Utah seeking sharp shooters for execution of convicted murderer Ralph Menzies, 67, who has been on death row for 40 years and diagnosed with dementia

Daily Mail​

23-07-2025

'Shoot me.'
So said Ralph Menzies upon being sentenced to death in 1988 and asked which method of execution he preferred.
Having since spent nearly four decades on Utah 's death row, the 67-year-old murder convict is now scheduled to die on September 5 the way he chose - strapped to a chair with a hood over his face and a target on his heart, then riddled with bullets.
Even in Utah, the state that has carried out the vast majority of executions by firing squads, more than 15 years have passed since it last meted out the nation's rarest and most archaic-seeming form of capital punishment.
Menzies is a controversial target.
He needs a wheelchair to move around and an oxygen tank to breathe. He also has been diagnosed with dementia, which his lawyers say has sharply worsened since last evaluated about a year ago.
They are racing the clock to convince a judge that killing a man whom they say no longer understands why he's facing a death sentence would be cruel and unusual punishment. At a hearing today, that judge will consider whether Menzies should undergo another mental evaluation before the execution.
The state, meanwhile, is looking for shooters.
Since his conviction in 1988, Menzies has been locked up at Utah State Correctional Facility. The judge will consider whether he should undergo another mental evaluation before the execution at a hearing today
Utah corrections officials have started forming an eight-member firing squad made up of one group leader, five marksmen and two alternates in case one or two shooters change their minds about taking part.
Applications aren't open to just anyone.
The state requires applicants to be law enforcement officers certified by the Utah's Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) program. That could mean a small-town cop, a Salt Lake City police sharpshooter or even a prison guard who knows Menzies from having housed and fed him during his decades on death row.
Menzies was convicted in 1988 for the murder two years earlier of Maurine Hunsaker, a 26-year-old gas station attendant whom he kidnapped and tied to a tree before slitting her throat.
Her son has waited nearly four decades for the sound of gunshots aimed at her killer. Manzies' life would be over in 'mere seconds,' Matt Hunsaker told DailyMail.com - likely far quicker than it took his mother to bleed to death.
'It's time - long past time - to get it over with,' he said.
BLOOD ATONEMENT
Utah is one of five states along with Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina that authorize firing squads as a form of execution.
About 42 percent of residents there identify as members of the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), or Mormon.
Deborah Denno, a Fordham School of Law criminologist who researches execution methods, notes that the faith long taught that in order to atone for an eternal sin, the sinner should be killed in a way that sheds their blood as a sacrificial offering.
Although the church has officially repudiated that doctrine, she and other criminal justice experts say blood atonement is still steeped in Mormon culture. That, as they tell it, explains why, in Utah's long history of firing squads, the state has never struggled to find volunteers willing to pull the trigger.
'It is part of Utah's history, the ethos there,' Denno said.
Utah corrections officials aren't advertising to fill the eight spots on Manzies' firing squad. They're relying instead on their relationships with local law enforcement agencies.
'Honestly, we don't have to put the word out because it's known,' spokesman Glen Mills said.
Although Mills wouldn't specify how many people have applied since a judge issued Menzies' execution warrant on July 9, he did say, 'We've had interest.'
Deborah Denno, a Fordham School of Law criminologist who researches execution methods, said Utah's somewhat controversial preference for a firing squad traces back to Mormon roots as blood atonement is still steeped in the culture
He noted it hasn't been decided whether members of Menzies' firing squad would be paid, and, if so, how much. Applicants first will be tested for their shooting skills. They're required to hit a small target the size of the one that will be pinned above Menzies' heart from a distance of at least 21 feet. Failure to do so will disqualify them.
They'll then undergo psychological evaluations.
'We will want to make sure that there are people who are, first of all, mentally prepared to participate in this type of assignment, as you can imagine, it shouldn't be taken lightly,' Jared Garcia, the department's executive director, told reporters last week.
Those chosen for Menzies' squad will have to attend at least three shooting practices and run-throughs similar to those organized before Utah's last execution - that of rape and murder convict Taberon Honie last summer by lethal injection, the state's primary method of carrying out the death penalty.
'It's really important that we have everything down and handle it in a professional manner,' Mills said.
Under state policy, only four of Menzies' shooters would shoot live rounds, with the fifth shooting non-lethal wax bullets. None would be told beforehand which type of cartridges had been loathed into their state-owned 30-caliber rifle, the kind used to hunt deer in Utah.
Blank rounds have long been used by firing squads as a way to 'diffuse responsibility,' easing shooters' psychological burden by allowing each to rationalize that they may not have caused the death.
In her research, Denno hasn't been able to interview any firing squad members because their names are withheld from the public and faces hidden behind firing walls, as would be the case with Menzies' execution.
Still, she said the effects of taking part in a firing squad can be similar to soldiers fighting in combat situations. Shooters can experience long-term distress including insomnia, panic attacks and suicidal thoughts after killing a convict.
'MY GOD! THEY'VE MISSED IT!'
If his execution warrant is carried out, Menzies' would be the third prisoner in the U.S. to face a firing squad this year after a 15-year spell with no executions by shooting anywhere in the country.
Touted by proponents as swift and relatively painless, the method nevertheless has a history of gory mistakes when shooters miss their target, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Wallace Wilkerson, convicted of killing a man during a cribbage game, showed up drunk and with a lit cigar in hand to his execution in Utah in 1879. He reportedly shifted slightly just before the firing squad shot and missed his heart.
One witness said he fell to the ground, groaning, 'My God! They've missed it,' before dying 15 excruciating minutes later.
Likewise, during the execution of Eliseo Mares in 1951, also in Utah, firing squad members all shot into the right, rather than left side of his chest, missing his heart and forcing him to endure an agonizing death as he slowly bled out.
By far Utah's best-known execution by firing squad was that of Gary Gilmore, who admitted to killing a gas station manager and motel manager, both in Utah, on two consecutive nights in 1976.
His life and 1977 execution were the subject of the 1982 TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones based on Norman Mailer's best-selling book, The Executioner's Song.
Gilmore's story gained resonance at the time because he was the first person executed in the US after an almost ten-year federal moratorium on capital punishment.
From 1976, when the US Supreme Court reimplemented the death penalty, through 2024, two other US convicts besides Gilmore were put to death via firing squad, both in Utah.
John Albert Taylor chose the method for his 1996 execution, as did Ronnie Lee Gardner for his in 2010. Gardner cited his 'Mormon heritage' - meaning blood atonement - as his reason for picking the bloody way to die.
'BETTER' EXECUTION METHODS?
A rise in gun-related street violence, police killings and suicides in the late 20th century caused firing squads to fall from favor as an acceptable way to carry out death sentences. The method was too violent, argued policy makers looking for a seemingly more civilized way to get the job done.
Lethal injection - a combination that usually includes a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug to stop the heart - became the method of choice among most states that still authorized the death penalty after the moratorium was lifted.
'Most people want to think that the person is being executed in a peaceful way, and they're not going to feel pain and won't be terrified,' Denno said.
But, as with firing squads and other death penalty methods such as lethal gas and electrocution, many executions by lethal injections have been botched. The drugs can cause fluid to build up in the lungs, creating a feeling that one is suffocating or drowning.
They can also trigger other kinds of prolonged suffering while witnesses look on, horrified. Some families have said the gruesome sight of watching their loved ones' killers writhe in pain retraumatized them.
Trying to distance themselves from the string of hideous blunders, several drug companies stopped selling the components needed for lethal injections, leading states once again on the morbid search for a 'better' execution method.
A string of law journal articles in the 2010s encouraged legal scholars and corrections departments to reconsider firing squads.
Momentum grew in 2017 when Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in an opinion that, 'In addition to being near instant, death by shooting may also be comparatively painless.'
Denno also has embraced the idea, saying death by firing squad stands out as the 'least inhumane' method of execution.
Death penalty opponents dispute that position, arguing that the legal research it's based on ignores medical research and common sense - that death by shooting is excruciatingly painful.
Even if bullets directly hit prisoners' hearts, medical experts have said they undergo at least 30 seconds of agony.
As defense lawyers and people seeking to abolish the death penalty say, there is no such thing as a clean execution.
In 2015, Utah passed a law allowing for execution by firing squad if the drugs used in lethal injections are unavailable.
Other states have followed in the years since. Idaho whose population is about 26 percent Mormon, in March became the only state where death by firing squad is the primary form of execution.
After a long string of botched executions by lethal injection, South Carolina used a firing squad to execute murder convict Brad Sigmon on March 7 this year and Mikal Mahdi, also a convicted murderer, on April 11.
An autopsy showed that none of the bullets hit Mahdi's heart directly, as was supposed to happen.
Instead, the wounds damaged his liver and other internal organs and allowed his heart to keep beating. Pathologists said the injuries likely caused him pain and suffering while he was still conscious.
Given how close Mahdi's shooters were to him, Denno said it seems that they 'intentionally botched' his execution, potentially setting back to states' movement to return to death by gunfire.
For that reason, she added, 'I'm surprised that Utah is going ahead' with Menzies.