Utah Board of Pardons and Parole denies death row inmate Ralph Menzies’ plea for clemency

The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has denied Ralph Menzies’ request for clemency, one of the death row inmate’s final appeals ahead of his execution scheduled for Sept. 5. 

The announcement came Tuesday afternoon, four days after the commutation hearing for the 67-year-old inmate, where board members heard arguments for and against granting Menzies mercy. 

Menzies is scheduled to die by firing squad after spending nearly four decades in prison for the 1986 murder of Maurine Hunsaker, a 26-year-old gas station clerk whom Menzies kidnapped. Hunsaker was brought up Big Cottonwood Canyon, where Menzies tied her to a tree, strangled her, then slashed her throat.

Last week, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole conducted a two-day commutation hearing, listening to testimony from Menzies’ attorneys, the Utah Attorney General’s Office, and 10 victim representatives, including eight members of Hunsaker’s family. 

With death penalty cases, the board has the power to instead impose a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. The arguments don’t have to be legal — for instance, Menzies has terminal dementia, and his attorneys said that the state should simply allow him to die in prison, rather than his scheduled execution. 

But in a statement Tuesday, board members wrote that, “after carefully reviewing all submitted information and considering all arguments from the parties, the Board does not find cause to commute Mr. Menzies’ death sentence.”

The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has never granted a death row inmate clemency.

Menzies’ attorneys, in a statement, called the notion of executing a 67-year-old inmate with dementia a “grotesque spectacle” — meanwhile Matt Hunsaker, Maurine’s son, said he was “very pleased” with the ruling. 

With his execution less than three weeks away, the commutation hearing marked one of the final appeals for Menzies. His attorneys contend that his dementia makes him incompetent to be executed, and will argue their case before the Utah Supreme Court on Thursday. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox also has the power to delay the execution, though he cannot issue clemency. 

“Ralph Menzies is a 67-year-old man with progressively worsening dementia. He’s tethered to an oxygen tank, uses a wheelchair, is confused and disoriented, and no longer understands why Utah is trying to kill him,” said Lindsey Layer, one of Menzies’ attorneys. “This is reason enough to grant mercy.” 

In addition, Layer said the judge who sentenced Menzies later changed his mind, writing in a 2010 affidavit that he incorrectly applied the law that allowed for the death sentence, and should have instead sentenced him to life in prison. And, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s independent Conviction Integrity Review Panel has since found that Menzies’ death sentence should be vacated, pointing to false testimony at the time of the trial. 

“Mr. Menzies’s record for nearly 40 years on death row confirms he poses no threat to anyone in prison if given a life without parole sentence. We will continue our fight to save his life to avoid a grotesque spectacle of shooting to death a severely debilitated man with dementia,” Layer said. 

Matt Hunsaker, in a text message to Utah News Dispatch, thanked the board, calling the decision one of the final hurdles. 

“This closed all but one door for his ability to get out of being executed. We look forward to going to the Supreme Court this week and again as a family,” he said. 

Source: utahnewsdispatch.com, Staff, August 19, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde