Utah Supreme Court affirms ruling ordering new trial for death row inmate

The Utah Supreme Court has affirmed that death row inmate Douglas Stewart Carter’s conviction and sentence should be vacated, agreeing that his trial violated his constitutional right to due process. 

In a unanimous ruling issued Thursday, the state’s highest court agreed with a postconviction court’s earlier ruling that Utah County prosecutors violated Carter’s constitutional rights on multiple occasions — during both his trial and sentencing — and that he should be given a new trial. 

Carter was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to death in the 1985 murder of Eva Olsesen, who was found stabbed and shot in her Provo home in what police said was a home invasion. After that conviction was overturned, Carter was again found guilty and ordered to die in 1992.

The lower court’s post-conviction order came following a 2021 evidentiary hearing. The state and the Utah County Attorney’s Office appealed, arguing to the Utah Supreme Court that the lower court used an incorrect legal standard for the ruling. The Supreme Court’s five justices agreed with the state that the lower court used the wrong standard — but they said the judge still arrived at the correct outcome.

“It is important to note that, for the most part, the State does not challenge the court’s factual findings. Further, the State does not dispute that it wrongfully suppressed exculpatory evidence and that the prosecutor knowingly failed to correct at least one instance of false testimony,” Justice Paige Petersen wrote in the opinion. “Rather, the State argues that the postconviction court used an incorrect legal standard in part of its prejudice analysis, and that overall, these constitutional violations did not prejudice Carter under the applicable (Postconviction Remedies Act) standards.” 

Petersen wrote that justices “agree with the State that part of the postconviction court’s prejudice analysis relied on an incorrect legal standard.”

“However, applying the correct legal standard, there is no question that these numerous constitutional violations — suppressing evidence, suborning perjury, and knowingly failing to correct false testimony — prejudiced Carter at both his trial and sentencing,” she wrote. “We affirm.” 

Petersen added that the “constitutional violations that took place during Carter’s trial and resentencing are serious.”

She noted that two witnesses for prosecutors — Epifanio Tovar and his wife Lucia — “provided important testimony” to corroborate aspects of Carter’s confession. However, the lead investigator told Epifanio to “falsely deny receiving financial assistance from police and to falsely claim that Carter said he was going out to ‘rape’ someone on the night of the murder.”

“It is rare to see a case involving multiple instances of intentional misconduct by two different police officers — one of them the lead investigator on the case — and a prosecutor. But that is what the postconviction court found here,” Petersen wrote. “Two officers instructed important prosecution witnesses to lie not only about receiving benefits from the police, but also, in Epifanio’s case, to fabricate a statement intended to show that Carter harbored a premeditated intent to commit rape on the night of the murder.” 

Epifanio “went along with the coaching and perjured himself repeatedly,” Petersen added. “And the prosecutor stood by while Epifanio denied receiving any benefits, knowing the testimony was false, and did nothing to correct it.” 

The postconviction court vacated Carter’s conviction and sentence and ordered a new trial “because it determined these violations prejudiced Carter within the meaning of (the Postconviction Remedies Act),” Petersen concluded. 

“Its ‘confidence [was] undermined in both Carter’s conviction and sentence,’” Petersen quoted from the lower court’s ruling. “So is ours. We affirm.” 

Utah executes Taberon Honie by lethal injection, first capital punishment since 2010

A spokesperson for the Utah Attorney General’s Office issued a statement Thursday offering condolences to the murder victim’s family. 

“We extend our hearts and sympathies to the family of Eva Olesen, who have sought justice for her murder the last 40 years,” the Utah Attorney General’s Office spokesperson said. “We are disappointed the Olesen family does not yet have a resolution in this case.” 

Carter’s attorney, Eric Zuckerman, issued a statement expressing gratitude in the ruling but also saying the case highlights a need for reform to Utah’s “broken” capital punishment system. 

“Mr. Carter has spent more than forty years behind bars because of an unconstitutional conviction rooted in police and prosecutorial misconduct — including the suborning of perjury before a jury of his peers,” Zuckerman said. “We are gratified that both the trial court and the Utah Supreme Court have validated Mr. Carter’s claims. But no ruling can restore the four decades of freedom the State of Utah unjustly took from him. This decision underscores what has long been clear: Utah’s death penalty system is broken beyond repair.” 

It’s not yet clear what will come next for Carter’s case. 

Will Ralph Menzies’ dementia keep him from a firing squad? Attorneys make final argument

The Utah County Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday or say whether it would seek a new trial. 

The ruling comes as the courts weigh at least two other significant death row legal challenges. 

Carter is among a group of death row inmates that have appealed to the Utah Supreme Court after a lower court rejected a lawsuit alleging Utah’s death penalty methods of lethal injection and firing squad are cruel and unusual punishment. He and Ralph Menzies, Troy Kell, Michael Archuleta and the now deceased Taberon Honie joined the lawsuit. Honie was executed by lethal injection in August. 

Menzies is also awaiting a decision on his case, in which he and his attorneys have argued his dementia has advanced to the point that he can no longer form a “rational understanding” of why the state is pursuing the death penalty and he should be spared from being executed by firing squad. The Utah Attorney General’s Office argues that while Menzies may be impaired, he is still “clearly competent.” 

Read the Utah Supreme Court’s ruling on Carter’s case below: