And Menzies’ attorneys are worried that competency review could be influenced by the Utah Attorney General’s Office — on Wednesday, 3rd District Court Judge Matthew Bates heard arguments for and against disqualifying the Attorney General’s Office from prosecuting the case over a conflict of interest.
Bates will decide in the coming weeks whether new prosecutors should be assigned to the case. But he did order the Attorney General’s Office to hand over emails which they had previously refused to provide, arguing they should be protected under attorney-client privilege.
The competency review is intended to determine whether Menzies, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Maurine Hunsaker in 1988, is aware of and knows the reason for his upcoming execution.
His attorneys say that review could be tainted by the Utah Attorney General’s Office. The office is prosecuting Menzies’ case and advocating for his execution, while communicating with the state’s Department of Corrections and Department of Health and Human Services, which are tasked with the competency review.
It’s unclear what the agencies were communicating about. But that still poses a conflict of interest, said Eric Zuckerman, Menzies’ attorney, during Wednesday’s hearing. Those three agencies are supposed to be independent, he argued —- the prosecution should not be influencing what’s supposed to be a fair and impartial assessment of Menzies’ competency.
“They are working together. The conflict is there,” said Zuckerman. “They’re talking to each other. They’re not just emailing, but they’re talking to each other. There’s nothing this court can do to make this right again, because the independence has been violated.”
Attorneys for the state pushed back on the idea that their correspondence with the departments of Health and Human Services and Corrections is anything beyond information that’s already public. Zuckerman has not provided any evidence that there is anything happening between the three agencies that could sway the competency review, they said on Wednesday.
“There simply needs to be more concrete evidence of some collusion or some nefarious undertaking of the state, and I don’t see it here in Mr. Menzies’ motion,” said Daniel Boyer with the Utah Attorney General’s Office, telling the court that the “idea that we’re somehow influencing DHHS, you’re not going to see that if these emails are disclosed.”
Rather than handing over email correspondence between the agencies, the state’s lawyers say they should be protected under attorney-client privilege. Zuckerman said that alone warrants the emails being handed over — if it can be protected by attorney-client privilege, it goes beyond the scope of what’s allowed to be discussed between the three agencies.
“If counsel for the Utah Department of Corrections and counsel for Department of Health and Human Services are providing advice, direction or guidance to the prosecution,” Zuckerman said, “that is absolutely relevant.”
Ultimately, Bates ordered the state to hand over the emails, but for Zuckerman, that’s not enough. When asked whether viewing the emails would put to rest any concerns that there is still a conflict of interest, Zuckerman said no.
“It doesn’t change the fact they’ve admitted to working together. … There’s a clear remedy in this case and that remedy is to assign someone else,” he said.
Bates said he will determine whether the Attorney General’s Office should be thrown off the case in the next 14 days. If the judge were to rule in Menzies’ favor and disqualify the Attorney General’s Office, it would delay when Menzies’ competency review takes place.
Read the full story at UtahNewsDispatch.com.
