Firing squad execution of prisoner with dementia blocked by Utah Supreme Court
The Utah Supreme Court has blocked a death row inmate's upcoming execution, after the inmate's attorneys argued in an extensive legal back-and-forth with the state that their client's worsening dementia should spare him from capital punishment.
Ralph Leroy Menzies, 67, was set to be executed Sept. 5 for abducting and killing Utah mother of three Maurine Hunsaker. Hunsaker was abducted from a store on Feb. 23, 1986, and later called her husband to say she had been robbed and kidnapped but would be released by her abductor that night. Two days later, a hiker found her body at a picnic area about 16 miles away in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Hunsaker had been strangled, her throat slashed.
When given a choice decades ago, Menzies selected a firing squad as his method of execution. He would have become only the sixth U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977.
Five states — Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah — authorize the use of firing squads for executions, although the method was rarely to put inmates to death until recently. Before this year, when South Carolina carried out two executions this way, there had only been three firing squad executions carried out in the U.S. since 1977, all of which happened in Utah. Idaho is also preparing to use a firing squad as its main execution method starting next July, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
Utah hasn't used a firing squad since former death row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner's execution in 2010. Menzies' execution would have been the first in Utah since an inmate was put to death by lethal injection last year, which at the time marked the state's resumption of capital punishment following a hiatus that began after Gardner's death.
Lawyers for Menzies had launched a new push beginning in early 2024 to free him of his death sentence, arguing that the dementia their client had developed during his 37 years on death row is so severe that he uses a wheelchair, is dependent on oxygen and can't understand why he is facing execution.
Judges have denied multiple requests for a stay of execution from Menzies' legal team, and one deemed him competent for execution in early June, CBS affiliate KUTV reported. But after his attorneys pushed for another evaluation, the Utah Supreme Court said Menzies adequately alleged a substantial change of circumstances and raised a significant question on his fitness to be executed, concluding a lower court must reevaluate Menzies' competency.
"We acknowledge that this uncertainty has caused the family of Maurine Hunsaker immense suffering, and it is not our desire to prolong that suffering. But we are bound by the rule of law," the court said in the order.
A defense attorney for Menzies said his dementia had significantly worsened since he last had a competency evaluation more than a year ago.
"We look forward to presenting our case in the trial court," attorney Lindsey Layer said.
In a statement to media outlets, Hunsaker's family members said they "are obviously very distraught and disappointed at the Supreme Court's decision" and asked for privacy.
The Associated Press left phone and email messages Friday with a spokesperson for the Utah Attorney General's Office seeking comment on the ruling.
Menzies is not the first person to receive a dementia diagnosis while awaiting execution.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 blocked the execution of a man with dementia in Alabama, ruling Vernon Madison was protected against execution under a constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Madison, who killed a police officer in 1985, died in prison in 2020.
That case followed earlier Supreme Court rulings barring executions of people with severe mental illness. If a defendant cannot understand why they are dying, the Supreme Court said, then an execution is not carrying out the retribution that society is seeking.
Medical experts brought in by prosecutors during hearings into Menzies' competency said he still has the mental capacity to understand his situation. Experts brought in by the defense said he does not.