PROVO, Utah (AP) — A man who spent decades on death row in Utah asked a judge Friday to throw out his aggravated murder case after the state Supreme Court last year ordered a new trial due to misconduct by investigators.

Douglas Stewart Carter, 70, was sentenced to death in 1985 after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, the aunt of a former Provo police chief. No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene, but the jury convicted Carter, a Black man, based on a signed confession and two witnesses who said he had bragged about killing Olesen, a white woman.

Carter argued his confession was coerced. The witnesses — a couple living in the U.S. without legal status — said years later that police and prosecutors offered to pay their rent, coached them to lie in court and threatened them and their son with deportation if they did not implicate Carter.

Judge Derek Pullan reversed the conviction in 2022, and the Utah Supreme Court affirmed that ruling last May, saying “numerous constitutional violations” merited a retrial. Carter has remained in prison while awaiting that trial. The judge scheduled a bond hearing for June.

“Douglas Carter spent over 40 years on death row for a crime which he, and the evidence, says he did not commit. Legally, enough is enough,” his defense team said in a motion filed Friday.

Prosecutors have maintained that Carter’s case should not be dismissed.

Defense attorneys argue in the new motion that an investigator suppressed evidence pointing to other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen. The motion alleges prosecutors were close to filing charges against the husband, but a Provo police lieutenant asked them not to so he could continue investigating. Carter was identified as a suspect soon after, the document alleges.

The Provo Police Department and prosecutors with the Utah County Attorney’s Office did not respond Friday to email and phone messages seeking comment. Prosecutors have not yet filed a response to the motion.

Orla Olesen, who died in 2009, had told police he found his wife dead in their home, partially undressed and with her hands tied behind her back. She had been stabbed 10 times and shot in the back of the head, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said in court filings last week that they were not sure if Provo police still had the tape recording of Orla Olesen’s polygraph test. They also said they state does not have any of the clothes seized from him during the investigation. They did not have information on any other items of his that may have been taken as evidence.

The Mammoth’s power play continues to dominate with three goals on the man-advantage against the Kraken. In addition, Thursday was Utah’s third straight game with multiple power play goals. Cooley’s first period power play goal kicked things off before Schmaltz scored with 5:04 left in the second period, while on the man-advantage. Carcone’s third period power play tally rounded out Utah’s special teams scoring with 3:23 left in regulation.

“I think we’re doing a better job shooting the puck,” Schmaltz said of the power play. “A lot of times, we look for the perfect play and it’s not there. We’re shooting pucks and then making plays off of that. We got a good attack mindset and we’re doing a really good job of recovering loose pucks and keeping possession time.”

“Confidence,” Peterka said of the power play’s recent success. “We’re out there making plays, getting opportunities, and I think just shooting more. That’s the main factor right now.”

Utah’s penalty kill shut down Seattle’s power play on all three opportunities. One of those times was late in the second period when the Mammoth had a narrow 3-2 lead, and were looking to escape the middle frame ahead of their opponent. Utah is 18-for-19 on the penalty kill since Mar. 16 and has had multiple successful kills in six of those eight contests.

Utah won both of its challenges tonight and each helped keep momentum in Utah’s favor. The first was when Seattle scored 6:11 into the second period to take a 3-1 lead. The Mammoth challenged for goaltender interference, won the challenge, and kept it a one-goal game. This was a significant momentum swing for the Mammoth and Utah tied the game four minutes later. In the third period, Dylan Guenther scored to make it 5-2, seven and a half minutes into the third period. However, it was immediately waved off for goaltender interference. The call was overturned, a goal was awarded, and the Mammoth extended their lead. This break allowed Utah to take away Seattle’s energy in the final frame.

“I like to keep the credit on the players, but this one, need to give some credit to (head video coordinator Hunter Cherni) and his group,” Tourigny smiled. “They did a really good job. As much as the one we challenge and the one we didn’t challenge in a sense, I think that was the right call. So, good job by them.”

Cooley’s 21^st and 22^nd goals of the season allowed Utah to rally from a 2-0 deficit. The forward has scored five goals in his last three games and has had back-to-back multi-goal outings for the second time in his NHL career. His three-game goal streak is the second-longest streak in his career, which currently stands at four games.

Schmaltz has lit the lamp in back-to-back games and has six points over his last five contests. Guenther has three goals and six total points over his last three games, and the forward had a three-point night (1G, 2A). Since the start of February, his 14 goals in 20 games are tied with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov for the third-most in the NHL in that time frame.

With the win, Utah has a five-point lead over the San Jose Sharks (WC2), Nashville Predators, and Los Angeles Kings who all have 79 points. The Mammoth have a six-plus point lead over the remaining teams chasing playoff berths in the west. Coming into this two-game road trip, the Mammoth knew how important it would be to win these games. After getting the first win, Utah is determined to keep going with Saturday’s game in Vancouver.

“I think it just gives us confidence,” Peterka said of the win. “We’re in a really good spot right now and just have to keep pushing. The road trip is really important for us, big game in Vancouver, so we need to keep pushing.”

Additional Notes from Tonight

• Forward Jack McBain left the game during the second period and did not return. According to Mammoth PR he has a lower-body injury. McBain played 9:00, had two hits, and one block.

• Utah swept the season series against Seattle with three multi-goal wins. Thursday was the first win in franchise history at Climate Pledge Arena. The Mammoth outscored the Kraken 17-8 during the 2025-26 campaign.

Upcoming Schedule

SALT LAKE CITY — Two Democrats have officially qualified for the June primary ballot for Utah’s newly redrawn 1st Congressional District after meeting the threshold for signature gathering.

Former U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams and state Sen. Nate Blouin are the first candidates in the crowded Democratic primary field to qualify for the ballot, and several other challengers still need to turn in several thousand signatures by the end of next week in order to guarantee their place.

Candidates can also qualify for the primary by winning the support from party delegates at the nominating convention on April 25.

As the race to convention starts up in earnest, a new internal poll released by the Blouin campaign shows McAdams, a former Democratic congressman who served from 2019 to 2021, leading the field with support from 36% of likely primary voters followed by Blouin with 23%. Salt Lake City Councilwoman Eva Lopez Chavez and state Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, trail the two apparent front-runners with about 7% each, while the remaining Democratic candidates are polling in the low single digits.

The poll was conducted by Data for Progress, a progressive think tank and polling firm, which surveyed 381 voters primarily via text from March 23 to 26. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

While internal political polls should be taken with a grain of salt, the data provides the first public look at the race for the first Democratic-leaning congressional district Utah has had in recent years. That district was created thanks to a court-ordered map put in place after state lawmakers were found to have violated the state’s anti-gerrymandering law known as Proposition 4.

“I don’t think Utah has ever had a competitive district so packed for Democrats before,” said Leah Murray, the director of Weber State University’s Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics and Public Service. “I’m actually not sure what this will look like, because I’m not sure what Democrats do and how they behave in this ecosystem, because I’ve never seen it before.”

McAdams is the most recent Democrat to represent Utah at the federal level, but he won in 2018 in a very different district that required him to win over at least some number of Republicans or conservative-leaning voters.

That’s not the case this time around.

Because Utah Democrats tend to lean toward the left end of the political spectrum, Murray said Blouin could be seen as a favorite as the more progressive candidate. But the poll found that McAdams has higher name recognition among likely primary voters, which could explain his lead.

“Name recognition in a primary is so important because that’s an intraparty fight,” she said. “So you’re not really going to make a distinction between yourself and other candidates on issues, because Democrats are going to have … just different shades on a particular issue. So the name recognition lead, as big as it is for Ben McAdams, is definitely an advantage for him heading into this election cycle.”

With the wide field of Democratic hopefuls likely to be whittled down significantly during the convention later this month, the recent poll doesn’t capture the dynamics of what will be a race between only a few hopefuls.

A quarter of those surveyed for the poll say they are still undecided, and Blouin was optimistic about the state of the race.

“I’m proud of the work we’ve done to get within striking distance of the establishment’s choice in CD1,” Blouin told KSL through a spokesperson. “We are building a campaign focused on the needs of everyday Utahns, and that’s why our message resonates with this new district.”

A spokesperson for McAdams said, “Ben is the clear front-runner in this race, even based on his opponent’s polling. He will continue to work hard to share his long record of service and earn support from his neighbors across this district.”

Utah Democratic primaries are open, meaning unaffiliated voters and those registered with other parties can participate, which can further complicate efforts to get an accurate sample of voters who will actually participate in a Democratic primary, Murray said.

Ryan O-Donnell, the executive director of Data for Progress, said the poll “was designed to capture the likely Democratic primary electorate in (District 1) using a combination of voter-file turnout indicators and respondents’ stated likelihood of voting in the upcoming primary.”

“Our approach reflects both our methodological research and our past experience polling primary races,” he told KSL.

The other Democrats vying for the primary are Michael Farrell, Liban Mohamed and Luis Villarreal. The winner of the primary will face Forward Party candidate January Walker, Libertarian Jesse West, and the winner of the Republican primary, which includes Stone Fonua, Jonathan Lopez, Riley Owen and Dave Robinson.

The primary election is June 23, and Election Day is Nov. 3.