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Menzies was convicted in 1988 for the 1986 aggravated murder, kidnapping, and robbery of Maurine Hunsaker. He was placed on death row, where he has remained for the last 37 years as appeals have been filed.
Menzies was found competent for execution on June 9, 2025, but his attorneys filed to reevaluate his competency only days later, citing a “significant decline in health” due to his vascular dementia. Despite this petition, his execution was scheduled for Sep. 5, 2025, by firing squad.
Judge Bates’ ruling today argued that Menzies and his attorneys had “failed to meet his burden” of proof that he is incompetent to be executed, citing that they had to prove there has been “a substantial change of circumstances subsequent to the previous determination of competency” only two months ago.
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ToggleIn the order, Judge Bates states that he does see that Menzies has experienced a decline based on information from doctors and attorneys, but notes that this decline did not come after the previous competency ruling, but before it.
“The petition thus supports Menzies’s claim that his physical and mental difficulties have
worsened over time. But his current difficulties are not substantially different from the
difficulties he reported during his initial petition,” Judge Bates wrote.
Judge Bates explains that Menzies’ decline in health was not “subsequent” but rather occurred while the previous competency hearing was already in progress. He stated that Menzies’ attorneys decided not to supplement the previous evaluation with this evidence, but waited to write a petition after his competency ruling.
Following Menzies’ petition for a reevaluation, the prosecution submitted 32 recordings of Menzies’ phone calls between May 7, 2025, and July 7, 2025. Judge Bates reviewed these calls and stated that there were signs he was struggling, such as entering incorrect PINs, being unable to say required phrases, and misdialing.
Judge Bates also stated that the court was in agreement with Menzies’ attorneys that in the 13 out of 32 successful calls where he was able to speak with family, Menzies was “less loquacious” than in calls reviewed during the initial competency hearing.
Despite noting that Menzies sounded “weaker and more tired,” Judge Bates stated that Menzies could still speak at a normal speed, ask questions, follow the conversation, and “laugh at appropriate times.” The judge ruled that “nothing in the current phone conversations demonstrates a substantial change in his cognitive functioning.”
In the ruling, Judge Bates states that Menzies’ “successive petition into his competency does not raise a significant question about his competency to be executed.” Menzies’ attorneys previously argued that Menzies did not understand why he was being executed, meaning it could be an “unconstitutional execution.”
Despite a doctor’s affidavit that Menzies did not understand why he was receiving the death sentence on June 30, 2025, Judge Bates explained that he had already exhibited this lack of understanding previously in 2024 and before, meaning that he had not exhibited a significant decline since the competency evaluation.
“Menzies’s current responses do not raise significant questions about his competency but reinforce Menzies’s decades-long mindset that he did not commit murder and thus the government has no reason to execute him,” Judge Bates wrote in the order.
Judge Bates concludes that Menzies has not exhibited a significant decline since the competency ruling on June 6, 2025. He says that “forgetfulness, an inability to concentrate, and a paucity of language do not amount to a lack of an ability to reach a rational understanding of the link between crime and punishment.”
With the denial of Menzies’ petition for a new competency evaluation, the death row inmates’ only option to prevent his execution next month is a ruling on his commutation hearing. If Menzies is granted a commuted sentence, his execution will be halted and he will be receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
That commutation hearing in front of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole started yesterday, and is expected to conclude Friday evening.
According to documents, on Feb. 13, 2024, the court ordered that all “proceedings advancing toward execution are stayed pending the resolution of Meznie’s petition into competency.” They canceled a hearing set later that month for the State’s application for an execution warrant.
The 67-year-old man has dementia, his defense citing a “significant decline” in May 2025. Last month, on June 6, Menzies was ruled competent for execution after 16 months of back-and-forth and competency hearings.
Days later, on June 9, the State filed a motion to lift the stay on Menzie’s execution and hold a hearing for an application for an execution warrant on the “soonest available date.”
On June 10, attorneys for Ralph Menzies filed an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court over the competency ruling. They state that “despite a proper medical diagnosis of vascular dementia, Mr. Menzies has failed to demonstrate that he is competent to be executed.”
The following month, on July 7, Menzies’ lawyers filed a petition to the judge to hold a new competency evaluation. Attorneys requested that the court reevaluate Menzies’ competency based on his recent decline in health, including medical events like a major hypoxic episode. They argue that the filing of this petition mandates a stay on the execution proceedings, and that denying a stay would risk an “unconstitutional execution.”
On February 23, 1986, Maurine Hunsaker was abducted from the Gas-A-Mat convenience store and gas station in Kearns, Utah, where she was employed. Her husband called the convenience store and went in person when she did not pick up. When he arrived, he found that Hunsaker was missing, along with her purse.
According to documents, Hunsaker called the home phone and told her husband that she had been instructed to tell him she was kidnapped and robbed. A police officer spoke with Hunsaker, and she indicated that the kidnapper intended to release her.
Days later, on February 25, 1986, a hiker found Hunsaker deceased near a picnic area in Big Cottonwood Canyon. She had been strangled to death, according to the medical examiner, and her throat was cut. Marks on her wrists and scuffing on a nearby tree indicated that she had been tied to it somehow.
During this time, Menzies was booked into jail on an unrelated burglary charge. When officers were taking his possessions, Menzies ran away and hid in a changing room. Later, identification cards were located in the changing room’s hamper, and an officer realized that they belonged to Hunsaker.
Witnesses further connected Menzies to the disappearance and murder of Maurine Hunsaker, and some had even seen him with her on the night of her murder. In 1988, a jury found Menzies guilty, and he was placed on death row for the serious and senseless crime.
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