SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Dec. 23, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — A 3rd District judge’s ruling has cleared the way for the execution of Ralph Menzies, on Utah’s death row for 35 years.
In a decision Friday Judge Coral Sanchez granted the Utah Attorney General’s motion to dismiss Menzies’ lawsuit that had claimed Utah’s capital punishment statute and protocols amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The suit was brought by Menzies and four other death row residents, Taberon Honie, Troy Kell, Douglas Carter and Michael Archuleta.
“Menzies has exhausted all appeals of his death sentence,” the Utah Attorney General’s Office said in a press release. “His execution will be scheduled when a death warrant is issued.”
The 29-page ruling from Sanchez turned largely on legal technicalities and statutory language. Utah employs both lethal injection and in Menzies case, a firing squad.
A key section in the judge’s decision states, “The historical facts … show the people of Utah did not intend to require execution methods to guarantee the immediate loss of consciousness, to eliminate the risk of severe pain (or all pain), or to eliminate the risk of a ‘botched’ execution, such as bullets missing a target placed over a person’s heart.
“Plaintiffs have offered no legal precedent or historical facts to support their interpretation of the cruel and unusual punishments clause: that a method of execution must result in instantaneous death.”
Menzies was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Maurine Hunsaker, a young mother of three who worked as a Kearns convenience store cashier.
On February 23, 1986, Menzies kidnapped Hunsaker from her job and took her to Big Cottonwood Canyon, according to the Ag’s office. He kept her overnight in a picnic area near Storm Mountain. Her body was found two days later, tied to a tree with her throat slashed.
The inmate’s lawsuit said since 1850, the Utah Territory and the State of Utah have executed 51 men, 41 of which were executed by a firing squad.
