Prisoner Who Was Spared Firing Squad Dies
Matt Hunsaker cleans off the grave of his mother, Maurine Hunsaker, who was murdered in 1986, at Valley View Memorial Park in West Valley City, Utah, on Feb. 9, 2024. (Kristin Murphy/The Deseret News via AP)
Ralph Leroy Menzies, 67, a Utah man who was spared execution this fall after developing dementia during his 37 years on death row, has died of apparent natural causes, according to the Utah Department of Corrections.
Menzies had been scheduled to die by firing squad in September, but the Utah Supreme Court blocked the execution in August after his attorneys argued that his dementia had progressed too far for him to understand his punishment. A judge had set a new competency hearing for mid-December to reassess his mental state.
Utah has not carried out an execution by firing squad since 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed. Menzies had chosen the firing squad decades ago when given a choice of execution methods. Had his execution proceeded, he would have been the seventh person in the U.S. executed by firing squad since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.
Menzies was convicted of abducting and killing Maurine Hunsaker, a mother of three, in 1986. His legal team renewed efforts in early 2024 to overturn or delay his death sentence, citing his severe dementia as rendering him unable to understand the reason for his execution.
The Utah Supreme Court found that Menzies had presented a substantial change in circumstances and raised a serious question about his fitness for execution, requiring a lower court to reevaluate his 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. Hunsaker’s family expressed that they are “very distraught and disappointed” and requested privacy.
Menzies is not the first death row inmate to receive a dementia diagnosis. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of Vernon Madison in Alabama on similar grounds, citing the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Madison later died in prison in 2020. The Court has repeatedly held that executing someone who cannot understand the nature of their punishment fails to meet the retributive goals of society.
During Menzies’ hearings, medical experts presented conflicting opinions: prosecution-appointed experts testified that he retained enough mental capacity to understand his situation, while defense-appointed experts argued otherwise.
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