Menzies ruled competent to face execution
Jun 6, 2025, 5:58 PM | Updated: Jun 9, 2025, 12:10 pm
Menzies, on Utah’s death row since 1988, will be in the courtroom. The hearing is to determine if he’s still competent enough to face execution. (Ralph Menzies attorney)
(Ralph Menzies attorney)
SALT LAKE CITY — Ralph Menzies, who has been on Utah’s death row since 1988, is competent to be executed, Judge Matthew Bates of the Third District Court ruled Friday.
In 2024, Menzies’ attorneys filed a petition with the court saying their client had dementia. They said he would not understand the meaning of being executed.
Menzies is on death row for killing Maurine Hunsaker in 1986. He has previously requested death by firing squad.
Maurine F. Hunsaker. photo: Courtesy, Hunsaker family
Request for review
In January, 2024, lawyers for the state of Utah said they would go forward with requesting an execution date for Menzies.
But Menzies’ attorneys argued their client had dementia and would not be able to understand why he was sentenced to death. In February, 2024, a judge ordered a report on Menzies’ mental competency.
In October, his attorneys filed an emotional petition while arguing that the Utah Attorney General’s Office could not continue prosecuting Menzies’ death penalty case. But on November 1, 2024, a judge denied a motion to do so.
An evidentiary hearing in November and December, 2024, included “testimony from several experts, hundreds of pages of exhibits, and hours of audio recordings of Menzies’ phone calls at the prison.”
Competency decision
On Friday, June 6, Judge Bates of Utah’s Third District Court released his findings. The court agreed, based on evidence provided by a clinical neuropsychologist, a neurologist and a neuropsychologist that Menzies has dementia that impairs “to some degree his cognition, his daily activity and his memory. But the court disagreed on the effect his dementia has on his ability to rationally understand the State’s reason for his execution.”
Maurine Hunsaker
Maurine Hunsaker was working at a gas station in Kearns in 1986 when, as a jury later concluded, she was kidnapped and murdered by Ralph Menzies.
At the time, her son Matt was 10-years-old.
Picture of Matt Hunsaker holding a photo of his mother, Maurine Hunsaker, who was murdered in 1986 when he was 10 years old. (Photo credit: Talking Cold producers)
Hunsaker spoke with KSL NewsRadio soon after Judge Bates’ ruling was announced. He said he was shocked by the news.
“We didn’t know what to expect from the judge’s ruling,” he said emotionally, “but the family is thankful.”
“We are very pleased with the judge, knowing that he did listen to our pleas of trying to get this out before birthdays and father’s days. Judge Bates has worked diligently on this for over a year now,” Hunsaker said.
This story may be updated.
