A judge in Utah has ordered bail for a 71-year-old man who spent more than 40 years on death row, convicted of a murder he may not have committed. The decision to release him was made after prosecutors said that the results of a repeated DNA test did not confirm his involvement in the crime, the AP news agency reported.
Out on bail, Douglas Stuart Carter is now required to wear a GPS tracker while awaiting a new trial.
He was sentenced to death in 1985 after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, who was the aunt of the police chief of Provo, Utah.
Last year, the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial, citing investigative misconduct.
Carter has maintained his innocence for years and has claimed that he signed the confession under duress.
It is known that no physical evidence was found at the crime scene that could indicate his involvement in the murder of the woman. In addition, during the trial the court did not call a single defense witness.
In 1985, a jury found Carter, a black man, guilty after taking into account his confession and two prosecution witnesses who said Carter allegedly “bragged” about killing Olesen (who was white).
Last week, DNA test results were received that exclude Carter's involvement in the crime. His genetic profile does not match the blood samples found on the doorknob and the genetic material found on the handle of the knife that stabbed Eva Olesen.
The convicted man's lawyer, Neil Hamilton, said that Carter would be placed in specialized apartments for long-term living - not far from the family of Carter's son, who was adopted by others in infancy and learned about his father's sentence only many years later.
Carter will also need psychological help to cope with the effects of such a long prison sentence, Hamilton said.
“It’s not as simple as it seems: let’s just let him go free,” Hamilton said. “He is released carrying the weight of trauma inflicted on [him] by the state during his 41 years of imprisonment, and the consequences of this will be very real.”
Carter, a Chicago native, was living in his mother's home in Utah when Eve Olsen was killed in February 1985. By April of that year, Carter left Utah believing he was a suspect in another crime - assault, according to court documents.
In June he was detained in Nashville (Tennessee); there, during an interrogation by a Provo detective, Carter signed a confession.
Carter later stated that he made a false confession under constant pressure and threats from the police.
However, he was found guilty and sentenced to death after a trial in which not a single defense witness was called.
After a retrial in 1992, he was again sentenced to death, and Utah courts rejected numerous appeals by Carter in the following years.
The turning point came in 2011, when the defense managed to find two prosecution witnesses in Mexico who had testified in the 1985 trial. They said that the police forced them to give false testimony in court, and also gave them money and gifts, demanding not to tell anyone about these gifts and pressure. In addition, witnesses reported that police and prosecutors threatened them and their relatives with deportation if they did not testify against Carter.
More than a decade of litigation followed until last year the Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial, citing "numerous instances of willful misconduct" by police and prosecutors.
According to the court decision, DNA analysis of the material evidence was carried out. The test results were received last week. On Monday, prosecutors declined to say whether they plan to use the DNA evidence to find other suspects whose genetic profile matches the samples.
Carter's lawyers previously said witnesses saw a white man running from the crime scene, and an investigator suppressed evidence that pointed to other suspects, including the victim's husband, Orla Olesen.
The defense argued that prosecutors were ready to bring charges against the deceased's husband, but a Provo police lieutenant asked them to hold off to continue the investigation. Soon after, Carter was named as a suspect, according to court documents.
Orla Olesen died in 2009. He claimed to have found his wife dead in their home. According to him, she was partially undressed and her hands were tied behind her back.
