WEST JORDAN, Utah — Attorneys for convicted killer Ralph Menzies have filed an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court over a ruling last week that found he was competent to be executed.
Tuesday's appeal came a day after the Utah Attorney General's Office announced that it intended to seek a death warrant to have Menzies executed.
On Friday, a judge in West Jordan's 3rd District Court ruled that Menzies is competent enough to face execution. His lawyers have argued he has dementia and therefore is incompetent to be put to death. Now that the judge has ruled, the state is asking to move forward to have Menzies executed.
"The State, therefore, moves to lift the stay on the execution proceedings and to schedule a hearing on the State’s application for an execution warrant on the soonest available date," Special Assistant Utah Solicitor General Thomas Brunker wrote in the motion.
Menzies is on death row for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of Maurine Hunsaker. She was abducted from her job at a convenience store in Kearns, taken to Big Cottonwood Canyon where she was tied to a tree and murdered.
