SALT LAKE CITY – A Utah state judge has ruled that a convicted murderer, who has spent 37 years on death row and developed dementia during that time, is still competent to be executed.
Ralph Leroy Menzies, now 67, was given the death penalty in 1988 for the murder of Maurine Hunsaker, a mother of three. Although he has shown cognitive decline recently, Judge Matthew Bates stated in a court order that Menzies “consistently and rationally understands” the circumstances and reasons surrounding his execution.
Judge Bates further explained, “Menzies has not demonstrated through sufficient evidence that his comprehension of his crime and corresponding punishment has altered or diminished in a manner that violates the Eighth Amendment,” which guards against cruel and unusual punishment.
Menzies had previously selected a firing squad as his method of execution. He would become only the sixth U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office is expected to file a death warrant soon.
Menzies’ lawyers, who had argued his dementia was so severe that he could not understand why he was being put to death, said they plan to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
“Ralph Menzies is a severely brain-damaged, wheelchair-bound, 67-year-old man with dementia and significant memory problems,” his attorney, Lindsey Layer, said in a statement. “It is deeply troubling that Utah plans to remove Mr. Menzies from his wheelchair and oxygen tank to strap him into an execution chair and shoot him to death.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has spared others prisoners with dementia from execution, including an Alabama man in 2019 who had killed a police officer.
Over nearly four decades, attorneys for Menzies filed multiple appeals that delayed his death sentence, which had been scheduled at least twice before it was pushed back.
Hunsaker, a 26-year-old married mother of three, was abducted by Menzies from the convenience store where she worked. She was later found strangled and her throat cut at a picnic area in the Wasatch Mountains of northern Utah. Menzies had Hunsaker’s wallet and several other belongings when he was jailed on unrelated matters. He was convicted of first-degree murder and other crimes.
Matt Hunsaker, who was 10 years old when his mother was killed, said Friday that the family was overwhelmed with emotion to know that justice would finally be served.
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