Voices: How reporting on murder in Utah shaped my views on the death penalty

Optimally we make judgements in the coolness of deliberation rather than the heat of passion. This, we hope, is how laws are made and verdicts reached in a court of law.

I don’t favor capital punishment; life without the possibility of parole is more fitting in capital murder cases for a number of reasons. But when it comes to convicted killer Ralph LeRoy Menzies, 67, it’s difficult for me to have sympathy.

Menzies got the death penalty but has been in prison for 37 years due to numerous appeals. Recently his lawyers argued his firing squad death should be delayed, this time because his dementia renders him unable to understand his punishment.

I have a personal tie to this case: I was working the night police shift at The Salt Lake Tribune on Feb. 23, 1986, when Menzies kidnapped 26-year-old Maureen Hunsaker from a Kearns gas-and-go, where she was working late. Two days later, her body was found in Big Cottonwood Canyon bound to a tree with her throat slashed.

Menzies not only robbed the young woman of her life, but stole the mother of two small boys and left their father without his life partner. It is a haunting story that has come up many times in the last 37 years. I have to wonder how the Hunsakers have endured the memory of the tragedy each time Menzies appealed or made the news when his execution date came and went.

There are, of course, meaningful arguments for replacing the death penalty with life without parole. The first being that innocent defendants are sometimes found guilty. DNA technology has shown this is not an anomaly.

Second is the long-standing argument that the death penalty is cruel torture. When the state imposes capital punishment it endorses murder and undercuts society’s notion of the sanctity of life. As the 17th Century poet John Dunne wrote: “[S]end not to know/For whom the bell tolls/It tolls for thee.”

Another compelling argument for ending the death penalty and decades of appeals is that every time a convicted killer makes news, petitions the court or has a hearing, the victim’s families relive the nightmare that has upended their lives.

Not least, capital punishment is not a deterrent. Death penalty states have higher rates of homicide than non-death penalty states.

Although capital punishment is slowly losing public support, those assertions don’t always carry the day, particularly with heinous crimes, like that committed by Menzies.

Recently, Third District Judge Matthew Bates ruled that Menzies dementia is not so severe to prevent him from understanding his punishment. His death sentence is set to be carried out Sept. 5. Years ago, Menzies selected firing squad as the means of execution.

The last person to be executed in Utah by firing squad was Ronnie Lee Gardner in June 2010. Among his victims was Melvin Otterstrom, 37, who was filling in as bartender for a friend when at closing time Gardner ordered him face down on the floor and shot him in the back of the head. Otterstrom left a wife and two-year-old son.

Before Gardner’s board of pardon’s commutation hearing, as a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune, I interviewed them both. Although 25 years had passed since the brutal killing, they were shaken to the core. During all those years, Gardner made headlines often and the pair relived over and over again the horror of the senseless murder.

Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole would significantly reduce appeals and spare victims’ loved ones some of the anguish that is now part and parcel of capital punishment in this country.

If Ralph LeRoy Menzies had been sentenced to life without parole, the spectacle we are now witnessing wouldn’t be taking place and that would be better for everyone.

Christopher Smart, a former news reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune, is a freelance journalist in Salt Lake City and the author of “Smart Bomb,” a column which appears in City Weekly.

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