Ralph Menzies ‘understands that he will be executed and why,’ state argues

SALT LAKE CITY — Attorneys for the state say Ralph Leroy Menzies’s request for a hearing to potentially change his death sentence to life without parole should not be granted simply because he says he has dementia.

“He understands the world. He is not confused. While he needs help with some things, he has not forgotten how to care for himself. If he is scared, it’s not an irrational fear caused by dementia; it is instead a rational fear of his impending death. He understands the steps left to him before all barriers to his execution are surmounted,” the Utah Attorney General’s Office said in its response.

Menzies, 67, is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on Sept. 5. He was convicted of robbing, kidnapping and brutally killing Maurine Hunsaker, a 26-year-old mother of three, in 1986.

His attorneys, however, have filed a petition with the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole requesting a commutation hearing, citing his continued declining mental health and specifically dementia. The board has the power to change Menzies’ death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On Monday, the state’s redacted response to Menzie’s petition for commutation was made public. In addition, the state filed its response to Menzie’s “Notice of Mental Condition Related to Competency,” which essentially seeks to put the commutation process on hold until the issue of competency can be addressed.

In their 55-page response to Menzie’s request to have his sentence changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutors note in their opening paragraph that Menzies has argued that his scheduled execution “will not be justice,” but rather “a needless display of violence.”

“This is an ironic description given that Menzies utterly ignores the reality of his conduct that brings him to the execution chamber in the first place,” the state responded.

Prosecutors say Menzies’ life “has been marked by relentless criminality,” which includes “multiple armed robberies and multiple kidnappings” and robbing a cab driver “then nearly (blowing) the victim’s arm off.” He was already on parole when he murdered Hunsaker.

“There is no question about Menzies’ guilt. The evidence of it is overwhelming. Nor is there a question about the brutality of his crime. There is also no question about Menzies’ unflagging criminality during his brief periods of freedom,” the state wrote in its response, while also pointing out that Menzies’ death sentence has been upheld by the Utah Supreme Court twice, and the federal district court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his case.

“Commuting Menzies’ sentence would mean vitiating a sentence, and a penalty-phase case, that every reviewing state and federal court has found to be constitutionally fair,” the state argued.

Prosecutors also argue that, for a commutation hearing to be granted, the defense must raise “new and substantial issues.”

“Menzies has not met the new-and-substantial-issue threshold for a hearing. … His claims about dementia are either bound up in legal issues of competency to be executed that the board may not consider or unsupported by the totality of the evidence,” according to the response.

The state also addressed Menzies’ argument that executing a person with dementia is “a tragic and pointless act,” and “cruelty disguised as punishment.”

“Regardless of whether it would be tragic and pointless to execute someone who has these general attributes of dementia … Menzies has not shown that he is that person,” the state responded. “Importantly, it is beyond dispute here that he understands that he will be executed and why.

“According to them, Menzies can no longer understand the link between his conviction and sentence, nor understand the concept and process of commutation. But these new reports do not justify commutation,” the state continued. “The reports also lack detail. They often exclude the quotes of the questions asked of Menzies or his answers or both. … Whatever Menzies’ present deficits may be, executing him will not mean executing someone who does not know what is happening to him or why. Menzies’s sentence was and is justice. It should be carried out without any further delay.”

In the state’s response to have the commutation process put on hold pending a determination of his competency, the state argues that “if Menzies can unilaterally call on this board to stay his commutation proceedings because of his declining mental condition, and then attempt to use that stay to stay his pending execution date, then this board should deny a hearing and deny Menzies’ petition. Put another way, this board cannot commute Menzies’ repeatedly-affirmed capital sentence where he claims an inability to competently go forward in Utah’s commutation scheme but not permit the state any inquiry into the validity of those claims.”

The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole will now review Menizes’ petition and the state’s response and decide whether to grant a commutation hearing. Menzies’ competency is something that would not be considered during such a hearing.

Meanwhile, a 3rd District judge is separately considering whether the court should address Menzies’ renewed petition claiming his mental health has deteriorated so much over the last months that he is no longer competent enough for execution.