bates’ courtroom, where another evaluator can assess Menzies and give their opinion.
In its unanimous ruling, the Utah Supreme Court explained that, in order to get another competency evaluation, Menzies’ attorneys needed to show that there was a “substantial change of circumstances” that was “sufficient to raise a significant question about the inmate’s competency to be executed.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Third District Court Judge Matthew Bates listens to Ralph Menzies’ attorney argue in court in July. Bates later that afternoon signed a death warrant ordering that Menzies be executed by firing squad in September.
The justices determined that Bates should have only determined whether the evidence from Menzies’ attorneys had reached that threshold, but the district judge didn’t do that.
Bates had instead weighed rebuttal evidence from the state, evaluating recordings of Menzies’ prison phone calls himself. The Utah attorney general’s office argued the recordings showed that Menzies was able to carry conversations with his family and friends.
The case now goes back to Bates’ courtroom, and Menzies’ execution will at least be delayed, if it happens at all.
Prison officials — who had been preparing for an execution with a five-member firing squad, armed with .30-caliber rifles — said Friday that they remain prepared to carry out the sentence if called to do so.