Utah Supreme Court Affirms New Trial for Death Row Prisoner Whose Prosecutors Participated in ​“Intentional Misconduct”

On May 15, 2025, the Utah Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly upheld a low­er court’s deci­sion vacat­ing Douglas Carter’s (pic­tured) con­vic­tion and death sen­tence and order­ing a new tri­al. The Court found that Utah County pros­e­cu­tors vio­lat­ed Mr. Carter’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights on mul­ti­ple occa­sions with their ​“inten­tion­al mis­con­duct” dur­ing his 1985 tri­al that accused him of caus­ing the death of Eva Olesen dur­ing a home inva­sion. In November 2023, Utah County District Court Judge Derek P. Pullan ordered a new tri­al fol­low­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing in which the court heard tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing police coer­cion, the with­hold­ing of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, and fail­ure to cor­rect false tes­ti­mo­ny. The state appealed this deci­sion, lead­ing to the supreme court’s ruling.

In its appeal, the state did not con­test Judge Pullan’s fac­tu­al find­ings but argued that he used the wrong legal stan­dard to reach his deci­sion. Ultimately, the Utah Supreme Court agreed that Judge Pullan used the wrong stan­dard but found that he nev­er­the­less arrived at the prop­er out­come. The high court wrote that ​“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.”

No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Mr. Carter to the crime. He was con­vict­ed based upon a con­fes­sion to police that he says was false and coerced, and the tes­ti­mo­ny of two wit­ness­es, Epifanio and Lucia Tovar, who claimed Mr. Carter con­fessed to the mur­der. Both wit­ness­es were vul­ner­a­ble to pres­sure because they were not legal U.S. res­i­dents at the time. At tri­al, Mr. Tovar tes­ti­fied that Mr. Carter told him pri­or to com­mit­ting the crime that he intend­ed to ​“rape, break, and dri­ve,” that night, and that l Mr. Carter lat­er returned to his house to con­fess. Mr. Tovar told the jury that Mr. Carter per­formed a phys­i­cal demon­stra­tion of the crime while laugh­ing. Ms. Tovar ver­i­fied the time­line her hus­band tes­ti­fied to and said she saw Mr. Carter act­ing something out.

However, in 2011, attor­neys for Mr. Carter locat­ed the Tovars, by then liv­ing in Mexico, who signed dec­la­ra­tions stat­ing they were both threat­ened and coerced by police to lie about Mr. Carter and about receiv­ing finan­cial sup­port from the Provo police. The Utah Supreme Court ordered the tri­al court to con­duct an evi­den­tiary hear­ing, call­ing the signed dec­la­ra­tions, ​“damn­ing.” The dec­la­ra­tions includ­ed rev­e­la­tions that Provo police had paid the Tovars’ rent and giv­en them gro­ceries and gifts in the month lead­ing up to tri­al, told them to lie about pay­ments, and threat­ened to deport them or take their infant son if they did not coop­er­ate. The Court ruled that the new evi­dence of police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct left the Tovars’ tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny ​“taint­ed as a whole.”

Eric Zuckerman, coun­sel for Mr. Carter, said in a state­ment that his client ​“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.” He added that ​“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.”