New Evaluation Finds Utah Prisoner Ralph Menzies Incompetent for Execution, State Court to Hear More Evidence in December

In a new men­tal com­pe­ten­cy report pre­pared by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, a state med­ical pro­fes­sion­al has found death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Ralph Menzies incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. The report, filed among ongo­ing lit­i­ga­tion regard­ing Mr. Menzies’ com­pe­ten­cy, declared his demen­tia has deeply impact­ed his ​“cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties such that he is unaware of the crime for which he is con­vict­ed, the para­me­ters of the case (e.g. victim’s iden­ti­ty, spe­cif­ic acts he was found to have com­mit­ted, etc.), the cap­i­tal nature of the sen­tence he received, or how the pun­ish­ment will be car­ried out.” Dr. Michael Brooks found that Mr. Menzies ​“lacks a ratio­nal under­stand­ing that he is to be exe­cut­ed for the crime of mur­der, as he does not under­stand the State’s ratio­nale for levy­ing his pun­ish­ment in gen­er­al or to him in par­tic­u­lar.” Dr. Brooks added that in his pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion, Mr. Menzies is not com­pe­tent for exe­cu­tion, and he does ​“not believe he has a sub­stan­tial prob­a­bil­i­ty ofrestora­tion to com­pe­ten­cy.” In his pre­vi­ous assess­ments of Mr. Menzies, Dr. Brooks found him com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed, tes­ti­fy­ing in November 2024 that he then under­stood that he was going to be exe­cut­ed because Mr. Menzies knew he “‘killed a per­son and killing peo­ple is wrong.’” 

A com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing for Mr. Menzies is sched­uled to be held over sev­er­al days in December 2025. Judge Matthew Bates will review the new com­pe­ten­cy eval­u­a­tion find­ings and addi­tion­al evi­dence relat­ed to Mr. Menzies’ competency. 

Just a week before Mr. Menzies was set to be exe­cut­ed in September 2025, the Utah State Supreme Court issued a unan­i­mous opin­ion stay­ing his exe­cu­tion and allow­ing for a new men­tal com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing at the request of his coun­sel. The Utah Supreme Court found that the expert tes­ti­mo­ny it reviewed raised ​“seri­ous and sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions about whether [Mr.] Menzies is com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed.” His coun­sel argued that exe­cut­ing Mr. Menzies would vio­late the Eighth Amendment’sprotection against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment because of his demen­tia. Lower court judges ini­tial­ly reject­ed counsel’s request for a new hear­ing, but Chief Justice Matthew Durrant wrote for the state’s high­est court that ​“Menzies’s vas­cu­lar demen­tia and its pro­gres­sive effects call into ques­tion whether he remains com­pe­tent to be executed.” 

Executing indi­vid­u­als who fail to ratio­nal­ly under­stand why they are being exe­cut­ed is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. In Ford v. Wainwright (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “[t]he test for whether a pris­on­er is insane for Eighth Amendment pur­pos­es is whether the pris­on­er is aware of his impend­ing exe­cu­tion and the rea­son for it.” In a 2007 deci­sion, Panetti v. Quarterman, the Court clar­i­fied that aware­ness meant a ​“ratio­nal” under­stand­ing. And in Madison v. Alabama (2019), the Court said the Constitution pro­hibits exe­cut­ing a pris­on­er who can­not ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­sons for his exe­cu­tion, whether that inabil­i­ty is due to psy­chosis or dementia. 

Mr. Menzies was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1986 mur­der of Maurine Hunsaker. He was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 5, 2025, and would have marked Utah’s fourth fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion. The last per­son exe­cut­ed in Utah was Taberon Honie, who was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion in August 2024. His exe­cu­tion broke a four­teen-year pause in exe­cu­tions in Utah, after the 2010 fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion of Ronnie Lee Gardner.