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Supporters of a Utah death row inmate give the testimony they were previously denied. ‘Send him home with me,’ one says.

Ogden • It was testimony they wanted to give more than four years ago, when Douglas Lovell’s life was on the line.

They had agreed to take the stand and tell 12 jurors that the man they just convicted of murder should be spared the death penalty. That his life was worth saving. But they were never called to testify in the 2015 trial, where the jury ultimately sentenced Lovell to be executed.

His attorney’s performance at that trial — and whether he contacted those possible witnesses — is at the heart of a month-long hearing that began Monday.