Attorneys for Ralph Menzies ask parole board for mercy and to stop his pending execution

Ralph Menzies will die in Utah’s prison, that much is certain.

But the death row inmate’s attorney told Utah’s parole board on Wednesday that it has a choice in how that will happen:

Either Menzies, who is 67, will die from his terminal vascular disease that has turned into dementia.

Or, a Utah firing squad will shoot him.

Attorney Eric Zuckerman pleaded with the parole board to show Menzies mercy, and to let him die naturally behind bars. Menzies is scheduled to be executed in 24 days.

Menzies has been on Utah’s death row for nearly 40 years after he kidnapped and killed a young mother, Maurine Hunsaker, in 1986. A judge in July signed a death warrant for Menzies, finding that there was no legal reason to hold off on the execution after Menzies had exhausted all of his appeals.

Zuckerman argued at Menzies’ commutation hearing on Wednesday that Menzies is not the same man who killed Hunsaker decades ago. Dementia has changed him, Zuckerman said, and made him a frail man who can only walk a few steps.

“He is not presently, and will not be in the future, a threat to inmates, prison staff or the public,” Zuckerman argued.

Unlike in some other states, Utah’s governor cannot commute a death sentence — only the parole board has that power. Asking the parole board to commute his sentence, and to allow him to serve life in prison without parole, is one of the last steps that Menzies can take to try to stop his Sept. 5 execution. He has chosen to die by firing squad.

Menzies did not speak during Wednesday’s hearing. His attorneys brought experts to testify about the man’s vascular dementia and what medical records show about how he has steadily worsened since he fell off a ladder while working at the prison in 2018.

The parole board members also heard from Stephanie Callahan, who was Menzies’ prison case worker. She testified that when she first started interacting with Menzies in August 2024, he could “carry on a conversation,” and would walk around the prison area. “He’d have his walker with him,” she remembered, “but not leaning on it.”

As time went on, she said, she noticed he was not able to pay attention in a class she had been teaching, and was more quiet and withdrawn.

“He was leaning more and more on the walker, relying on it more for balance,” Callahan said. “By the end of the class, [he was] literally sitting in the walker, and people were pushing him.”

In rebuttal, the Utah attorney general’s office had two correctional officers testify who said they had not seen that marked change in Menzies in their own observations. Menzies knew exactly when he was expecting visitors, Officer Hayden Kay remembered, and he hounded corrections officers when those visits were canceled or delayed.

Sgt. Joseph Torrence noted in his testimony that, in the last six weeks, he has seen Menzies talking with other inmates, and Menzies has been able to use a tablet to request that a blessing be performed for him.

Two medical experts hired by the state did not dispute that Menzies had dementia during their testimonies Wednesday, but said they believed he was legally competent to be executed.

Utah’s and the United States’ constitutions prohibit the government from executing someone if they don’t understand that they are being executed and the reasons why.

But the parole board won’t weigh whether he has reached the legal threshold to be considered competent — that’s the job of the court system, where Menzies’s attorneys are separately making arguments that he does not have an understanding of what’s happening, and therefore can’t be executed.

The question that is before the parole board is: Does Menzies deserve mercy?

The commutation hearing will resume on Friday, when Hunsaker’s family will address the board. Board members will make a later ruling, which will be expected prior to his Sept. 5 execution date.