An Utah judge has ordered the release of a 75-year-old man, Douglas Carter, spent 41-years in prison for murder, after DNA tests did not link him to the crime.

Defence attorney Neal Hamilton on Monday argued that Mr Carter should be released, decrying the trauma he suffered after  41 years in prison.

“It’s not just as simple as, ‘Let’s let him go,’” Mr Hamilton said. “He’s being released with 41 years of state-induced trauma and the effect it will have on him is very real.”

In 1985, Mr Carter, a Black from Chicago, was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of murdering Eva Olesen, an aunt of the Provo police chief.

Mr Carter’s release came after the state Supreme Court ordered a fresh trial last year, citing misconduct by investigators. 

Though no physical evidence linked him to the crime, the jury convicted and sent him to jail based on two witnesses who said he bragged about killing Mr Olesen, a White.

In 2011, however, the witnesses confessed they were given cash gifts by police and told to lie in court. They also said they were threatened with deportation if they failed to testify against Mr Carter. 

However, Theresa Olesen, a daughter-in-law of Eva Olesen, expressed displeasure over Mr Carter’s release, arguing that her family had “serious concerns” about it and that he should remain in jail while awaiting a new trial.