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Thread: Douglas Anderson Lovell - Utah Death Row

  1. #21
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Former death row inmate found guilty again in killing, rape

    OGDEN — A former death row inmate was convicted Wednesday for the second time in a 30-year-old aggravated murder case after the Utah Supreme Court allowed him to withdraw the initial guilty plea that sent him to prison.

    Lawyers for 57-year-old defendant Douglas Lovell didn't argue during the two-day trial that he was innocent and instead focused on trying to keep Lovell from returning to death row when he is resentenced.

    The Ogden jury of nine men and three women deliberated for about 90 minutes before convicting Lowell. The sentencing phase of the trial is expected to begin Friday.

    The last time a death sentence was imposed in Utah was in 2008.

    Prosecutors say Lovell spent four months plotting to kill victim Joyce Yost to keep her from testifying against him in a rape case. Lovell broke into her home in 1985 with a knife after his plans to hire a hit man fell through, Weber County Deputy Attorney Gary Heward said.

    Lovell ignored her begging, drugged her and drove her to Ogden Canyon, where he strangled her, stomped on her neck and buried her in leaves, Heward said.

    Lovell was nevertheless convicted in the rape, in part due to Yost's testimony from a preliminary hearing. He was serving 15 years to life when prosecutors say he twice acknowledged his role in the killing to his estranged wife, who was secretly working with police.

    "When you put it all together the evidence is overwhelming," Heward said during his closing argument in the current case.

    Lovell had pleaded guilty in 1993 to avoid the death penalty, but a judge imposed it anyway after Lovell couldn't fulfill a condition of the plea deal to help investigators find the body of Yost. He cooperated, but the body was never located.

    He was sentenced then to die by lethal injection and sent to death row.

    The Utah Supreme Court allowed him to withdraw his guilty plea in 2010, ruling Lovell wasn't informed of his right to a presumption of innocence and a public trial. He was removed from death row.

    Lovell appeared in court Wednesday in a dark blue suit and had little visible reaction to the verdict.

    "What Doug Lovell did in 1985 is absolutely horrible. There's no excuse for it," defense attorney Michael Bouwhuis told jurors. However, he asked the panel to wait for more information during sentencing to make a decision on whether Lovell should be put to death.

    http://www.heraldextra.com/news/loca...2ad452c61.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #22
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Former death row inmate due for sentencing Friday

    A former death row inmate is set to learn his fate as sentencing gets underway Friday morning.

    A jury will decide whether to send Douglas Lovell back to death row or give him life in prison with the possibility of parole.

    In 1993, Lovell pleaded guilty to killing Joyce Yost, 39, in 1985 to keep her from testifying that he had kidnapped and raped her. Lovell's guilty plea was part of a deal to keep him off death row, provided he led police to Yost's body, which he said he buried in a shallow grave in Ogden Canyon.

    Yost's body was never found, and in 1993, a judge sentenced Lovell to die by lethal injection.

    But in 2010, the Utah Supreme Court allowed him to withdraw his guilty plea after he argued that he had not been properly informed of his constitutional rights when the plea bargain was made. He was granted a new trial. On Wednesday, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.

    As jurors consider his fate Friday, defense attorneys say even though he's been convicted, there are still unanswered questions: "I am just reminding you that you have not heard the entire story," defense attorney Michael Bouwhuis said.

    The defense hopes those questions will be enough to warrant a sentence of life in prison rather than death.

    Bouwhuis said the jurors indicated during the selection process that they will need to see the prosecutors prove Lovell was deserving of the death penalty in order to go through with the same sentence.

    Prosecutors argue that Lovell's murder of Yost was cold and calculated, and the culmination of a four-month plot with multiple false starts. They say Lovell hired two hitmen, but when those attempts failed, he stalked Yost to find a way to kill her himself

    http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=33900006
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  3. #23
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Douglas Lovell sentenced to death for 2nd time for 1985 murder

    Douglas Anderson Lovell is heading back to Utah's death row.

    Second District Judge Michael DiRedo ordered him to die by lethal injection on May 29. That date was immediately stayed while the killer automatically begins another round of legal appeals expected to take many, many years.

    After 11 hours of deliberation, an emotional nine-man, three-woman jury reached the decision Wednesday that Lovell should die. One male juror put his head in his hands and cried as verdict forms were read in the courtroom.

    The Clearfield man, 57, is no stranger to facing death. Lovell was sentenced to die for the same crimes in 1993. He spent 17 years on death row after he pleaded guilty to the brutal 1985 murder of Joyce Yost. He killed her to silence her from testifying in an upcoming trial that he had raped her.

    Lovell drugged the woman so she would be too disoriented to call for help, then drove her to Ogden Canyon, choked her, stomped on her neck and buried her in leaves.

    After years of appeals, the Utah Supreme Court allowed Lovell to withdraw that guilty plea in 2010 and a new trial was ordered. The same jurors who sentenced him to die Wednesday determined last month that he was guilty of kidnapping Yost from her South Ogden home and then murdering her.

    "This is a good day for Joyce and a good day for our family," Yost's son, Greg Roberts, said of the jury's decision.

    Prosecutors argued that the killing wasn't just an attack on Yost, already the victim of a brutal crime, it assailed the foundations of the criminal justice system.

    "His motive was to save himself, at the expense of all else, at the expense of Joyce Yost, her family and the justice system," deputy Weber County attorney Christopher Shaw told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday.

    Because a life sentence without parole was not a legal option when Yost was murdered in 1985, if the jury hadn't chosen the death penalty, its only other option was life in prison with a possibility of parole.

    Utah's high court ruled in 2010 that Lovell did not fully understand his rights when he entered into a plea bargain in 1993 designed to help him avoid the death penalty so long as he revealed where he had buried Yost. The deal fell apart and a judge sentenced Lovell to die after an exhaustive search of the mountains east of Ogden failed to identify any evidence of Yost's remains.

    Lovell's attorneys made it clear over the past few weeks they were not arguing Lovell's innocence in the trial, only that he should not be sentenced to die. Defense attorney Michael Bouwhuis argued that Lovell had, in fact, attempted to cooperate with investigators in the search for Yost's body.

    "The fact of the matter is Doug Lovell didn't want to die," Bouwhuis said. "Clearly, he still doesn't want to die."

    Lovell joins seven other men on Utah's death row.

    http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=34066686
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  4. #24
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Death row inmate asks for new trial, claims Mormon meddling

    SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah man sentenced to death in a 1985 murder case is asking for a new trial, claiming The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints interfered in his trial.

    The Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/1KI2An2) that Douglas Lovell says attorneys for the church initially tried to prevent testimony from Mormon officials who counseled him in prison.

    Lawyers for the 57-year-old man say three officials eventually testified to Lovell's remorse about the 1985 rape and murder during sentencing proceedings that took place after Lovell was granted a new trial in the case.

    The jury nevertheless sent Lovell back to death row in April.

    Church spokesman Eric Hawkins says the leaders don't usually participate in non-church matters, but the officials were subpoenaed and gave personal opinions.

    http://www.heraldextra.com/news/loca...9d15978b0.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #25
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    Utah death row inmate asks judge to order his former attorney to hand over case file

    By Jessica Miller
    The Salt Lake Tribune

    Nine months after Douglas Anderson Lovell was sentenced to die for killing a woman in 1985, he will back in an Ogden courtroom — this time fighting against his former attorney.

    Lovell, 57, was found guilty in March of aggravated murder in Joyce Yost's strangulation death. Two weeks later, jurors determined Lovell should be executed for killing the woman to prevent her from testifying against him in a rape case.

    The defendant is expected to be in court in mid-January as his appellate attorney asks 2nd District Judge Michael DiReda to order one of Lovell's trial attorneys, Sean Young, to hand over all of the papers he has gathered while representing Lovell the past four years.

    Lovell's appellate attorney, Samuel Newton, wrote in court papers filed in October that he has tried for months to get Young to give him his case file. Newton said Lovell's lead lawyer at trial, Michael Bouwhuis, had turned over his entire case — which included a large electronic file and several boxes of materials — to the appellate attorneys within days of their request.

    Newton said he talked with Young numerous times about handing over his materials, but the public defender never did so.

    Newton references a number of emails in which he asks Young for the materials, and Young responds by telling him, "I don't have much else to turn over," saying he only had the same evidence Bouwhuis had already sent over, as well as his own notes taken during trial and during prison visits with Lovell.

    In a May email, Young wrote to Newton, "I am more than willing to meet with you and hand over whatever you deem necessary. I just don't see the relevance of my work product notes, but if you think they are important, we can meet, discuss and [hand] over whatever you need."

    Newton said that meeting never happened, and he is now asking the district court judge to order Young to give him those documents.

    "Appellate counsel cannot be reasonably prepared for a capital appeal without reviewing prior counsel's file," Newton wrote. "The preparation necessary in this case is not minimal. ... Mr. Lovell cannot make claims about the adequacy of the defense representation or the effectiveness of his trial counsel without having an opportunity to review counsel's file."

    Lovell's attorneys filed a notice of appeal with the Utah Supreme Court in August, though the case has had little movement since then. In October, the Supreme Court case was stayed so the issue over Young's case materials could be decided at the district court level, according to court records. Oral arguments on the case will be held in DiReda's courtroom Jan. 13.

    Newton said in a Wednesday email to The Salt Lake Tribune that Young's refusal to turn over his case file has stalled the appellate process.

    "The takeaway is that citizens of the state of Utah would feel that before we choose to execute a person, we should ensure that he was represented by competent counsel who zealously represented his client at a trial," Newton said. "Giving that file to his appellate attorney is the very minimum standard an attorney should follow. ... Unfortunately, the jury [in Lovell's case] did not get to hear a lot of compelling testimony about Doug because his lawyer was not adequately prepared for trial."

    Young did not respond Thursday to a request for comment for this story.

    In April 1985, Lovell followed Yost, 39, home from a Clearfield restaurant, kidnapping her from her apartment parking lot and sexually assaulting her in the parking lot and at his home, according to trial testimony.

    After she reported the crime to authorities, Lovell began to plot the woman's death to keep her from testifying at his upcoming trial, according to testimony at Lovell's murder trial. He tried twice to hire men to kill the woman, then decided to do it himself Aug. 10, 1985.

    He kidnapped the woman again from her South Ogden apartment and took her to the mountains east of Ogden, where he strangled her and left her body under handfuls of dirt and leaves.

    The body was never found — despite an extensive search of the area by police in 1993, after Lovell struck a plea deal that spared him the death penalty if he could lead authorities to her body.

    After the fruitless 1993 search, an Ogden judge sentenced Lovell to death by lethal injection. But, in 2011, the Utah Supreme Court ruled he could withdraw his guilty plea because he should have been better informed of his rights during court proceedings.

    http://www.sltrib.com/home/3362419-1...ate-asks-judge
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #26
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Death penalty appeal: Witnesses had to choose between testifying in favor of killer or obeying LDS Church

    Ineffective assistance? » Douglas Lovell claims trial attorney “abandoned his role” by not interviewing any witnesses for trial.

    Several witnesses called to testify in Douglas Anderson Lovell's death penalty trial last year say they faced a hard choice: Either testify on behalf of a murderer they had come to know as a friend or appease their leaders within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and stay silent.

    Lovell is appealing the outcome of his 2015 trial in which jurors sentenced him to be executed for the 1985 killing of Joyce Yost. In newly filed appellate court papers, the death row inmate accuses the Mormon church and its attorneys of meddling in his trial by telling his former bishops not to testify or to limit what they said on the stand.

    A former mentor even came to Lovell in tears the day before the start of the trial and asked the inmate to not call him as a character witness, Lovell wrote in an affidavit filed with the Utah Supreme Court. The man told Lovell that a "member above him" in the church had told him he could not testify.

    "It was obvious to me that [he] was torn between testifying for me and his loyalty to obey his church leaders," Lovell wrote. "My heart truly ached for [him] because I knew him well enough to know that he was devastated."

    'It got so ridiculous ... ' • And he wasn't the only Mormon who was told not to testify. Lovell's appellate attorney, Samuel Newton, wrote in court papers that four other bishops and a woman who was serving an LDS mission at the time of the trial also reported they were told to either not testify or give only short answers, so it would not appear they were representing the church while approving of a murderer. One bishop reported that a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, a senior administrative body in the LDS Church, had contacted him and instructed him not to testify.

    "The church, out of concern for its policies, pressured witnesses not to testify or cooperate with Mr. Lovell," Newton wrote. "And put witnesses in the position of having to disobey their church leaders to support Mr. Lovell."

    When the four church members who did testify took the stand, attorneys on both sides made a point of letting jurors know they were there under subpoena and did not represent the views of the Utah-based faith, which has a neutral stance on the death penalty. One juror later wrote in an affidavit that the repeated references had a negative impact on him and the other jurors.

    "It felt to me like [Deputy Weber County Attorney Jeffrey] Thomson was trying to make sure that, by the bishops 'forgiving and liking' Doug, it didn't mean the LDS Church would forgive/like Doug because he was a convicted murderer," the juror wrote. "It was like the prosecutor was trying so hard to make sure their testimony was separated from official church business and it got so ridiculous by the end."

    Newton said the church's lawyers, with the law firm Kirton McConkie, have continued to interfere with Lovell's case by blocking the appellate attorney's attempts to contact those same bishops and get more information from them as he prepares Lovell's appeal.

    In a written statement, LDS Church spokesman Eric Hawkins said any limitations to witness testimony were agreed to by the church and Lovell's trial attorneys.

    "Church leaders do not generally participate in legal proceedings in which the church is not directly involved," Hawkins said. "In this case, these leaders were required by subpoena to appear in court. Their statements represent their personal experiences and opinions. They do not speak for the church. Our hearts go out to the victims of this unspeakable crime."

    Through his attorney, Lovell declined to comment for this story because he did not want to cause "unnecessary pain" to Yost's family. Newton said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune that Lovell has great respect for the LDS Church and a love for the bishops who worked with him throughout the years and became his friends.

    "He was saddened, however, that the church, institutionally, took steps to limit or prevent these bishops from testifying on his behalf at his trial and on appeal," Newton said. "He is hopeful that the church will, if the Supreme Court grants his motion for remand, allow these former leaders to fully testify about their love for Mr. Lovell, the changes they have observed in him and their belief that he could succeed in society."

    Fired public defender • Newton is asking the Utah Supreme Court to remand the case back to the 2nd District Court so an evidentiary hearing can be held and witnesses can be questioned as he mounts an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim.

    In the motion, Newton also asserts that one of Lovell's trial attorneys, Sean Young, failed to object to the church interference until after the trial. The appellate attorney alleges that Young did virtually no work on his case and "wholly abandoned his role as counsel."

    After the trial, Lovell received a number of letters from supporters who said they wanted to testify about how he was a changed man — but added that his defense team never contacted them. They would have said that Lovell's life had worth, and that Lovell was remorseful for his crimes and could be rehabilitated, according to their letters and affidavits.

    Lovell's lead trial attorney, Michael Bouwhuis, wrote in an affidavit that Young, his co-counsel, was assigned to interview and prepare 18 witnesses, including former church leaders, Lovell's family members, and an inmate who said Lovell positively affected his life.

    Of those 18, only two have said that they were contacted by Young before trial — but the conversations were brief and mostly concerned when they would testify, not the substance of what they would say.

    Young's public defender contract was terminated after Lovell's trial, Bouwhuis wrote, when it came to light that the attorney "did not speak with a substantial number of witnesses assigned to him in this case."

    Young did not respond to a request by The Tribune seeking comment. Weber County Attorney Chris Allred confirmed Friday that Young's contract was terminated. Allred declined to comment on the assertions in Lovell's motion because he had not read the filing.

    Lovell wrote in his affidavit that Young made it appear as if he had spoken to the potential witnesses and that he reported that they did not wish to testify. Lovell also said that he felt Young did not adequately question or cross-examine witnesses at trial.

    "In my case, it would be hard for any jury to see me as a human being and a life worth saving through the testimony of those who knew me well because my attorney, Sean Young, did not contact, prepare and get my witnesses to court," Lovell wrote.

    Rape and murder • In April 1985, Lovell followed Yost, 39, home from a Clearfield restaurant, kidnapped her from her apartment parking lot and sexually assaulted her in the parking lot and at his home, according to trial testimony.

    After she reported the crime, Lovell began to plot the woman's death to keep her from testifying at his upcoming trial, according to testimony at Lovell's murder trial. He tried twice to hire men to kill the woman, then decided to do it himself on Aug. 10, 1985.

    He kidnapped the woman again from her South Ogden apartment and took her to the mountains east of Ogden, where he strangled her and left her body under handfuls of dirt and leaves.

    The body was never found — despite an extensive search of the area by police in 1993, after Lovell struck a plea deal that spared him the death penalty if he could lead authorities to her body.

    After the fruitless 1993 search, an Ogden judge sentenced Lovell to death by lethal injection. But, in 2011, the Utah Supreme Court ruled Lovell could withdraw his guilty plea because he should have been better informed of his rights during court proceedings.

    Despite Lovell's efforts to prevent Yost from testifying against him in the rape case, he was convicted by a jury of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault in December 1985, with the help of a transcript of Yost's preliminary hearing testimony.

    http://www.sltrib.com/news/3941193-1...tnesses-had-to

  7. #27
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Appeal for Utah death row inmate sent back to trial court for evidence hearing

    After raising questions about his defense attorney's performance in a 2015 capital murder trial, death row inmate Douglas Lovell will have his case heard before a lower court once again, the Utah Supreme Court ruled.

    In a decision released this week, the high court remanded Lovell's case back to the district court for an evidentiary hearing. At that hearing, a 2nd District judge will determine whether one of Lovell's court-appointed attorneys "performed deficiently" by failing to adequately prepare witnesses, by not calling certain witnesses to testify on Lovell's behalf and by not objecting to purported interference by lawyers representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

    Lovell's appellate attorney, Samuel Newton, requested the hearing as he mounts an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim. State attorneys did not object to the hearing, according to the Monday ruling. No court dates had been set as of Friday.

    Lovell is appealing the outcome of his 2015 trial, in which jurors sentenced him to be executed for killing 39-year-old Joyce Yost in 1985. In his appeal, Lovell accused the Mormon church and its attorneys of meddling in his trial by telling his former bishops not to testify or to limit what they said on the stand.

    The defendant wrote in an affidavit that a former mentor came to him in tears on the eve of his 2015 trial, asking the inmate to not call him as a character witness. The man told Lovell that a "member above him" in the church told him he could not testify.

    Four other bishops and a woman serving an LDS mission at the time of the trial also reported they were told to either not testify or give only short answers, so it would not appear they were representing the church — which has a neutral stance on the death penalty — while approving of a murderer. LDS church officials have said any limitations to witness testimony were agreed to by the church and Lovell's trial attorneys.

    Newton alleges in court papers that trial attorney Sean Young failed to object to this interference from the Mormon church. Newton also asserts that Young did not properly prepare mitigation witnesses, and did not contact a number of witnesses who wished to testify on Lovell's behalf during the penalty phase of the trial.

    Lovell's lead trial attorney, Michael Bouwhuis, wrote in an affidavit that Young, his co-counsel, was assigned to interview and prepare 18 witnesses, including former church members, Lovell's family members, and an inmate who said Lovell positively affected his life.

    Of those 18, only two have said that they were contacted by Young before trial — but the conversations were brief and mostly concerned when they would testify, not the substance of what they would say.

    Young's public defender contract was terminated after Lovell's trial, according to Bouwhuis and county officials.

    In April 1985, Lovell followed Yost home from a Clearfield restaurant, kidnapped her from her apartment parking lot and sexually assaulted her in the parking lot and at his home, according to trial testimony.

    After she reported the crime, Lovell began to plot the woman's death to keep her from testifying at his upcoming trial, according to testimony. He tried twice to hire men to kill the woman, then decided to do it himself on Aug. 10, 1985.

    He kidnapped the woman again from her apartment and took her to the mountains east of Ogden, where he strangled her and left her body under handfuls of dirt and leaves.

    Yost's body was never found — despite an extensive search of the area by police in 1993, after Lovell struck a plea deal that spared him the death penalty if he could lead authorities to her remains.

    After the fruitless 1993 search, an Ogden judge sentenced Lovell to death by lethal injection. But, in 2011, the Utah Supreme Court ruled Lovell could withdraw his guilty plea because he should have been better informed of his rights during court proceedings.

    http://www.sltrib.com/news/5040340-1...ppeal-for-utah
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  8. #28
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Appellate attorney withdraws from Utah death penalty case, saying, ‘I had to choose’ between financially supporting family or representing Douglas Lovell

    By Jessica Miller
    The Salt Lake Tribune

    A judge last week granted a lawyer’s request to withdraw from representing a Utah death row inmate after the appellate attorney said payment issues were causing a conflict of interest.

    Attorney Samuel Newton asked for the withdrawal in June after lamenting a financial cap that Weber County officials had put on him to represent Douglas Anderson Lovell, who was sentenced in 2015 to be executed for killing 39-year-old Joyce Yost in 1985 to keep her from testifying that he had previously raped her.

    The funding dispute centered around an upcoming multiday evidentiary hearing, where Newton was expected to question witnesses about what work Lovell’s trial attorney did on the case — and whether The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint interfered with the trial by limiting what bishops who worked with Lovell at the prison could say on the stand.

    Newton argued in court papers that the hearing would require hundreds of hours of investigation and preparation, which he estimated would cost more that $37,000. The county, however, had authorized payment of only $15,000. The attorney said concerns about inadequate pay on Lovell’s case and another death penalty appeal was causing him stress-related heart problems.

    Second District Judge Michael DiReda, who is presiding over the evidentiary hearing that was ordered by the Utah Supreme Court, ruled on Tuesday that Newton could withdraw, finding there was a conflict of interest because of Newton’s health concerns. DiReda ordered Weber County to appoint a new attorney for Lovell by Sept. 20.

    Newton told The Tribune on Friday, “It is unfortunate that I was placed in a position where I had to chose between supporting my family and representing Mr. Lovell.

    “I hope that the state of Utah and Weber County will commit in the future to adequately and fully paying for these necessary appellate reviews in such serious matters.”

    It is unlikely that the evidentiary hearing, currently scheduled to begin Sept. 25, will go forward.

    Ahead of DiReda’s decision, Lovell, himself, typed two letters to the judge, pleading with him to keep Newton on the case and asking the judge to order Weber County to renegotiate Newton’s contract.

    “For the first time, I got an attorney who represented me to the fullest,” Lovell wrote, “who knows my case inside & out & now the county had pulled the rug on funding him. I am left, in the middle of my appeal, with numerous delays that are not my fault, but the state’s fault. I do not feel I will get a better attorney and, like before, I will be stuck with someone who won’t work properly on this case.”

    In another letter, Lovell listed many of the attorneys the county has appointed to represent him during the past two decades.

    There was a lawyer in 1992 who represented Lovell for $49, whom he met once or twice.

    There was another attorney who represented him sometime in the 1990s, according to court records, but Lovell doesn’t remember ever seeing him in the courtroom.

    And after his case came back to the district court on appeal in 2011, he was appointed two attorneys that Lovell said he liked, but who asked to be taken off the case because they weren’t qualified.

    That’s when he was appointed the attorneys who represented him in a 2015 trial, Michael Bouwhuis and Sean Young. The work that Young did preparing witnesses in the penalty phase is at the heart of the upcoming evidentiary hearing, as Newton claims Young did not contact a number of character witnesses who wanted to testify on Lovell’s behalf.

    “On appeal, we discovered that Mr. Lovell’s trial attorney committed serious errors when he failed to interview and call dozens of witnesses who would have testified that Mr. Lovell has tried to change his life,” Newton said, “that he feels tremendous remorse, and that he has tried, to the best he is able, to repay some of the the debt he owes to society and to the Yost family.”

    Bouwhuis, who oversees Weber County’s contracts for public defenders, wrote in an affidavit that Young’s public defender contract was terminated after Lovell’s trial.

    A Utah judge ruled last month that Young violated attorney rules in Lovell’s case by failing to contact the witnesses and by refusing to provide Lovell’s case file to Newton until a judge ordered him to do so. Young also faces discipline for an unrelated immigration case.

    A sanctions hearing has not yet been scheduled.

    Weber County Attorney Christopher Allred did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

    Lovell in April 1985 followed Yost home from a Clearfield restaurant, kidnapped her from her apartment parking lot and sexually assaulted her in the parking lot and at his home, according to trial testimony.

    After she reported the crime, Lovell began to plot the woman’s death to keep her from testifying. He tried twice to hire men to kill the woman, then decided to do it himself.

    On Aug. 10, 1985, he kidnapped Yost again from her South Ogden apartment and took her to the mountains east of Ogden, where he strangled her and left her body under handfuls of dirt and leaves.

    Her body was never found, despite an extensive search to the area by police in 1993, after Lovell struck a plea deal that spared him the death penalty if he could lead authorities to her body.

    After the fruitless search, an Ogden judge sentenced Lovell to death by lethal injection. But he was allowed to withdraw his plea in 2011 after the Utah Supreme Court ruled he should have been better informed of his rights during court proceedings. A jury again convicted him to death after the 2015 trial.

    http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/09/0...ouglas-lovell/

  9. #29
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Two death row inmates need new attorneys — but will anyone sign up?

    Wanted: An attorney to represent a Utah man condemned to death.

    Must be licensed to practice law in the state of Utah and meet the state’s special qualifications for death penalty cases.

    The pay is about $125 per hour — but co-counsel in one case will warn you, there’s been trouble actually getting paid. And the last guy who had the job? He left because payment issues and threatened disciplinary sanctions took a toll on his health.

    Nine men are currently on Utah’s death row. Two of them — 61-year-old Floyd Maestas and 59-year-old Douglas Lovell — currently have no qualified lead attorney representing them as they appeal their capital murder convictions in state court.

    And while the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers isn’t telling its members to not apply for the job, it’s not exactly encouraging them to do so either.

    Executive Director Stewart Gollan said the organization has “strongly encouraged” its members to think carefully about what they’re signing up for if they take on either case. An attorney should consider the “significant practical and ethical bind” they might put themselves in by signing onto a complicated and weighty death penalty appeal, he said, given past defense attorneys’ issues with getting compensated for their own work or funding to hire experts.

    “There seems to be some pretty significant financial limitations that are being imposed to the attorneys representing the defendant,” Gollan said. “These [cases] are extremely burdensome on the attorney. Our concern is that, certainly, it puts attorneys in a bind and it also is not in the interest of the defendant.”

    Anyone who is charged with a crime that includes the possibility of jail time — in Utah, that is anything more serious than an infraction — is entitled to an attorney, even if they can’t afford one. For death penalty cases, those attorneys must be experienced and qualified under court rules.

    Utah is one of two states in the nation that delegates the responsibility to provide defense lawyers to individual counties and cities.

    There are two ways in which Utah’s counties are funding defense lawyers in death penalty cases: Most pay into a state-managed fund, a sort of insurance policy from which officials can request money if they have a death penalty-eligible case in their county.

    But five of the state’s 29 counties — Salt Lake, Weber, Summit, Wasatch and Utah — don’t pay into the fund, according to Utah court officials. Instead, each of those counties uses its own money to contract with individual attorneys.

    Lovell’s case is on direct appeal with the Utah Supreme Court but has been sent back to 2nd District Court in Weber County for a remand hearing. Weber County is currently funding the defense costs.

    Maestas is seeking post-conviction relief, a court process that is funded by the state’s Division of Finance, in Salt Lake County’s 3rd District Court.

    Appellate attorney Samuel Newton represented both men until recently, when he withdrew after stress related to funding issues began causing him heart problems.

    Now, 3rd District Judge Randall Skanchy is tasked with appointing a new attorney for Maestas. The state courts have posted an opening with the Utah State Bar, and Skanchy has ordered second-chair attorney John Boden to find someone qualified to take the lead on the case.

    In an affidavit filed with the court, Boden said he has drafted a letter and sent it to several qualified attorneys — but adds that he’s “disheartened” after hearing about those attorneys’ experiences in past cases.

    In his letter, Boden writes that while there are issues surrounding Maestas’ factual innocence that need to be tackled, any applicant should also know that there have been payment issues.

    “We are each solo practitioners,” Boden said of himself and Newton. “I cannot afford health insurance, and bankruptcy keeps leering at me, as well as it has at Sam.”

    http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/09/1...nyone-sign-up/

  10. #30
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Weber County officials pick new defense lawyer in Lovell death penalty case

    OGDEN — Weber County commissioners have contracted with a new attorney to defend Douglas Lovell in his death penalty case, agreeing to pay the lawyer up to $100,000, maybe more.

    Commissioners selected Salt Lake City lawyer Colleen Coebergh on Tuesday to handle Lovell’s appeal in the high-profile, 32-year-old case following Sam Newton’s decision to step down stemming from a dispute over payment. The 2015 decision by a Weber County jury to sentence Lovell to death by lethal injection is at the heart of the appeal.

    “This is a difficult case because it‘s a capital case and you have to be specially qualified under the rules of criminal procedure and the rules of appellate procedure,” said Bryan Baron, deputy county attorney in the Civil Division of the Weber County Attorney’s Office.

    Adding to the difficulty is Newton’s departure — amid his charges that Weber County wasn’t adequately reimbursing him — in the middle of Lovell’s appeal. The county paid Newton $75,000 through the end of 2016, according to Baron, and had approved up to $15,000 more in reimbursement earlier this year for his services.

    “So the new attorney really has to hit the ground running,” Baron said. He expressed confidence in Coebergh’s abilities, noting her involvement in a Washington County death penalty case, among other things.

    Coebergh, reached by phone, declined comment.

    Per the agreement Tuesday, Coebergh has a soft payment cap of $100,000, though she may seek and get more if she shows good reason. Lovell is indigent, thus the county is obliged to cover his defense costs, per state law.

    A Weber County jury convicted Lovell of first-degree murder in 2015 in the 1985 death of Joyce Yost and subsequently sentenced him to death by lethal injection. He killed the South Ogden woman, whose body has never been found, to prevent her from testifying against him in a rape case, though he was still convicted in that matter.

    In response to his appeal, the Utah Supreme Court has remanded Lovell’s case back to 2nd District Court in Ogden for an evidentiary hearing, according to Baron. At issue is the imposition of the death penalty. Lovell contends that his lawyers at the time didn’t put up a sufficient defense during the sentencing phase, according to Baron.

    Evidentiary hearings had been set to go from Sept. 26 through Oct. 3, but the dispute over Newton’s payment put the process on hold. Following Tuesday’s action, a telephone conference is set for Nov. 2, according to online court records.

    Baron said Newton, based in Kalispell, Montana, cited health reasons in his decision to step down as Lovell’s representative, though money figured big.

    “It was all money related,” Baron said. “He said lack of funding was causing stress in his life and it was causing him to have heart issues.”

    County officials had set a soft cap of $75,000 in paying Lovell, giving him leeway to seek more if he could provide good reason. The county paid the $75,000, but then discord emerged over Lovell’s request dating to last March for additional funds, precipitating his departure from the case.

    Lovell, now 59, is being held at the Utah State Prison in Uinta, according to online Utah Department of Corrections records.

    http://www.standard.net/Courts/2017/...alty-case.html
    Last edited by Helen; 09-27-2017 at 05:26 AM. Reason: no need for date

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