Death-row inmate's latest appeal upsets victim's family

PROVO — For 24 years, the Olesen family has been waiting for justice for their mother and grandmother, Eva.

Which is why family members say the thought of starting over in the post-conviction appeal process for death-row inmate Douglas Stewart Carter is unbearable.

Friday afternoon in 4th District Court, Carter's attorneys asked the judge to deny a motion to dismiss Carter's post-conviction appeal, stating that in just six months, they could gather any loose information and iron out confusion in the appeal.

Carter has been on death row since 1986, when he was convicted by a jury for the murder of Eva Olesen. He appealed and was convicted by a jury a second time in 1992.

His current appeal is like a lawsuit against the court, where he is arguing there were errors in his original trials.

Judge Lynn Davis said he would rule within 60 to 90 days regarding the "complex" motion to dismiss the post-conviction appeal.

Attorney Ken Murray of Arizona was put on Carter's case in mid-summer after previous attorney Mark Moffat was excused, based on his arguments that he was financially strained and incompetent to deal with the complexities of the death-row case.

Murray said he's still going through boxes and boxes of information from the first two trials, subsequent appeals and now this most recent appeal. Murray is also working with Carter on a federal appeal.

"I think the case is a mess," Murray said. "The pleadings have gone in several different directions, I have a hard time understanding the arguments by counsel that have represented Carter. … We have concerns of how this entire process has occurred."

But Deputy Utah Attorney General Thomas Brunker believes that the petition should be dismissed because this is the second time Carter has appealed for post-conviction relief.

"Every claim that he has raised either were, or could have been raised in the first petition," Brunker said.

And Carter's argument that only now does he have federally funded counsel to fully explore his concerns is false, Brunker said.

"Mr. Carter already had access to fully funded — and funded by the federal government — counsel to prepare the petition in this court," he said.

Carter has already had far more consideration from the legal system than Olesen did, daughter-in-law Theresa Olesen said Friday.

"While I believe legal appeals have a purpose to prevent against gross legal negligence," she said, "they were not intended to prolong the life of the guilty."

Eva's widower, Orla Olesen, died Jan. 1, 2009.

"His wish was to see closure," Theresa Olesen said. "It didn't happen. A criminal outlived a grieving man's cry for justice."

E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com