Supreme Court won't reimpose death sentence for a Utah man convicted of murdering a woman in 1985

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a Utah state court decision that overturned the death sentence for a man convicted of murdering a woman to stop her from testifying against him in a rape case.

The justices did not comment in rejecting the state's appeal in the case of Douglas Lovell. The Utah Supreme Court upheld Lovell's murder conviction for killing Joyce Yost in 1985 but threw out the sentence.

Lovell tried to hire two people to kill Yost to prevent her from testifying against him on charges that he had raped her, state officials said. When that failed, he did it himself by abducting and strangling her, officials said.

The state court determined that Lovell's attorneys for his sentencing in 2015 did not object or sufficiently respond to testimony about his excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Utah-based faith known widely as the Mormon church. The lawyers' performance meant jurors could not fairly weigh evidence before they sentenced Lovell to death.

A state judge ruled in 2021 that the church did not interfere in Lovell’s trial when it laid out ground rules for what local church leaders could say before they testified as character witnesses. Lovell had claimed the witnesses were effectively silenced by the church or never contacted at all by his court-appointed attorney.

Lovell wasn't charged with Yost's death until 1992, seven years after she was killed. Authorities said that Lovell had told his then-wife he was going to kill Yost and that she helped his preparations.

But, now divorced, she implicated Lovell in the crime and told investigators what had transpired, in exchange for immunity.

Lovell initially pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death by a judge. After being allowed to withdraw his plea, Lovell conceded his guilt in a second trial and directed his lawyers to focus on sparing his life.

Lovell said he buried Yost in the Wasatch Mountains, court records show. Her body has never been found.