By Daniel Oluwatobiloba Popoola
A Utah judge has ordered the release on bail of a 71-year-old man who spent decades on death row for a 1985 killing, after prosecutors disclosed that newly analysed DNA evidence did not match him.
Douglas Stewart Carter was sentenced to death that same year after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, an aunt of the Provo police chief at the time.
The state Supreme Court had ordered a new trial for him last year, citing misconduct by investigators, while Carter maintained his innocence throughout, insisting that a signed confession used to convict him had been coerced.
According to the case details, no physical evidence linked Carter to the crime scene at the time of his conviction.
The jury, however, found him guilty based on the confession and testimonies from two witnesses who claimed he had bragged about killing Olesen. Carter, a Black man, was convicted in the killing of Olesen, who was White.
Carter’s defence attorney, Neal Hamilton, disclosed that his client would be placed in an extended-stay accommodation near the family of his son, who was adopted by another family as an infant and did not learn of his father’s conviction until years later.
Hamilton explained that Carter would also require therapy to cope with the psychological effects of his extended incarceration.
“It’s not just as simple as, ‘Let’s let him go.’ He’s being released with 41 years of state-induced trauma and the effect it will have on him is very real,” Hamilton said.
