The Utah Supreme Court recently halted a man’s scheduled execution by firing squad, as his legal team argued that he should be exempt due to his dementia.
Ralph Leroy Menzies, 67, was set to be executed Sept. 5 for abducting and killing Utah mother of three Maurine Hunsaker in 1986.
When given a choice decades ago, Menzies selected a firing squad as his method of execution.
He would have become only the sixth US prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977.
Beginning in early 2024, Menzies’ lawyers sought to have his death sentence lifted, claiming his severe dementia, developed over 37 years on death row, left him wheelchair-bound, reliant on oxygen, and unable to comprehend the reason for his execution.
The court acknowledged that Menzies had demonstrated a substantial change in his situation and brought up a critical issue regarding his capability for execution, instructing a lower court to reevaluate his competency.
“We recognize that this uncertainty has caused significant distress to the family of Maurine Hunsaker, and we do not wish to extend that suffering,” the court noted.
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 response, Hunsaker’s family expressed their deep disappointment and distress over the court’s decision, requesting privacy during this time.
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.
In a related instance, the US Supreme Court intervened in 2019, preventing the execution of Vernon Madison, an Alabama man with dementia, citing the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment as grounds for protection.
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.
Hunsaker was abducted from a store Feb. 23, 1986.
She later called her husband to say she had been robbed and kidnapped but that she 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.
Utah’s last execution played out by lethal injection a year ago.
The state hasn’t used a firing squad since the 2010 execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner.
Earlier this year, South Carolina executed two prisoners by firing squad.
