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Gary Gilmore Utah Execution

Gary Gilmore was executed by the State of Utah for two murders that were committed during robberies. According to court documents Gary Gilmore who was a life long criminal would shoot and kill two men during two separate robberies. During the two robberies the victims both cooperated with Gilmore however he still shot and killed them. Gary Gilmore was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Gary Gilmore would demand to be executed and he would get his wish when he was executed January 17, 1977 by firing squad.

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He was executed 42-years ago, but Gary Gilmore’s is still remembered for opening the doors for capital punishment.

Gilmore was executed in January 1977. It was the first execution after the U.S. Supreme Court declared it constitutional once again. In 1972, the nation’s highest court found it “cruel and unusual” form of punishment and made it unconstitutional.

State’s then revised their statutes and Gilmore was the first case to U.S. Supreme Court’s new view on capital punishment.

In September 1976, Gilmore was convicted of a double murder in Utah County.

On July 19, 1976, he murdered 24-year old Max Jensen who was working at a service station in Orem. The following night he walked into a Provo motel and shot Bennie Bushnell, the night manager. He took the money and left.

He was arrested after someone saw him throw a gun into the bushes right after the shooting.

Three months after he was arrested, Gilmore was convicted of capital murder and ordered to die. Gilmore chose to die by firing squad instead of the other option, hanging.

University of Utah law professor and former federal judge Paul Cassell still uses Gilmore’s case history in teaching law courses.

“What made the Gilmore case death-eligible was that it was a murder for money,” he said. “It was an armed robbery.”

But Gilmore gained notoriety when the rest of the country, as well as foreign countries, learned that he would be the first to be executed after the supreme court decision.

“Utah and other states passed new modern death penalty laws,” said Cassell. “Gilmore was the first case that the modern death penalty was carried out.”

From the outset, Gary Gilmore wanted to be executed and didn’t want anyone to stop him. At a 1976 Board of Pardons hearing, Gilmore spoke of that desire.

“I’ve simply accepted the sentence that was given to me,” he told board members. “I’ve accepted sentences all of my life.”

But others wanted to save his life.

His mother filed an appeal but the U.s. Supreme Court refused to hear her case.

His original execution date was set for November 15th, 1976. The Utah state prison started making arrangements.

“Traditionally there have been five men on the firing squad,” Warden Sam Smith told reporters. “Those men are armed with high powered rifles. Four of them will have actual bullets, one will be shooting a blank.”

But against his wishes, the ACLU intervened and blocked the execution on three occasions.

Their main objection was that it would open the floodgates for executions nationwide.

“It would lead to more insanity around the whole issue of the death penalty,” said Shirley Pedler of Utah’s ACLU chapter. “And the implementation of the death penalty is an insane issue.”

The governor twice issued stays of execution. He wanted the board of pardons to decide if death was appropriate in Gilmore’s case.

During the 1976 board of pardons hearing, Gary Gilmore made his intentions clear and even suggested that Utah was getting cold feet.

“It seems like the people, especially the people of Utah want the death penalty and they don’t want executions,” he said. “And when it became a reality that they might have to carry one out, well they started backing off on it. Well, I took them literal and serious when they sentenced me to death.”

The stays of execution angered Gilmore. In November he attempted suicide, recovered, but tried it again the next month.

His execution was now set for January 17th, 1977. National and international media converged at the Utah state prison.

Protestors held vigils. the ACLU made one last attempt to save his life but it was denied thirty minutes before his execution.

An ABC reporter described it this way: “The warden having read aloud the legal order that Gilmore must be shot for his crime asked quietly for any last words. Gilmore said let’s do it.”

At 8:05 a.m. a prison official received a call from the warden. The official was surrounded by reporters away from the room where Gary Gilmore was shot.

“The order of the court has been carried out,” the unidentified official told reporters. “Gary Mark Gilmore is dead.”

On January 17th, 1977, Gilmore’s wish was carried out. He was shot four times through the heart.

Reporters were given access to the room where Gilmore was shot. They took pictures of bullet holes, inspected it from top to bottom and posed in front of the chair for additional pictures.

Years later the ACLU was prophetic.

“As a result of the Gary Gilmore execution we then saw hundreds of executions in the decades that followed because Gilmore signaled that in modern America, you can have a death penalty statute that survives constitutional scrutiny,” Cassell said.

Gilmore murdered two people and was convicted by his peers. His own uncle once called him a coward. That same uncle later began visiting Gilmore at the prison. Vern Damico was Gilmore’s last visitor before he was shot.

“It was very upsetting to me but he got his wish,” said Damico following the execution. “But he did die and he died in dignity.”

It was another 19 years before there was another execution by firing squad in the United States.

It took place at the Utah state prison when John Albert Taylor was executed.

According to press accounts he did it to embarrass Utah’s barbaric method of execution.

The following year, the legislature changed future executions to lethal injection. But lawmakers grandfathered those condemned to die prior to 1996 and allowed them to choose their manner of death.

In June 2010 Utah again became the focus of capital punishment. Ronnie Lee Gardner became just the third person to be killed by a firing squad. Gardner’s crime happened before the legislature changed the law and he chose the firing squad.

Ron Lafferty was also on death row and chose the firing squad. His crime of a double murder in American Fork happened in 1984. But Lafferty died November 11 of natural causes while still in prison.

https://www.abc4.com/news/justice-files/the-justice-files-the-execution-of-gary-gilmore-2/

Ralph Menzies Utah Death Row

Ralph Menzies was sentenced to death by the State of Utah for kidnapping and murder. According to court documents Ralph Menzies would kidnap a gas station attendant and would bring her to a remote location where she was kept hostage for a couple of hours before being killed. Her body would be found days later. Ralph Menzies was arrested on a unrelated matter and when he was searched he had the victims wallet in his possession. Ralph Menzies was convicted and sentenced to death.

Utah Death Row Inmate List

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Utah State Prison UINTA

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A federal judge has denied an appeal by a man who has been on Utah’s death row for 30 years.

The ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Claire Eagan denies a petition by Ralph Menzies, who was sentenced to die for the killing of Maurine Hunsaker in 1986.

The victim was abducted from a Kearns convenience store where she worked and she was later found strangled and her throat cut in a Big Cottonwood Canyon picnic area.

Menzies had Hunsaker’s wallet and several other belongings when he was jailed on unrelated matters.

He was convicted in 1988 of first-degree murder and other crimes, and Eagan’s ruling says Menzies’ conviction and sentence don’t violate the U.S. Constitution.

Menzies can next appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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During the evening of Sunday, February 23, 1986, Maurine Hunsaker’s husband called the Gas–A–Mat gas station where she worked. Mrs. Hunsaker did not pick up. Concerned, Mr. Hunsaker then went to Gas–A–Mat around 10:10 p.m. that same night. When he arrived he found that Mrs. Hunsaker and her purse were gone. The police arrived at the gas station and accompanied Mr. Hunsaker home. At about 11:05 p.m., Mrs. Hunsaker called the Hunsakers’ home phone. She stated that “[t]hey told me to tell you they robbed me and got me and that I am fine and they are going to let me go sometime tonight.” Mr. Hunsaker noted that Mrs. Hunsaker sounded upset and scared. An officer also spoke to Mrs. Hunsaker on the phone and asked whether the perpetrators robbed her. Mrs. Hunsaker said yes. She also indicated that the perpetrators planned to release her that night or the following morning. The officer then returned the phone to Mr. Hunsaker. Mrs. Hunsaker asked Mr. Hunsaker what she should do. The telephone line disconnected before he could respond.

¶ 5 Two days later, on Tuesday, February 25, a hiker found Mrs. Hunsaker’s body near the Storm Mountain picnic area in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Her throat was cut, her wrists had marks on them, and the bark of a nearby tree was scuffed, suggesting that she was tethered to the tree. A medical examiner determined that ligature strangulation caused Mrs. Hunsaker’s death. The examiner also noted that the cut in her throat contributed to her death and that a variety of different knives could have been used to inflict the wound. The examiner’s report indicated that the marks on her wrists could have been caused by wire or cord, but it made no mention of handcuffs.

¶ 6 Meanwhile on February 24, as the police were investigating the events surrounding Mrs. Hunsaker’s disappearance, they arrested and booked Ralph Menzies for an unrelated burglary. Mr. Menzies’s exact booking time is uncertain. He suggests that the police completed the booking process at 7:59 p.m. He also points out that trial counsel stipulated that he turned over cash to the police around 7:20 p.m. Other evidence in the record suggests that the police began the booking process around 6:40 p.m. During booking, the booking officer asked Ralph Menzies for his possessions. He responded by spinning around, running down a hallway, and ducking into a changing room. He was out of sight for about five to eight seconds. A pursuing officer found Mr. Menzies and saw him “reaching around” to “pull on” his pants. The officer testified that although Ralph Menzies was handcuffed at the time, he could still move his arms. Ralph Menzies explained that he had run and ducked into the changing room because he was looking for a restroom. He did not ask for a restroom again, however, during the hour-and-a-half booking process.

¶ 7 A jailer found four of Mrs. Hunsaker’s identification cards in a laundry hamper located in the changing room into which Mr. Menzies ran.⁷ The jailer put the cards in a nearby desk drawer. Another officer later discovered the identification cards in the drawer. The officer who found the cards recognized Mrs. Hunsaker’s picture from an earlier news report regarding her disappearance.

¶ 8 Multiple witnesses alleged they saw Mrs. Hunsaker during the time between her disappearance from the gas station and the finding of her body. First, a witness reportedly saw her at a Denny’s restaurant on the night of her disappearance with a man who fit the description of Mr. Menzies’s friend, Troy Denter. Second, on February 24, the morning after Mrs. Hunsaker went missing, two high-school students, Tim Larrabee and Beth Brown, saw two people at Storm Mountain who they later said fit the description of Ralph Menzies and Mrs. Hunsaker.

¶ 9 On Tuesday, February 25, the day after Mr. Larrabee and Ms. Brown visited Storm Mountain, Mr. Larrabee watched television and saw a report that a hiker found Mrs. Hunsaker’s body near the Storm Mountain picnic area. The next day, Wednesday, February 26, Mr. Larrabee contacted the police and reported that he and Ms. Brown were at Storm Mountain the morning of Monday, February 24. Mr. Larrabee reported twice seeing a man and a woman walking together away from where he and Ms. Brown were located. He noted that the man had a coat slung over his right shoulder and that he could not tell whether the two were holding hands. He stated that nothing unusual appeared to be going on between the two. He further reported that about ten minutes after he saw the two people, he heard a scream and assumed that the woman either slipped or was frightened by an animal. Approximately fifteen to twenty minutes later, Mr. Larrabee saw a man walking alone towards the nearby parking lot. Mr. Larrabee also said he noticed a 1960s cream-colored vehicle in the parking lot similar to a 1968 Buick Riviera.

¶ 10 Mr. Larrabee described the man he saw as a white male, twenty-five to thirty years old, 6′1 tall, and approximately 170 pounds. He noted that the man wore a coat that was either blue-grey or blue-white. He also said the man had black curly hair and either a scraggly beard or sideburns. Mr. Larrabee’s description of the man ended up being within one inch in height and ten pounds in weight of Ralph Menzies. Mr. Larrabee said he could probably identify the man if he saw a picture, but that he could not identify the woman. Police detective Richard Judd created a composite drawing using Mr. Larrabee’s description.

¶ 11 Two days later on Friday, February 28, after comparing the composite drawing with photographs from over two hundred inmates booked between February 23 and February 25, the police selected six photos from that group for Mr. Larrabee to view. Mr. Menzies’s picture was one of the photos the police picked from the pool. The police considered Mr. Menzies a suspect by the time they showed the photos to Mr. Larrabee.⁸ Detective Judd testified that they tried to make it as hard as possible for Mr. Larrabee to identify Ralph Menzies. The police then showed Mr. Larrabee the array of photos. Mr. Larrabee initially made no positive identification. He asked to see the array again. After further review, he selected Mr. Menzies’s photo as looking the most like the man he saw at Storm Mountain.

¶ 12 About three months after Mr. Larrabee viewed the photo array, the police conducted a lineup that included Mr. Menzies. At the lineup, Mr. Larrabee identified someone other than Mr. Menzies as the man he saw at Storm Mountain. Apparently, Mr. Larrabee later felt he made a mistake and asked the prosecutor whether number six in the lineup was the suspect. Ralph Menzies was suspect number six. Later at trial, the court instructed the jury not to consider Mr. Larrabee’s testimony regarding his confirmatory request to the prosecutor.

¶ 13 The same day the police showed Mr. Larrabee the photo array, they also interviewed Mr. Menzies’s friend Troy Denter. Mr. Denter told them that he loaned his cream-colored 1974 Chevrolet to Mr. Menzies some time during the afternoon of Sunday, February 23. Mr. Menzies apparently told Mr. Denter he planned to return the car around 10:00 p.m. Sunday night. Mr. Menzies did not return the car on time. Mr. Denter called Mr. Menzies’s apartment phone number around 10:00 p.m. Mr. Menzies’s girlfriend, Nicole Arnold, answered and stated he was not there. Mr. Denter called again around 11:00 p .m., but Ralph Menzies was still away. Mr. Denter called one more time around 1:00 a.m. Mr. Menzies answered and asked if he could keep the car until the next morning because he had “one more order of business to take care of.” But Mr. Menzies did not return the car until about noon the next day, Monday, February 24. He used about twelve and one-half gallons of gas during the time he borrowed Mr. Denter’s car. After retrieving his car, Mr. Denter found a box labeled “handcuffs” under the driver’s seat.

¶ 14 After interviewing Mr. Denter, the police escorted Mr. Larrabee out to a nearby parking terrace to determine whether Mr. Larrabee might be able to identify the car he saw at Storm Mountain. The police had earlier parked the cream-colored 1974 Chevrolet owned by Mr. Denter among the other cars. Mr. Larrabee tentatively identified Mr. Denter’s car as looking like the one he saw at Storm Mountain. Ms. Brown also tentatively identified Mr. Denter’s car as the car she saw in the Storm Mountain parking lot.

¶ 15 The police questioned Ralph Menzies after hearing Mr. Larrabee’s eyewitness account. Mr. Menzies told them that on the night he borrowed Mr. Denter’s car, he picked up a woman on State Street and then picked up Ms. Arnold. He drove around with both women until the two began to fight. He dropped off Ms. Arnold and then dropped the other woman off somewhere around 7200 West and 2400 South. He stated that he then went home to talk to Ms. Arnold.

¶ 16 The police discovered numerous pieces of evidence indicating that Ralph Menzies killed Mrs. Hunsaker. They found Mrs. Hunsaker’s thumbprint in Mr. Denter’s car. They found that approximately $116 was missing from the Gas–A–Mat cash register.⁹ This amount was approximately the same amount of money that was later found in Mr. Menzies’s apartment. After being booked for the unrelated burglary offense, Mr. Menzies asked Mr. Denter to retrieve $115 from his apartment. Mr. Denter spent about $25. Ms. Arnold’s mother later found $90 hidden in Mr. Menzies’s apartment. Ms. Arnold’s mother also found handcuffs in a maroon and grey parka belonging to Mr. Menzies. The police ordered a chemical analysis comparing fibers of Mr. Menzies’s green shag carpet with green fibers on Mrs. Hunsaker’s clothing. That analysis found similarities in the color, diameter, shape, and content of the fibers. The police seized a buck knife from Mr. Menzies’s apartment that was capable of causing the wounds on Mrs. Hunsaker’s neck. The police also seized a brown suede purse from Mr. Menzies’s apartment, and Mr. Hunsaker testified that the purse belonged to Mrs. Hunsaker. Six months after Ralph Menzies arrest, Ms. Arnold’s stepfather found Mrs. Hunsaker’s social security card in Ms. Arnold’s belongings. Finally, another jail inmate, Walter Britton, testified at Mr. Menzies’s preliminary hearing that Mr. Menzies confessed that he killed Mrs. Hunsaker. According to Mr. Britton, Mr. Menzies also stated that slitting her throat was one of the biggest thrills of his life.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ut-supreme-court/1678785.html

Taberon Honie Utah Death Row

Taberon Honie was sentenced to death by the State of Utah for a sexual assault and murder. According to court documents Taberon Honie broke into the home of his ex girlfriend and would sexually assault and murder her mother who was brutally stabbed to death. The woman’s three grandchildren watched the event. Taberon Honie was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Utah Death Row Inmate List

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Taberon Honie has been sentenced to die for killing and sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend’s mother.

The sentence was handed down Thursday by 5th District Judge Robert Braithwaite, who said: “It was not a sentence I gave to the defendant; he earned it. If this isn’t a death penalty case, I don’t know what is.”The judge then stayed the execution pending an automatic appeal required by state law.

Braithwaite said he “welcomed the appeal” and a review of the case, but he hopes it is not remanded back to trial.

Taberon Honie, 23, was convicted of aggravated murder in the July 9 slaying of Claudia Benn, 49, at her home.

Benn was at home with her three granddaughters when Honie used a rock to smash through a glass patio door. Honie cut Benn’s throat four times from ear to ear and slashed her repeatedly with a kitchen knife.

After the sentence was announced, Honie mouthed the words “You got it,” toward Benn’s 30 or so friends and family members sitting behind the prosecutor’s table. Members of both Honie’s and Benn’s families cried.

Iron County Attorney Scott Burns told the Honie family he was “sorry” as he left the courtroom.

One of Honie’s aunts responded, “I hope you enjoy your fun” and she said to Benn relatives she hoped they could live with their consciences. No one from the Benn family responded.

Earlier, Benn’s oldest daughter, Carol Pikyavit, Honie’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his 2-year-old daughter, testified she would be satisfied if Honie were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In making a plea for the judge to spare Honie’s life, defense attorney Steve McCaughey asked him to consider what a father means to his daughter.

McCaughey said it “doesn’t seem to fit” for the state to execute the father of a girl who lost Benn, her maternal grandmother. “This girl is entitled to have a father to visit with,” McCaughey said.

Burns argued the death penalty was the appropriate punishment and rejected claims that mitigating factors such as poverty and substance abuse contributed to the crime.

Burns stressed the importance of Benn’s role as a substance-abuse counselor for the Paiute tribe in Cedar City.

“(Honie) did not murder a drunken Indian in the park,” Burns said. “He murdered a superstar in the Paiute community.”

Honie, who is a Hopi, read a written statement in court Thursday that said, “Please don’t think that I don’t have any remorse or sympathy if I don’t cry or show how I really feel. It’s just that I was taught by tradition that if you’re a male, you don’t cry openly. During the past couple of days there is not one moment that went by that I didn’t feel like throwing myself on my knees and begging for forgiveness from everyone I hurt.”

https://www.deseret.com/1999/5/22/19446797/killer-sentenced-to-die-judge-says-he-earned-it

Douglas Carter Utah Death Row

Douglas Carter was sentenced to death by the State of Utah for the murder of a woman. According to court documents Douglas Carter forced his way into the victims home, Eva Olesen, and would proceed to stab the woman to death. Douglas Carter would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Utah Death Row Inmate List

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For 33 years, Douglas Carter has been at the Utah State Prison staring down a death sentence for a brutal murder in Utah County — yet, just this week, the Utah Supreme Court heard evidence of the shady dealings that may have helped put him there.

If defense lawyers get their way, Carter may get a new trial — and, based on the information before the justices, that would be a just outcome, based on the gross, possibly criminal, malfeasance in the case.

What should also be on trial, in a larger sense, is the public’s confidence in the system of justice that put Carter on death row and whether, despite its flaws, we can continue to trust it when the state is seeking to take a person’s life.

In 1985, a jury convicted Carter of murder based on a case built on a written confession Carter had given to police — a confession Carter later argued was coerced — and the corroboration of that confession by two witnesses, Epifanio and Lucia Tovar. The Tovars testified at trial that Carter had bragged about killing 57-year-old Eva Olesen, who was the aunt of Provo’s police chief at the time.

Now, the Tovars say that Provo police gave them groceries and gifts for their children, paid their rent and sang Christmas carols with the family in the months leading up to the trial. The Tovars said they were instructed by police to lie about those payments if they were asked about them on the witness stand. At trial they testified they only ever received a $14 witness fee.

The police had additional leverage over Epifanio Tovar because he was an undocumented immigrant facing the potential of deportation.

It’s entirely possible Carter did kill Olesen and bragged about the slaying, and that the payments from officers didn’t influence the Tovars’ testimony in the slightest.

But it’s also entirely possible that a juror hearing about the payments from police would rightly question the validity of the testimony, and it might raise doubt about the Tovars’ credibility and, accordingly, in the veracity of the confession to police.

Justice Deno Himonas recognized that cash and gifts exchanging hands could impeach the witnesses’ credibility and was troubled by the fact it had been concealed.

“On a death sentence case, it doesn’t trouble you that an official from the prosecuting arm specifically told the material witnesses to lie about the benefits received from the state?” HImonas asked Erin Riley, the assistant solicitor with the unenviable task of defending the state in this case.

Let’s not sugarcoat the crime Carter is accused of: A jury convicted him of stabbing Olesen before shooting her in the back of the head during a home-invasion robbery on Feb. 27, 1985. There is no denying the brutality of the crime.

But this is no longer about what kind of person Douglas Carter is; it’s about what kind of people WE are.

Are we willing to have someone put to death in our name knowing that jurors were misled by witnesses who, it appears, were cajoled or coerced by law enforcement into lying about blatant misconduct?

Carter’s is not the first capital case in which we have seen flaws in the system that should undermine the public’s confidence.

In September, attorneys for Ramon Rivera said they haven’t been able to get access to basic records relating to charges against their client, who is accused of a gang-related murder — a case in which Rivera faces potential execution.

In March, Steven Douglas Crutcher was potentially facing the death penalty for killing his cellmate, but a judge instead sentenced him to life in prison when it was revealed that the Department of Corrections had withheld some 1,600 medical records from the defense team.

“I’m about as angry about this as I have been about anything in my career,” 6th District Judge Wallace Lee scolded. “This is totally wrong. … That is something I would expect from Russia or North Korea, not a society like we have under the Constitution. It’s got to stop. I’ve worried that if it’s happened in this case, it’s happening in other cases out there.”

And that’s just it: We don’t know. We don’t know if there are cases in which records are being withheld or witnesses are being paid or our system of justice might be, for whatever reason, returning unjust results.

The National Registry of Exonerations has documented some 2,357 cases where innocent people were convicted. Was Carter one of those? Probably not. But probably shouldn’t be good enough when the state plans to take someone’s life?

At a minimum, Carter should get a new trial.

And, hopefully, it will prompt the Legislature to finally consider if we can have complete trust in our justice system and, if the answer is no, whether we want the state to be in the business of killing people.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/12/14/gehrke-appeal-death-row/

Michael Archuleta Utah Death Row

Michael Archuleta was sentenced to death by the State of Utah for the murder of a young man. According to court documents Michael Archuleta and Lance Wood would pick up the victim, Gordon Ray Church, at a gas station on November 21, 1988. The victim would be raped and stuffed into the vehicle of the car and driven over seventy miles to a remote location where the young man was tortured then beat to death with a car jack. The victim was buried in a shallow grave. Both Michael Archuleta and Lance Wood would be arrested and later convicted. Lance Wood was sentenced to life in prison and Michael Archuleta would be sentenced to death

Utah Death Row Inmate List

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Michael Archuleta has been on death row for 28 years.

Since he was sentenced to death in 1989 for the brutal murder of Gordon Church, Archuleta, now 54, has spent his days waiting for his own demise in a cell at the Utah State Prison.

The prosecutors, investigators and witnesses have all moved on with their lives. Many have moved away or retired, forgetting many of the details of the crime as the years fade away.

But Michael Archuleta hasn’t. Instead, the convicted murderer has spent the time fighting his own fate in the court system, doing everything possible to delay his seemingly inevitable execution.

His case isn’t unusual, though. Nationwide, a startling trend has emerged as the time between conviction and execution continues to grow with each passing year.

Archuleta was just 25 years old when he murdered 28-year-old Southern Utah University student Gordon Ray Church on Nov. 21, 1988.

According to trial testimony, Archuleta and 20-year-old Lance Conway Wood had picked up Church at a Cedar City gas station before driving him to Cedar Canyon where Archuleta raped him after Church revealed he was gay.

They then stuffed Church’s still-conscious body into the back of his own car to drive him more than 70 miles to a remote location in Millard County. The brutality continued there as Archuleta attached jumper cables to Church’s testicles, using the car battery to shock him. He was also sodomized with a tire iron, beat to death with a car jack and buried in a shallow grave.

Injuries to Church’s skull were so severe that a medical examiner later testified that they appeared similar to if his head had been run over by a truck.
Following two separate trials, Archuleta and Wood each were convicted of capital murder.

Wood was sentenced to life in prison. Archuleta was sentenced to death.

Over the past 28 years, Archuleta has never actually come close to execution.

The case has been bogged down in appeals since the initial conviction in the Fourth District Court in 1989. The Utah Supreme Court upheld the conviction shortly after. A second appeal claiming his trial attorneys and first set of appeal lawyers were ineffective was also rejected.

Archuleta’s former attorney, James Slavens, asked the Utah Supreme Court for a new trial — or at least a new penalty phase — in 2011 after Wood took primary responsibility for the murder. In the statement, Wood allegedly confessed to the crime without hesitation.

In this version, Archuleta wasn’t an active participant in the torture or the murder — he just moved the body. Slavens argued Wood’s confession could have swayed a jury to opt for a life sentence, instead of death

Additionally, Slavens claimed Archuleta’s previous attorneys could have easily obtained the affidavit from Wood, which he stated was another indication of ineffective assistance.

The Utah Supreme Court ultimately denied the request.

In 2012, his scheduled firing squad execution was inevitably stayed to pursue a federal appeal.

The case took a new turn when a petition filed in federal court claimed Archuleta was ineligible for execution because he was “intellectually disabled.”

“We have presented evidence to the court that Michael does have an intellectual disability, therefore he has a merited claim that he should be exempt from execution,” David Christensen, former lead attorney in the case from the Utah Federal Defender’s Office, said.

Christensen resigned from the Federal Public Defender’s Office this month.

Christensen’s claim wasn’t a valid defense until 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that intellectually disabled defendants were not eligible for the death penalty as it was considered to be cruel and unusual punishment because the deficiencies generally associated with disabilities are known to reduce culpability.

Archuleta’s mental health history was investigated extensively during trial preparation, but it was never delved into at length during the trial or penalty phase. A board-certified forensic psychologist did not uncover any brain damage or recommend any possible lines of defense based on his mental health or intellectual levels. Some evidence was presented about a previous diagnosis of low intellectual functioning, though.

Court documents reveal multiple red flags in his youth. He was born into “deplorable conditions” to a 16-year-old mother. She was immediately placed in reform school, leaving the child to be raised by “abusive grandparents.” He was later taken into custody by the Charitable Trust and Custody Services of the LDS Church at the age of three. The child was “in a filthy state” and covered in cigarette burns. He was later placed with a foster family that eventually adopted him.

As a child and teenager, Archuleta suffered from ADHD and was sent multiple times to the Utah State Hospital and other mental health facilities. He may have been sexually assaulted during one of these stays, court filings reveal.

During the first post-conviction review in state court, a psychologist evaluated Archuleta for any mental health defenses and she was unable to find any evidence of intellectual disability. IQ tests have generally placed Archuleta in the mid-80s. A score of 100 is average, while 70 is often the marker for intellectual disability.

Another petition found Archuleta suffered from a neurocognitive impairment that heavily affected his ability to write and spell.

The state district court refused to hear the claim on the grounds the defense had made a tactical decision not to present it when they originally could have. State law requires the claim to be brought up as soon as it is discovered, according to Andrew Peterson, assistant solicitor general for the Utah Attorney General’s Office.

Peterson, who has been on the case since 2013, believes the intellectual disability claim is likely just an attempt to slow down the appeals process.

“He’s never presented evidence that he was intellectually disabled,” Peterson explained. “His attorneys sort of guess he is.”

The Utah Attorney General’s Office agreed to have him evaluated at one point, but the court ruled against it.

“The court wouldn’t even allow the expert to go into the prison to evaluate him because he’s not even allowed to present all of the information because of the timeliness issue,” Peterson said.

The matter was ultimately sent back to the Utah Supreme Court for review as federal law prohibits the court from hearing any claim that hasn’t already been presented to the lower courts. Several other claims had also been raised and the state moved to separate them from the intellectual disability matter to proceed separately.

Prior to his resignation, Christensen had told The Spectrum & Daily News in an email that they were still briefing the issues on appeal to the Utah Supreme Court. Oral arguments have not been scheduled at this time, but those familiar with the case estimate they could take place as early as this fall.

Archuleta’s new public defender, Charlotte Merrill, did not respond to a request for comment.

There’s no clear answer as to when — or if — Archuleta will ever face execution. The appeals could go on for years.

“At this point it’s so uncertain,” Peterson said. “There are other capital cases where I think I can give a narrow timeframe of how long it will take. This is one where I don’t feel like I can give a very narrow band.”

Archuleta’s situation isn’t uncommon, though.

The average delay between crime and execution has increased at a rate of almost one for every three years, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Frank Baumgartner, author of “The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence.”

The reasons behind this differs from state to state, but Baumgartner explained the increase correlates with a rise in the amount of legal resources provided to death row inmates for appeals.

“The United States Supreme Court has ruled the state must provide better trained attorneys, access to investigators and mitigation specialists,” Baumgartner said. “That’s lengthened the process out and increased the likelihood that the death sentence will even be overturned.”

https://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/local/cedar-city/2017/06/23/michael-archuleta-death-penalty-executions/393431001/