Lawyers for 65-Year-Old Prisoner with Vascular Dementia Say He is Incompetent to be Executed Days After Utah Requests Execution Date and Use of Firing Squad

On January 23, 2024, attor­neys for Utah death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Ralph Menzies, who has been diag­nosed with a major neu­rocog­ni­tive dis­or­der known as vas­cu­lar demen­tia, filed a peti­tion in state court alleg­ing he is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. Mr. Menzies, who uses a walk­er to nav­i­gate the pris­ons, has been on Utah’s death row for near­ly 36 years. On January 17, 2024, Utah’s attor­ney general’s office filed a motion with courts to set an exe­cu­tion date for him and indi­cat­ed it will use the firing squad. 

Mr. Menzies’ peti­tion points to a recent MRI scan show­ing ​“sig­nif­i­cant brain atro­phy,” an indi­ca­tion of wors­en­ing demen­tia, ​“chron­ic micro-hem­or­rhages, and dam­aged brain tis­sue, which have result­ed in sub­stan­tial deficits in Mr. Menzies’s learn­ing, mem­o­ry, infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing, abstract rea­son­ing, and prob­lem solv­ing.” Mr. Menzies’ lawyers note that he first began to expe­ri­ence chron­ic dizzi­ness in 2018, which result­ed in a severe fall from a lad­der requir­ing sev­er­al days of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. Since that first fall, Mr. Menzies’ dizzi­ness has become increas­ing­ly com­mon and falls have become more fre­quent, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing prison staff to per­form an MRI in June 2023. 

“[T]he asso­ci­at­ed cog­ni­tive deficits [of vas­cu­lar demen­tia] have ren­dered him inca­pable of form­ing a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of the rea­sons the State seeks to exe­cute him,” con­clud­ed Lynette M. Abrams-Silva, PhD, ABPP, a board-cer­ti­fied neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist who eval­u­at­ed Mr. Menzies. In her January 19 report, she explains that “[w]hile Mr. Menzies has expressed aware­ness that he has been sen­tenced to be exe­cut­ed, ​‘aware­ness’ is nec­es­sary but not suf­fi­cient to con­sti­tute a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of the rea­son for impo­si­tion of a death sentence.” 

One of Mr. Menzies lawyers, Eric Zuckerman stat­ed in a press release that ​“Given Ralph’s cog­ni­tive dete­ri­o­ra­tion, exe­cut­ing him can serve no legit­i­mate pur­pose of pun­ish­ment and thus would vio­late the Constitution.” The peti­tion argues that Mr. Menzies’ exe­cu­tion would vio­late con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment at the state and fed­er­al lev­el, as well as Utah Code § 77 – 19-205, which pro­hibits the exe­cu­tion of an incompetent prisoner. 

The United States Supreme Court held in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) that exe­cut­ing some­one who does not under­stand the rea­sons he is being exe­cut­ed would vio­late the Eighth Amendment pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Later, in Panetti v. Quarterman (2007), the Court elab­o­rat­ed that a pris­on­er must have a ratio­nale under­stand­ing of the rea­sons for his exe­cu­tion, though it did not estab­lish a detailed rule for deter­min­ing com­pe­ten­cy. In 2018, the Court ruled in Madison v. Alabama that the prece­dent estab­lished in Panetti also applies to those with demen­tia, not just severe mental illness. 

Utah last exe­cut­ed Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010 via fir­ing squad; since 1976, there have been three fir­ing squad exe­cu­tions in United States, all in Utah.