Immediately to execute a man by shooting Utah After his lawyer argued that he should have survived because he suffered from dementia, he was blocked by the state Supreme Court on Friday.
Ralph Leroy Menzies, 67, is scheduled to be executed on September 5 Utah In 1986, the mother of three Maurine Hunsaker. Decades ago, when choosing a choice, Menzies chose a shooting squad as his method of execution. Since 1977, he would have been only the sixth American prisoner.
Menzies’ lawyers have launched a new impetus from early 2024 to liberate his death penalty and believe that their client’s dementia developed in his 37-year-old death cell was so severe that he used a wheelchair, relying on oxygen, and relying on oxygen, and unable to understand why he faced execution.
The Utah Supreme Court said Menzies fully alleged that the situation had changed a lot and raised major questions about his adaptability, and that the lower court had to reassess his abilities.
“We acknowledge that this uncertainty has caused great pain for Maurine Hunsaker, and it is not our desire to prolong this suffering. But we are bound by the rule of law.”
A Menzies defense attorney said his dementia has worsened since his last assessment of ability.
“We look forward to bringing the case in the trial court,” said attorney Lindsey Layer.
Hunsaker’s family said in a statement to the media that they were “apparently very upset and disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling” and demanded privacy.
The Associated Press left the phone and email with a spokesperson for the Utah Attorney General’s office on Friday to seek comments on the ruling.
Menzies are not the first to receive a diagnosis of dementia while waiting for execution.
In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of a person suffering from dementia in Alabama, ruling that Vernon Madison was protected from a constitutional injunction from cruel and unusual punishment. Madison killed a policeman in 1985 and died in jail in 2020.
The case follows an early Supreme Court ruling that prohibits people with severe mental illness from enforcing them. The Supreme Court said that if the defendants did not understand why they died, the execution would not enforce the retribution society was seeking.
Medical experts brought by prosecutors during the hearing of Menzies’ ability said he still has the mental ability to understand his situation. Experts raised by the defense said he did not.
On February 23, 1986, Hunsaker was kidnapped by a store. Later, she called her husband and said she was robbed and kidnapped, but that night she would be released by the kidnapper.
Two days later, a hiker found her body in a picnic area about 16 miles (25 km) from the hotel. Hunsaker was strangled and her throat was chopped.
A year ago, Utah’s final execution was hit by a fatal injection. The state has not used a shooting team since the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010. Earlier this year, South Carolina executed two inmates through a sacking squad.
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