Von Lester Taylor, 61, appeared in a Summit County courtroom Aug. 20 after appealing his death sentence for a fifth time.
He originally pleaded guilty to a Dec. 22, 1990, double murder in Weber Canyon above Oakley. Taylor’s accomplice Edward Deli pleaded not guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
Taylor’s attorneys say new ballistics evidence shows that Deli, not Taylor, fired the bullets that killed Beth Potts, 70, and her daughter Kaye Tiede, 49.
Potts’ granddaughter Kari Hatch addressed 3rd District Court saying “justice delayed is justice denied.”
“It is not just to reopen the wounds of the victims by making them relive the nightmares of the crime with every appeal and petition. It is not just — from the conviction forward — that the rights of the convicted seem to trump the rights of the victim at every turn,” she said Aug. 20. “It is not just that the survivors’ burden of fighting the good fight has become a generational battle.”
Hatch compared her family’s journey through the legal system to the Myth of Sisyphus, who was condemned to roll a rock up a mountain only for it to roll back down, forever.
Taylor is years into his fifth appeal, filed in 2023. His attorney Brian Pomerantz said he empathizes with the victims’ family, having argued on Taylor’s behalf in the same Summit County courtroom 17 years ago.
“I understood Ms. Hatch's point, in that I've grown old with this case,” he said.
One of the defense’s new arguments is that Taylor is “factually innocent” of the 1990 murders as defined in Utah law.
When Taylor’s attorneys filed the 2023 appeal, 3rd District Judge Richard Mrazik told them the law requires factual innocence to be handled separately. That created a sixth case, the one for which Taylor appeared in court Aug. 20.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office argues that he hasn’t met all the legal requirements of factual innocence.
For example, the state says Taylor can’t prove he didn’t commit a lesser crime — like attempted murder or aggravated assault — since he still shot at the women who died.
But his defense attorneys counter that it would be unconstitutional to put a man to death for anything other than aggravated murder.
Assistant Attorney General Michael Gadd says factual innocence isn’t Taylor’s only option to commute his sentence. Mrazik plans to rule on the state’s request to dismiss that case within 60 days.
The next hearing in the ongoing 2023 appeal is in February.
