SALT LAKE CITY (KTVX) — A Utah judge on Wednesday set an execution date for a man whose lawyers say he suffers from worsening dementia.

Ralph Leroy Menzies, 67, has been on death row since 1988 after his conviction for abducting and killing Utah mother of three Maurine Hunsaker in 1986. When given a choice decades ago, Menzies selected a firing squad as his method of execution. If he’s executed on Sept. 5, he would become only the sixth U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977.

Throughout the hearing, Judge Matthew Bates, who is presiding over the case, heard arguments about whether or not to issue an execution warrant for Menzies. The legal team for Menzies argued against signing the warrant, continuing their argument that he was falsely deemed competent for execution.

“He is dependent on oxygen, unable to walk without assistance, and exhibits the unmistakable signs of dementia familiar to anyone who has cared for a loved one with this devastating disease,” Lindsey Layer, an attorney for Ralph Menzies, said after Judge Bates’ ruling. “We remain hopeful that the courts or the clemency board will recognize the profound inhumanity of executing a man who is experiencing steep cognitive decline and significant memory loss.”

Layer added, “Taking the life of someone with a terminal illness who is no longer a threat to anyone and whose mind and identity have been overtaken by dementia serves neither justice nor human decency.”

Who is Ralph Menzies?

In 1988, a Utah jury found Ralph Menzies guilty of the aggravated murder and aggravated kidnapping of Maurine Hunsaker, a gas station attendant from Kearns. Days after Hunsaker’s disappearance, she was found dead near a Big Cottonwood Canyon picnic area.

Hunsaker had reportedly been strangled to death, and her throat was cut. Detectives also noticed marks on wrists and scuffing on a nearby tree, indicating that she had been tied to the tree for a time.

Menzies was connected to the murder after he was booked into jail on an unrelated burglary charge. Officers reportedly found identification cards belonging to Hunsaker in a changing room hamper while officers were taking his possessions.

Following his trial, Menzies was placed on death row.

Jasmine North, federal public defender mitigation investigator, speaks with Ralph Leroy Menzies during his competency hearing in Third District Court in West Jordan, Utah, Nov. 18, 2024. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool, File)

Question of competency

Now 67 years old, Menzies’ competency for execution has been called into question by his legal team. Defense attorneys say Menzies has developed dementia, arguing that he no longer understands why he is on death row.

On June 6, 2025, Menzies was ruled competent for execution; Judge Bates had ruled that Menzies “consistently and rationally” understands why he is facing execution despite recent cognitive decline.

Attorneys for Menzies have petitioned the court for a reassessment, but Bates said Wednesday that the pending appeal was not a basis to stop him from setting a date.

Bates did, however, schedule a July 23 hearing to evaluate the new competency petition.

‘Still don’t have justice served’

The U.S. Supreme Court has at times spared prisoners with dementia from execution, including an Alabama man in 2019 who had killed a police officer. If a defendant cannot understand why they are being put to death, the high court said, then an execution is not carrying out the retribution that society is seeking.

For Hunsaker’s son, Matt, who was 10 years old when his mother was killed, it has been “hard to swallow that it’s taken this long” to get justice.

“You issue the warrant today, you start a process for our family,” he told the judge Wednesday. “It puts everybody on the clock. We’ve now introduced another generation of my mom, and we still don’t have justice served.”

Menzies and other Utah death row inmates sentenced before May 2004 were given a choice between firing squad and lethal injection. For inmates sentenced in the state after that date, lethal injection is the default method unless the drugs are unavailable.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

CNN —

The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee has obtained documentation backing up a former federal prosecutor’s claim that Emil Bove – a top Justice Department official – crudely told others in the department to ignore court orders before a controversial immigration enforcement situation in March.

The whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, an immigration law specialist who was fired from the department, previously told Congress and executive branch inspectors general Bove had held a meeting with Justice Department lawyers the day before the Trump administration sent planes with migrants to El Salvador under the controversial Alien Enemies Act.

Bove is a former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump who is now up for a lifetime appointment to an appellate judgeship.

The communications primarily bolster claims Reuveni made to Congress and independent investigators as Bove’s judgeship nomination heads toward a vote. Bove has become one of the most controversial legal nominees of the second Trump presidency, with little judicial record that would be typical of an appellate bench nominee and ethical questions arising about both his leadership during immigration cases and his pushing within the department for the dismissal of the criminal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

In the March meeting, Reuveni said Bove “stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘f**k you’” and ignore any orders to stop the hasty deportation of migrants.

Later, a federal judge ordered the department to turn the planes around. The Trump administration’s actions in court are now part of a contempt proceeding, which is currently on hold. The case is one of the most high-profile reflections so far of how the Justice Department has responded to orders from lower-court judges, who have been the subject of Trump’s repeated and public verbal attacks, and its aggressive immigration policy of using a presidential wartime power to send migrants to a prison in El Salvador with little to no due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi responded to Reuveni’s claims Thursday, posting on social media, “We support legitimate whistleblowers, but this disgruntled employee is not a whistleblower — he’s a leaker asserting false claims seeking five minutes of fame, conveniently timed just before a confirmation hearing and a committee vote.”

“And no one was ever asked to defy a court order. This is another instance of misinformation being spread to serve a narrative that does not align with the facts,” Bondi added in her post.

The attorney general also said Reuveni had been fired because, “he violated his ethical duties to the department.”

Reuveni has contested he lost his job because he complained internally about the department’s lack of candor with the court.

Previously, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who works closely with Bove in department leadership, called the claims Reuveni was making about Bove “false.” He also attacked media reporting on Reuveni’s whistleblower complaint to authorities.

During Bove’s confirmation hearing last month, he told the committee he didn’t recall making the alleged remark.

Bove isn’t personally part of the latest communications Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the committee, has obtained. Instead, the communications appear to capture chatter among lower-level prosecutors about him, with references to the alleged comment.

“Guess we are going to say f**k you to the court,” one text message between government lawyers says.

“This doesn’t end with anything but a nationwide injunction,” another text says, “and a decision point on f**k you.”

The documents obtained by Durbin include messages, email exchanges and documents from Reuveni, after Durbin had asked for documentation to substantiate Reuveni’s claims.

Durbin, in a statement Thursday, defended Reuveni as a “loyal public servant.” He shared the allegations about Bove “out of principle — not politics,” Durbin said.

The communications also appear to show that Reuveni and others doubted another top Justice Department lawyer’s representations to a court were truthful, and that they repeatedly questioned claims a Salvadoran man mistakenly sent to El Salvador was influential in a gang, as the administration said.

“These episodes can only lead to one conclusion: Emil Bove belongs nowhere near the federal bench,” Durbin said. “This is about more than a random f-bomb. This is a declaration of defiance of our courts at the highest level of our government by a man who now seeks a lifetime appointment to one of the highest courts in our land.”

The Senate Democrat added, “If Mr. Bove simply ‘can’t recall’ any of this and demands his subordinates compromise their professional obligations, he doesn’t have the moral judgment or character to serve in a lifetime position on the federal court.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

Attorney Emil Bove looks on as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears remotely for a sentencing hearing in front of New York State Judge Juan Merchan in the criminal case in which he was convicted in 2024 on charges involving hush money paid to a porn star, at New York Criminal Court in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., on… Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

Summary

Companies Whistleblower claims Bove suggested defying court orders for deportations

Senator Durbin says texts prove DOJ misled court, raises concerns about Bove

WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats on Thursday released internal Justice Department text messages and emails to corroborate claims by a whistleblower who alleged that President Donald Trump’s judicial nominee Emil Bove suggested that department lawyers could defy court orders to carry out mass deportations.

Bove, the Justice Department’s Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General who was nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, denied the allegations during his confirmation hearing last month, telling lawmakers: “I am not anybody’s henchman.”

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Erez Reuveni, a former department attorney who was fired in April after he admitted in court that the government erred by deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, leveled the accusations against Bove in a detailed letter that was submitted to the DOJ’s inspector general and transmitted to members of Congress.

In that complaint, Reuveni described three separate incidents when Justice Department leaders defied court orders related to the deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally.

Reuveni alleged that Bove told colleagues in a March 14 meeting they could consider defying future court orders by telling the courts ” fuck you ” so that planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador could depart as scheduled.

The planes ultimately took off despite a court order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, prompting him to later find probable cause to hold the government in contempt. That ruling remains paused by a federal appeals court.

Bove, in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June, told lawmakers he had “no recollection” of making that comment during the meeting.

But text messages and emails released on Thursday by Senate Democrats, who had requested additional documentary evidence, show that Reuveni and his colleagues exchanged contemporaneous communications directly related to Bove’s statement.

They also appeared to show evidence that Justice Department officials openly defied court orders, sparking concern and alarm among department attorneys.

In one March 15 text exchange between Reuveni and his supervisor August Flentje, who attended the March 14 meeting with Bove, one of them wrote: “Guess it’s time to find out on the ‘fuck you.'”

“Yup. It was good working with you,” the other responded.

Due to redactions in the documents, Reuters could not determine who wrote every text.

In another text exchange, Reuveni and an unidentified colleague also made reference to Bove’s comments, and appeared to confirm that the Justice Department misled Boasberg about whether it was aware that deportations would be taking place in the next 24 hours.

“About to enter the find out phase,” one of them texted the other. The two then discussed how shocked they were that a senior Justice Department attorney lied to Boasberg about knowing whether flights were due to depart in the next 24 hours.

“He knows there are plans for (Alien Enemies Act) removals within the next 24 hours,” one of them wrote. “Yes he does,” the other replied.

Reuveni, who gave an interview to the New York Times that was published on Thursday, said he is willing to testify either in Congress or before a court about the allegations described in his complaint.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a post on X, blasted him as being a “disgruntled employee” and a “leaker.”

“No one was ever asked to defy a court order. This is another instance of misinformation being spread to serve a narrative that does not align with the facts,” Bondi wrote.

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said that the texts and emails underscored his deep concerns about Bove’s nomination and proved that the DOJ “misled a federal court and disregarded a court order.”

Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Chizu Nomiyama

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July 10, 2025

Congress Releases Evidence Supporting Whistleblower Disclosure As Part of DOJ Oversight Efforts

WASHINGTON—Following the June 24, 2025, whistleblower disclosure by Erez Reuveni, former Acting Deputy Director for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Immigration Litigation, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, led by Ranking Member Senator Dick Durbin, launched a formal investigation into allegations that DOJ leadership—under Principal Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove—encouraged defiance of court orders, misled the judiciary, and attempted to suppress internal dissent to advance the President’s immigration removal priorities.

Senator Durbin and his colleagues have formally requested additional documents from DOJ, DHS, and DOD to further examine the scope of the alleged misconduct and the potential violation of legal and ethical standards by senior officials.

Additionally, Senator Durbin, as part of the Committee’s oversight function, asked Mr. Reuveni to provide materials supporting his whistleblower disclosure. These documents, which he provided through his legal counsel after a thorough ethics review, were made public today by Senator Durbin.

The documents include internal emails and text messages corroborating Mr. Reuveni’s efforts to ensure compliance with court orders and the internal resistance he faced. Mr. Reuveni was removed and terminated from his position in April after he truthfully informed the federal district court judge Paula Xinis, based on the government’s own evidence, that Mr. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly removed from the U.S. and refused to sign a brief to the court misrepresenting facts in that case. Government Accountability Project and Gilbert Employment Law represent Mr. Reuveni as he seeks justice for this unlawful whistleblower retaliation.

Dana Gold, Senior Counsel and Director of Government Accountability Project’s Democracy Protection Initiative, and one of Mr. Reuveni’s attorneys, said:

“The documents Mr. Reuveni provided to Congress verify the accuracy of his disclosures and reflect his consistent efforts to uphold the rule of law. We hope the full Senate Judiciary Committee engages in robust, bipartisan oversight to address conduct that threatens the integrity of our legal system and the constitutional balance of powers.”

Contact: [email protected]

Government Accountability Project

Founded in 1977, Government Accountability Project is the leading international whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, Government Accountability Project’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government, corporate, and international organization accountability. Government Accountability Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

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Top Trump allies in the administration and Congress rejected the letter as the uncorroborated allegations of a “disgruntled former employee” seeking to damage Bove’s judicial nomination. And Bove himself, at his confirmation hearing on June 25, denied proposing defying the courts.

“I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” he told senators. “I did not suggest that there would be any need to consider ignoring court orders. At the point at that meeting, there were no court orders to discuss.”

However, Bove stopped short of denying he used the profane phrase during discussions related to the courts.

“I don’t recall,” Bove said.

The new, contemporaneous messages are an answer to the attacks on Reuveni’s credibility, bolstering his claims with real-time messages among senior Trump administration officials

Many of the messages pertain to an extraordinary showdown on March 15, when immigrant rights lawyers persuaded a federal judge in Washington, James Boasberg, to order the administration to halt an in-progress deportation of 130 Venezuelans to El Salvador. Boasberg ordered that planes containing the men, whom Trump deemed “alien enemies” under a wartime law, be turned around, if necessary, and in any event that the men not be handed over to the Salvadoran government.

Just prior to Boasberg’s decision, Justice Department officials worried that the effort might be stopped by a court. That’s when, according to Reuveni, Bove uttered the “fuck you” line.

After Boasberg’s decision, Reuveni sent a text message to an unidentified colleague referring back to Bove’s alleged comment: “Guess we are going to say ‘fuck you’ to the court. Super,” he wrote. The colleague responded: “Well, Pamela Jo Bondi is. Not you.”

The messages show that in the hours after Boasberg’s ruling, Reuveni repeatedly relayed to colleagues that the immigrants covered by the judge’s order should not be turned over to El Salvador. And he later expressed concern that they seemed to have been handed over anyway.