OGDEN — Douglas A. Lovell got a lesson in proper court procedure from a district court judge Wednesday.

Lovell, 48, is on death row for killing Joyce Yost in 1985, after she testified that he raped her. He had previously threatened to kill her if she testified. He is now appealing his death sentence.

In a hearing Wednesday, Lovell, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and guarded by three men, tried to persuade 2nd District Judge Michael Lyon to rehear testimony that Lyon had already ruled irrelevant in November.

Lovell said testimony from Rhonda Buttars, if it had been heard during the penalty phase of his capital murder trial, would likely have changed his plea from guilty to not guilty.

A previous judge in the case, Stanton Taylor, had also ruled her testimony irrelevant.

Lovell argued that he had ineffective representation by his attorney at the time, John Caine.

Lyon told the inmate that he should have consulted with his attorneys and should have notified the attorneys representing the state of Utah before he filed a motion regarding the matter.

"This is not a free-for-all," Lyon said. "We don't come into court and ambush people."

Lovell said he didn't know he needed to provide a copy of recent filings to the prosecutors.

Lovell added that he didn't bring briefs and transcripts from earlier hearings with him to court Wednesday because he didn't know he was to be in court. He said he had been unable to have regular contact with his attorneys, James Retallick and Ryan Bushell, because of a phone system at the Utah State Prison that allows inmates to place collect calls but only to Qwest subscribers.

"I haven't seen either one since November," Lovell said.

So he's communicated by mail with Retallick. Because the attorneys haven't met with Lovell at the prison recently, Lyon asked Retallick and Bushell to meet with Lovell Friday, and Lyon continued Wednesday's hearing until Monday morning.

This is the second time the Utah Supreme Court has sent Lovell's appeal to the district court level, Lyon said during the hearing.

Lyon said he wants to make sure this is the last time Lovell's case comes back to his court because it's too time-consuming.

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"It's too expensive," Lyon said. "There needs to be closure by the victims in this case."

Assistant Utah Attorney General Thomas Brunker agreed.

"All he's doing is causing more and more delay," Brunker said. "This case is 20 years old. . . . We wouldn't have this problem if he had spoken with his attorneys."


E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com

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