Lovell loses evidence appeal in Ogden; death penalty case goes back to Utah Supreme Court
Douglas Lovell, center, and his attorneys, Sean Young, left, and Michael Bouwhuis, right, watch jury selection during his murder trial in Ogden on Monday, March, 16, 2015.
Douglas Lovell is escorted into the courtroom in Ogden for an evidentiary hearing on Monday Aug. 5, 2019. A jury in 2015 sentenced Douglas Lovell to be executed for killing 39-year-old Joyce Yost in 1985. Lovell has been appealing the decision.
Judge Michael DiReda oversees an evidentiary hearing for Douglas Lovell in Ogden on Monday Aug. 5, 2019. A jury in 2015 sentenced Douglas Lovell to be executed for killing 39-year-old Joyce Yost in 1985. Lovell has been appealing the decision.
OGDEN — After a four-year evidentiary process, an Ogden judge has ruled against convicted killer Douglas Lovell’s claim that ineffective defense counsel led to his conviction and death sentence.
Judge Michael DiReda’s 168-page ruling, filed Feb. 26 in 2nd District Court, sends the case back to the Utah Supreme Court for further consideration of Lovell’s appeal. The high court in 2017 ordered the district court to delve into the evidentiary matters.
Lovell’s appeal attorneys argued before DiReda during hearings in 2019 that public defender Sean Young ineffectively represented him in his 2015 trial and sentencing. One key issue was whether Young failed to satisfactorily work to secure testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lay clergy who visited Lovell in prison.
In the evidentiary hearings, appeal attorney Colleen Coebergh presented testimony from numerous additional witnesses she said could have testified as character witnesses to Lovell’s claimed improvements while he had been on death row.
But DiReda ruled Young’s defense was not deficient and that some of the decisions he made for Lovell’s defense shielded the defendant from additional damaging testimony from witnesses.
A jury convicted Lovell, now 63, of aggravated murder and sentenced him to death in the 1985 slaying of Joyce Yost of South Ogden.
Lawyers representing the church intervened in the sentencing phase and negotiated with the defense to limit testimony of the lay clergy who had talked to Lovell at the Utah State Prison.
The lawyers advised bishops who counseled Lovell on death row to avoid testifying about church policy. Several ecclesiastical personnel were considered by the defense to testify on Lovell’s behalf, but only two ended up testifying.
Lovell contended Young should have fought against the alleged church interference.
However, prosecutors said Young’s performance could not be considered deficient because the church lawyers never took action to prevent anyone from testifying.
And DiReda ruled that while the Kirton McConkie law firm attorneys threatened to file motions to quash the testimony if all five ecclesiastical leaders were called, it was Lovell who settled that issue by agreeing to call only three to testify. Consequently, no motions to quash were filed.
In the evidentiary hearing, DiReda pointed out, the two who testified said they knew they were not authorized to speak for the church or about church policy and doctrine. In addition, they testified the attorneys never tried to prevent them from testifying, never told them what to say, and only advised them to tell the truth.
“Mr. Young did not perform deficiently for not objecting to non-existent interference,” DiReda wrote.
The judge said none of the testimony offered by the defense in the evidentiary hearing “was so momentous that it would have altered the evidentiary picture in such a way that there would be a reasonable probability of a different outcome.”
He said some of the testimony, while favorable, was cumulative of testimony the jury already heard.
“More of the same would not have made a difference,” DiReda said.
He said the egregiousness of the crime, coupled with Lovell’s refusal to give the jury the option of sentencing him to life without parole, made the defense’s strategy improbable in any case.
As such, he said, “only witnesses who could unequivocally and believably testify that Lovell would not be a danger if released into the community would be genuinely helpful to the defense objective of saving Lovell’s life.”
“None of the witnesses who testified fit this bill,” DiReda said. “Even assuming Mr. Young performed deficiently, there is no reasonable probability that the outcome of the sentencing proceeding would have been different.”
In the run up to the judge’s decision, the church filed an intervening brief last December defending its attorneys’ actions in the case.
“Because the Church did not want to be viewed as interceding in the case, (the attorneys) discouraged the leaders from volunteering to testify if they were not subpoenaed,” the church brief said.
“The attorneys did not tell the former leaders that their Church membership would be in jeopardy if they testified, did not ask or direct the former leaders to testify in a particular way, and did not tell the leaders they could not testify,” the brief said.
The church contacted Lovell’s attorneys about their plan to call the clergy, but the brief said their communications were non-interfering.
The lawyers told the defense they were concerned that “calling all five leaders to testify may create the impression that the Church had an interest in the outcome of the trial or endorsed a particular outcome.”
So they suggested a compromise, that only three of the five be called.
In 1985, Lovell trailed Yost after she left a restaurant. He kidnapped her from her South Ogden home, drove her to his residence in Clearfield and raped her.
While awaiting trial, Lovell twice tried to hire a hitman to kill Yost to prevent her from testifying against him, according to court records.
Lovell and the first would-be hitman burglarized a home to steal guns with which to kill Yost. The hitman didn’t carry out the murder because Yost wasn’t home when he went there.
Next, Lovell got money from a fraudulent workers’ compensation claim and hired another former prison friend to kill Yost. The friend failed to follow through and spent the money he got from Lovell on heroin.
On Aug. 10, 1985, Lovell kidnapped Yost at knifepoint, took her into the mountains and strangled her to death. Her body never was found.
Lovell was convicted in the sexual assault, but the murder went unsolved until 1991, when Lovell’s ex-wife received immunity from prosecution. She said she dropped off Lovell at the victim’s home the night of the killing and later went with him to burn Yost’s clothes and bloody bedding.
Lovell later confessed, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death in August 1993. After numerous appeals, he was granted a new trial, and in 2015 he was again convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death.