In Utah, a court-appointed forensic psychologist stated in a court record that he believes that 67-year-old Ralph Menzies, convicted of killing 26-year-old Maurine Hunsaker in 1986, is “not competent to be executed, the Utah News Dispatch reported. The report is significant because one year ago, he concluded that Menzies was competent to be killed because he knew he killed a person, “and killing people is wrong.” Menzies had been scheduled to be executed in September, but the state supreme court stayed the execution and ordered another competency evaluation, according to the Utah News Dispatch.
In New Hampshire, the ACLU is asking the state Supreme Court to vacate the death sentence of Michael Addison, the only person on the state’s death row. The 45-year-old Addison, who is Black, was sentenced to death in 2008 for killing Manchester police officer Michael Briggs. But, in 2019, New Hampshire abolished its death penalty, finding that it was an excessive and disproportionate punishment, but left Addison’s death sentence intact because the new law wasn’t retroactive. Now, Addison’s lawyers are asking the court to commute his sentence, because “It is excessive. . . a finding supported by the New Hampshire Legislature’s repeal of the death penalty, the actions of other states post-repeal, and consideration of the racial aspects of this case making it particularly vulnerable to an unfair and disproportionate death sentence.”
In South Carolina, Stephen Bryant was killed by a firing squad, in the state’s seventh execution since September 2024, when it resumed executions, The State reported. The 66-year-old Bryant was convicted of killing three people, Willard Tietjen, Cliff Gainey, and Christopher Burgess, over the course of several days in 2004. He pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced to death in 2008.