Utah’s parole board will not stop the upcoming execution for Ralph Menzies, announcing on Tuesday that it “did not find cause” to commute his sentence and allow him to spend the rest of his life in prison.
This ends one of the death row inmate’s last chances to avoid a death by firing squad, which is scheduled in less than three weeks.
Menzies’ attorneys argued last week that the 67-year-old man deserved mercy because of his limited mobility and worsening dementia. He was no longer a harm to anyone, they argued.
But family members of Maurine Hunsaker — the young mother who Menzies killed in 1986 — tearfully pleaded with the five-member parole board to let the Sept. 5 execution go forward, saying it was the only way they could heal after a court battle that has stretched on for nearly 40 years.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A photograph of Maurine Hunsaker is seen as Ralph Menzies petitions to stop his execution during his commutation hearing at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025.
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, was one of the last steps that Menzies can take to try to stop his Sept. 5 execution.
He chose to die by firing squad shortly after he was sentenced.
Reacting to the parole board’s decision, Lindsey Layer, one of Menzies’ attorneys, noted in a statement that her client is “tethered to an oxygen tank, uses a wheelchair, is confused and disoriented, and no longer understands why Utah is trying to kill him.”
“We will continue our fight,” she said, “to save his life to avoid a grotesque spectacle of shooting to death a severely debilitated man with dementia.”
There is still one legal fight Menzies’ attorneys are pursuing in an effort to stop the execution. On Thursday, they’ll argue to the Utah Supreme Court that he should not be executed because they say his dementia has worsened to the point where he can’t understand what’s happening.
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.