SALT LAKE CITY — A judge has upheld Utah's capital punishment statutes in a lawsuit brought by five death row inmates.
In a ruling handed down on Friday, 3rd District Court Judge Coral Sanchez granted the Utah Attorney General's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. She declared that the five inmates — Ralph Menzies, Troy Kell, Michael Archuleta, Douglas Carter and Taberon Honie — were too late in bringing a challenge to Utah's death penalty laws.
But the judge also weighed in on their claims that Utah's execution methods of firing squad and lethal injection are "cruel and unusual punishment" and that the Utah Department of Corrections has failed to provide sufficient information about how executions are carried out.
"Plaintiffs have offered no legal precedent or historical facts to support their interpretation of the cruel and unusual punishments clause: that a method of execution must result in instantaneous death. Plaintiffs have not alleged any facts to show the protocols implemented to execute people during the ratification era of the Utah Constitution were more likely to eliminate pain than the protocols he now challenges, which were written in 2010," she wrote.
Lethal injection remains the state's primary method of execution. However, if the state lacks the chemicals necessary to carry out such an execution, the Utah legislature modified laws to allow firing squad to become the default method. In the past, the Utah Department of Corrections has told FOX 13 News it does not have the chemicals for lethal injection. But the Utah Attorney General's Office told the judge in October that the agency believes the law allows them to use similar chemicals.
The Utah Attorney General's Office declined to comment on Friday, saying the ruling speaks for itself. Lawyers representing the death row inmates did not immediately respond to a request for comment from FOX 13 News.
The judge left open the possibility of the inmates filing an amended complaint, or they could appeal her decision to the Utah Supreme Court.
Of the five inmates, one is facing an imminent execution. FOX 13 News reported in October that Ralph Leroy Menzies, convicted in the 1986 kidnapping and murder of Maurine Hunsaker, has exhausted his appeals and the state will soon seek a death warrant.
Late Thursday night, the Utah Supreme Court rejected Troy Kell's petition to overturn his murder conviction. He had alleged improper communication between the judge and jurors at his trial. However, in a unanimous ruling, the state's top court declared he waited years too long before bringing a legal challenge. Kell was sentenced to die for the gruesome race-related stabbing death of Lonnie Blackmon, a fellow inmate inside the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison.
