Utah judge to decide if convicted killer with dementia can be executed

SALT LAKE CITY — Attorneys for a Utah man who has been on death row for 37 years are due before a state judge Wednesday as they seek to spare the convicted murderer from execution because he has dementia.

Ralph Leroy Menzies was sentenced to die in 1988 for the killing of Maurine Hunsaker, a mother of three. His attorneys say the 67-year-old inmate's dementia is so severe that he cannot understand why he is facing execution.

If he is deemed competent, Menzies could be one of the next U.S. prisoners executed by firing squad after the method was used on two South Carolina men in recent weeks: a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents in 2001 and a man who killed an off duty police officer in 2004.

Medical experts brought in by prosecutors say Menzies still has the mental capacity to understand his situation, while those brought in by the defense say he does not. The hearing Wednesday will be the last in Menzies' competency case before Judge Matthew Bates issues an opinion, said Eric Zuckerman, a lawyer for Menzies.

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.

''It's not just about mental illness. It can be also the consequence of brain damage or stroke or dementia — the fundamental question being whether he has a rational understanding of the reasons he is being executed,'' said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

More than half of all pris­on­ers sen­tenced to death in the U.S. spend more than 18 years on death row, according to the organization.

Menzies earlier chose a firing squad as his method of execution. Utah death row inmates sentenced before May 2004 were given a choice between that and lethal injection. For inmates sentenced in the state after that date, lethal injection is the default method of execution unless the drugs are unavailable.

Since 1977 only five prisoners in the U.S. have been executed by firing squad. Three were in Utah, most recently in 2010, and the others in South Carolina.

Hunsaker, a 26-year-old married mother of three, was abducted by Menzies from the gas station 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.

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.

Zuckerman said there will be further hearings before any execution warrant can be issued.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.