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WEST JORDAN — The legal execution process for Ralph Menzies, a Utah inmate on death row, was officially put on hold on Tuesday after a judge granted his attorneys' request to consider whether the death-row inmate is competent.
The court's order means 3rd District Judge Matthew Bates agrees an inquiry into Menzies' mental health should be completed.
Menzies, who was found guilty of murdering a mother of three who worked at a gas station in Kearns, is now not able to understand why the state wants to execute him, his attorneys claim.
Prosecutors did not agree he is not competent enough for execution, but did not object to an inquiry into his mental health.
Menzies was previously scheduled for a hearing on Feb. 23 following the state's application for an execution warrant, but Tuesday's order canceled that hearing. At that hearing, an execution warrant could have been granted to set the date and method of Menzies' execution.
Menzies, through his attorneys, opposed the request for an execution warrant, primarily citing his mental capability.
Instead of a hearing on the execution warrant, the Department of Health and Human Services will appoint two examiners to evaluate Menzies, working with the Department of Corrections to video the evaluations. The court will set a competency hearing within 15 days of when it receives the reports from the examiners, Tuesday's order said.
Lindsey Layer, an attorney for Menzies, said they are "relieved" the court agrees there is evidence requiring a competency hearing.
"We are confident the evaluators will recognize that Ralph is not competent to be executed," she said.
Menzies was found guilty of killing Maurine Hunsaker, a mother of three. She was working at a gas station in Kearns in 1986, and called to tell her husband to say she was abducted but believed she would be released. Two days later, her body was found in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
Shortly after Menzies was sentenced, and after the first execution warrant was issued on March 30, 1988, the court put his death sentence on hold pending an appeal. The sentence was affirmed multiple times, including at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Most recently, in October the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
