'Intentional misconduct': Supreme Court orders a new procedure for the death series inmate Douglas Carter

Salt Lake City – The Supreme Court of Utah decided on Thursday that “serious” constitutional violations during the court proceedings and the sale of the inmate of Douglas Stewart Carter's death pointer earn a new procedure.

Carter, 69, was convicted of murder of Eva Olesen in Provo in 1985 and spent almost 40 years in the death cell. Now he will get another chance in life.

“It is rare that a case with several cases of intentional misconduct by two different police officers … and a prosecutor is involved. But that is what the post -administrative court has found here,” says the statement, with reference to Provo Police Lt. George Pierpont, Officer Richard Mack and prosecutor Wayne Watson.

After the judges heard arguments on the case on December 15, 2023, judges said that their trust was undermined both in Carter's conviction and the judgment, and they confirmed a decision by the district court, which granted him a new procedure.

The opinion of the state's Supreme Court said that no physical evidence had bound Carter to the crime scene, but he signed a confession that was based on other evidence that indicates him.

During his process, the prosecutors supported Epifanio and Lucia Tovar's statements, who said they had seen Carter shortly before and after the murder to confirm Carter's confession. Years after his conviction, the couple reported that the police received money and were put under pressure to lie about the financial support and to share an invented explanation that Carter wanted to rape that night. They claimed that the police paid their rent and threatened to deport their son if they did not say against Carter.

None of this was passed on Carter's lawyer, and the wrong certificate was not corrected by the prosecutor during the trial, said Utah's Supreme Court.

For this reason, Carter asked for relief after the conviction, and the 4th district court found that the senior public prosecutor, the senior investigator and another civil servant “serious misconduct” spoiled his negotiation and conviction.

The order of the Supreme Court states that lawyers in Utah County have not questioned the factual findings of the court or that the prosecutors have held out relieving evidence when they ask for checking the order to be checked according to a new procedure. Instead, they argued that the wrong standard was used to analyze whether the errors caused carter prejudices and claimed that they had made no difference.

The High Court agreed that the judge's analysis based on the wrong standard, but found that it was prejudiced to Carter, also with the right standard.

“There is no question that these numerous constitutional violations – suppress the evidence, not correctly correct the wrong certificate – has encouraged Carter both in his process and the conviction,” said the court.

Killing

Eva Olesen's husband found her body in her house in Provo on February 27, 1985. She had her hands tied behind her back and her clothes were removed from the waist. She had been stabbed 10 times and shot into the back of the head.

Carter was a suspect because he was identified by a witness in a nearby vehicle offense and hurried his wife home after he had belonged to the murder to see if he was involved.

Carter admitted to the police that he knew Olesen because she had bought Avon products from his wife, but he initially competed in the murder.

During a divorce process in the next month, his wife announced that she suspected that Carter had used her missing pistol in the murder, and he had it that night when he visited Epifanio Tovar. She reported that Carter went to her and two friends to the house in Olensen to steal a necklace, and he stayed in the car, but when the men returned that Olensen was dead.

After the statement, Epifanio Tovar was arrested because he had hindered the judiciary after driving Carter to Wendover, “knows that Carter had committed murder”.

Carter was later arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was interviewed, and signed a written confession that admitted to killed oil.

Due to the confirming details in reports from the Tovars and his confession, an official was assigned in the months of Carter's legal proceedings to visit them a few times a week to ensure that they do not leave the city and – including the provision of money for rent, invoices and food.

Death penalty

Carter was convicted of murder and capital offenses in 1985, and the jury found two aggravating factors – the murder occurred during the commissioning of the severe slump and in a “particularly hideous, cruel, cruel or exceptionally spoiled kind”.

The next day, the jury found that Carter should be sentenced to death.

In 1992 he was sentenced to death by a second jury after the Supreme Court of Utah had cleared the death sentence in 1989.

The Tovars were not found before the convict procedure, but parts of the same court statements were read to the jury in 1992, including the certificate that Carter said that he would “rape, break and drive” that night “and he” laughed and giggled “while he demonstrated the murder.

In 2011, Carter's lawyers found the Tovars in Mexico and signed an explanation that they had been threatened with the deportation or removal of their son. They said they were instructed to lies about financial support they received from the police and reported that they received a witness fee of $ 14 instead of $ 4,000, and Carter said he would rape someone that night to rape someone.

Both said during a four -day hearing in November 2021, which ruled the 4th district judge Derek Pullan in favor of a new negotiation and conviction. This week the arrangement of the High Court confirmed this decision.