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OGDEN, Utah (AP) -- A hearing next week on whether death-row inmate Doug Lovell should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea to the 1985 murder of Joyce Yost has been postponed to give attorneys more time to prepare.
Lovell is seeking to withdraw his 1993 guilty plea to aggravated murder in the death of the 39-year-old South Ogden woman.
Lovell contends his trial attorney failed to provide effective counsel when he allowed Lovell to make a plea agreement requiring him to lead police to Yost's body in exchange for a life sentence.
The deal did not address what would happen if Lovell were unable to find the body.
He spent five weeks trying unsuccessfully to show authorities where he buried the woman's body in Ogden Valley.
The agreement was voided, but Lovell still pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and was sentenced to death.
In April the Utah Supreme Court directed 2nd District Judge Michael Lyon to hear Lovell's 12-year-old motion seeking to withdraw his guilty plea. Lyon inherited Lovell's appeal process from now-retired Judge Stanton Taylor.
Lovell's new defense attorneys and the Utah Attorney General's Office were to argue the motion next Tuesday before Lyon, but on Thursday the hearing was postponed without a date.
However, a hearing was set for Sept. 7 to allow filing of briefs regarding the defense request to clarify the parameters of the coming legal debate.
Weber County public defender Jim Retallick has been appointed as Lovell's new lead appeals counsel, assisted by Ryan Bushell, since the Salt Lake lawyer, L. Clark Donaldson, who earned the Supreme Court decision giving life to Lovell's plea withdrawal request, took a new job.
Lovell killed Yost to keep her from testifying about his raping her in 1985. Despite her disappearance, Lovell was convicted at trial which turned on the transcript of Yost's preliminary hearing testimony on the rape. Lovell was serving his prison sentence for rape when he was arrested for Yost's murder in 1992.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
