Dispute between defense lawyers prompts closed hearing in 41-year-old death penalty case
Mar 12, 2026, 3:02 PM
Joyce Yost is seen in a family photo prior to her disappearance in 1985. Doug Lovell was sentenced to the death penalty twice in the case; a new sentencing is scheduled later this year. (Joyce Yost family)
(Joyce Yost family)
OGDEN — A Utah judge has taken the unusual step of barring the public and the news media from a hearing scheduled Friday in a death penalty murder case that’s stretched on for more than four decades.
The move follows a flurry of activity in the criminal case against Douglas A. Lovell, 68, who has already been sentenced to death twice for the 1985 murder of South Ogden resident Joyce Yost. The Utah Supreme Court has twice overturned Lovell’s death sentences.
Following the latest reversal, Utah 2nd District Court Judge Michael DiReda scheduled a new sentencing hearing for August 2026. Lovell was appointed new lawyers, as is routine following a successful appeal in a death penalty case.
VIDEO: Death sentence overturned for man convicted in murder of Joyce Yost
Hints of trouble began to emerge publicly, however, during a court hearing in the case last December. Lovell’s new lead attorney, Julie George, told the judge she and her co-counsel were having trouble obtaining records from Lovell’s prior lawyer, Colleen Coebergh.
“Our problem so far has been getting anything from prior counsel,” George said. “We have essentially been stonewalled.”
Lawyer’s Letter to Doug Lovell
In late February, Lovell’s defense team filed a series of motions. They were all sealed or classified as private records by the court, meaning they are not viewable by the public. Court docket entries indicate Lovell’s defense also made a sealed request for a private hearing before Judge DiReda.
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The issue appears to be a letter sent by Coebergh, Lovell’s former appellate attorney, to Lovell. The contents of the letter are unclear because a copy filed with the court is under seal.
FILE – Douglas Lovell is pictured at an evidentiary hearing in Ogden on Monday Aug. 5, 2019. He was convicted of the 1985 murder, kidnapping and rape of Joyce Yost, for which he received a death sentence twice. A third sentencing hearing is expected later this year. (Pool)
Since then, lead attorney Julie George has filed a motion to withdraw from the case, which would require the judge’s approval. Docket entries reveal the Weber County Attorney’s Office, which is funding Lovell’s defense because he is indigent, is opposing George’s request to withdraw. The rationale for both George’s request to withdraw and Weber County’s opposition is unclear because the filings are sealed.
Judge DiReda scheduled an “in camera and ex parte” hearing for Friday, March 13, with the intent of sorting out the apparent dispute. “In camera” is a legal term meaning private or in the judge’s chambers, out of view of the public and media. “Ex parte” means that only one side, in this case the defense, would be present.
Judge blocks public access
The Utah Code of Judicial Administration, which governs the function of state courts, states there is a presumption that media coverage “shall be permitted” in public proceedings where the purpose is journalism or the dissemination of news to the public.
“But I think we can all agree the public’s right to access is not absolute,” Judge DiReda said during a scheduling conference on February 25.
KSL requests access to inform the public
Under the rules, judges may only prohibit or restrict public access and new coverage when they find the reasons for doing so are “sufficiently compelling” to outweigh the presumption that the hearing should be open. Judge DiReda invoked one of those exemptions when scheduling the March 13 hearing.
“The issues that we’re going to be discussing go to attorney-client privilege, at a minimum,” DiReda said. “Mr. Lovell’s right to a fair proceeding would be prejudiced if his communications with counsel were made public.”
Related: Secrecy surrounds the death penalty in Utah
KSL filed a request for news media access to the March 13 hearing, a routine step taken by reporters who cover cases in Utah’s courts. In approving those requests, judges often place limits on what journalists can record and broadcast. Judge DiReda denied KSL’s request outright.
“When a person is convicted in a death penalty case, public interest is inherently high. This case has stretched on for more than four decades at taxpayer expense,” said Sheryl Worsley, vice president of KSL NewsRadio and KSL Podcasts. “While attorney-client privilege is an important right, the Weber County Attorney’s office has already been granted access – journalists should be afforded the same. We ask the court to honor the public’s right to know how justice is administered in their community.”
The law firm Parr Brown Gee & Loveless, which represents KSL in First Amendment matters, filed its own motion on Wednesday asking Judge DiReda to reconsider his order closing the hearing.
“The limited purpose of that motion is to oppose any request to prohibit or restrict public or news media access to the proceedings in the case. The Court has not yet decided the motion. KSL also filed an opposition to Mr. Lovell’s request that the evidentiary hearing scheduled for March 13 be closed to the public and the media,” said Sean Sigillito, an attorney with Parr Brown Gee & Loveless.
Thursday morning, the defense team filed a separate motion asking that the March 13 hearing be continued to a future date. The judge has not yet ruled on that motion, either.
Origins of the Joyce Yost case
If Judge DiReda allows Lovell’s current lead attorney to quit, it will likely cause a years-long setback to a case that has already dragged on for four decades.
The entire saga of the Joyce Yost case is detailed in season 2 of the KSL investigative podcast series, COLD.
The origins date back to April 4, 1985. Yost, 39, left a restaurant in Clearfield late that evening, not realizing a man she’d never met was following her in a stolen Mazda RX-7. Douglas Lovell, then 27, confronted Yost in the driveway outside her apartment, sexually assaulted her, then took her to his home in Sunset, where he assaulted her a second time.
Over several hours, Yost managed to talk Lovell into releasing her. Once he did, Yost reported the rape to the police. She provided a detailed description of Lovell’s car and showed a police officer the house where he’d taken her. A Clearfield detective spotted the Mazda hours later and pulled it over, arresting the driver, Lovell, on suspicion of rape.
Related: 36 years after Joyce Yost’s assault, rape victims have more help, but key funding has lapsed
Yost testified at a preliminary hearing about the assault, and a judge set the case for trial in August of 1985. The judge ordered Lovell held in jail without bail until the trial, but the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office mistakenly released Lovell without informing the court or authorities in Davis and Weber Counties.
Ten days prior to the start of the trial, Lovell broke into Yost’s apartment through a bedroom window and attacked her with a knife. He then took Yost from her apartment to an unknown location, where he concealed her body. Yost’s remains have never been located.
Doug Lovell convicted without a witness
Police and prosecutors suspected Lovell had abducted and murdered Yost to prevent her from testifying at the rape trial. They were unable to arrest or charge him, though, due to a lack of physical evidence linking Lovell to Yost’s disappearance.
If Lovell intended for Yost’s absence to result in the dismissal of charges, that gambit didn’t work. Davis County prosecutors used Yost’s preliminary hearing testimony, read by a proxy, at trial. A jury found Lovell guilty of rape.
It wasn’t until years later that Lovell’s ex-wife, Rhonda Buttars, confessed to South Ogden police that she’d assisted Lovell in disposing of evidence following Yost’s murder. Weber County prosecutors provided Buttars immunity in exchange for her cooperation. Buttars twice wore a hidden recording device into the Utah State Prison and captured audio of Lovell making incriminating statements.
As a result, Weber County filed a capital murder charge against Lovell in 1992. He entered into plea negotiations and, during the summer of 1993, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty. The deal hinged on a promise from Lovell that he could lead investigators to Yost’s remains. Lovell pointed searchers to an area near the Old Snowbasin Road, but extensive searches there failed to turn up any sign of Yost’s body.
Lovell’s inability to provide Yost’s remains invalidated the plea deal; a judge sentenced Lovell to death.
Long process of appeals for Doug Lovell
Lovell then attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, triggering an appeals process that lasted nearly two decades. Several different teams of defense attorneys represented Lovell through this period, as his case made repeated trips to the Utah Supreme Court.
In 2010, the state’s high court ruled the District Court judge who sentenced Lovell to death in 1993 made a technical error when advising Lovell of his rights. The decision cleared the path for Lovell to withdraw his guilty plea.
Lovell’s case was then set for trial in March 2015. Because the prior jury’s finding of guilt was already a matter of public record, his defense team opted not to contest guilt at the trial, but to instead attempt to convince the jury that Lovell had shown remorse during his nearly 30 years in prison.
The jury had to decide whether the circumstances favored again sentencing Lovell to death, or granting him a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. The jury voted unanimously for death.
Listen: Utah clergy examine the death penalty through a lens of faith
Appeals are automatic in death penalty cases under Utah law. Weber County hired defense attorney Colleen Coebergh to represent Lovell through this process, which included a protracted, years-long fact-finding process. Coebergh raised a long list of alleged deficiencies, most notably arguing Lovell’s trial attorneys failed to object to prejudicial testimony during the 2015 trial.
The testimony in question addressed Lovell’s status as a former member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had been excommunicated, as well as Latter-day Saint views on capital punishment.
The Utah Supreme Court ruled in August of 2024 that Lovell’s trial lawyers were deficient for not objecting to that testimony. During oral arguments, justices speculated that the jurors who sentenced Lovell to death might have been improperly swayed by religious beliefs, though no evidence of that existed on the record.
As a result, Lovell’s case was remanded back to Judge Michael DiReda for the purposes of a new sentencing hearing.
