LIVE UPDATES | Day 11 of Kouri Richins murder trial

Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three boys, is accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Eric Richins, in 2022. She is on trial in Summit County, Utah, on charges of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, insurance fraud and forgery.

Today is the 11th day of the trial. It is scheduled to begin today at 8:30 a.m. East Idaho News will be posting live written updates all day. Please excuse typos. You can watch the livestream here. The most recent updates are at the top of this page.

11:23 a.m. Attorneys have nothing more for today. Join me for “Courtroom Insider” tonight at 7 p.m. on the East Idaho News YouTube channel.

11:22 a.m. Judge says jurors can go home for the day and they don’t need to return until 1 p.m. tomorrow. Court will still start at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, jurors don’t need to show up until 1 p.m.

11:17 a.m. Chervenak asks Kotrodimos about text messages and shows an exhibit of text messages from Feb. 14, 2022. Chervenak asks about the time stamps on the texts. Kotrodimos says they are provided in UTC. Utah is -7 UTC in normal standard time, -6 in daylight saving time. The -6 and -7 are adjustments made in the software to show the local time. Chervenak has nothing further. Defense attorney Alex Ramos has no questions. Witness steps down.

11:15 a.m. Jury is in the courtroom. He thanks them for their patience while they worked through some legal issues. Prosecutor Lindsey Chervenak will question Chris Kotrodimos, the Cellebrite cell phone expert who previously testified.

11:12 a.m. One witness will be called today and then court will be in recess until tomorrow morning. Judge invites the jury in.

11:11 a.m. Lewis asks if they can have until 11 p.m. Judge says no. He needs time to read it and state needs time to read it. “This is not an opportunity to re-cross Carmen Lauber. If you want to recall her, I’m not making any statement about that,” judge says.

11:04 a.m. Court is back in session. Judge grants the defense’s request for a one-day continuance. He says there needs to be some guidelines and judge wants to build in time for the video editor to edit video of the interview for admittance, not just pages of transcript. Lewis doesn’t think defense can have their brief ready by 6 p.m. tonight. Judge doesn’t understand why not.

10:54 a.m. Judge asks Lewis for clarifying information. Judge needs a few minutes to think about the request. In recess until 11 a.m.

10:50 a.m. Judge makes a ruling. He says the state can publish the specific examples for the witness on the stand, but the judge says at the moment, the entire transcript should not go back to the jury room to make sure jurors do not give undue influence to her testimony. Defense asks for a two day continuance. Judge denies the request for a continuance and says he raised this issue yesterday without defense saying anything. Defense asks for a one day continuance until tomorrow morning. Judge asks what the defense will do between now and then. State objects. Says this whole issue was teed up last week when Carmen Lauber testified.

10:45 a.m. Lewis says there are a lot of statements that show Lauber was unduly influenced by law enforcement during her interviews. Bloodworth wants to call one witness, followed by O’Driscoll. “We will get maybe 45 minutes into his argument before this will become an issue,” Bloodworth says.

10:42 a.m. Lewis says if the interviews are going to be admitted, she wants them published in court for the jury to watch. Bloodworth wants only the narrowly-tailored portions be published. He says they could show the specific clips and then send the full video back. “The notion of publishing nearly 10 hours of interviews is not productive and a waste of the jury’s time.” Lewis objects to all of the video going back. She says if the videos go back, they can watch it over and over, unlike other witness testimony where that is not allowed. The jury needs to rely on their memory, she says.

10:39 a.m. Judge goes back and forth with Lewis. He says, “I’ll just make a ruling.” He says some of Lauber’s prior statements are admissible. Judge asks how the information should be provided to the jury. The statements could be published for the jury and in court or they could be admitted and sent back to the jury room.

10:37 a.m. Bloodworth is willing to send all the transcripts back to the jury. Lewis says if the court is going to allow some of the transcripts to go back to the jury, then all of the transcripts should go back. Judge says all of it could be made available to the jury and attorneys could tell the jury to go back and listen to specific parts. “I’m not going to stipulate to that. No,” Lewis responds.

10:35 a.m. Lewis objects to allowing the transcripts to come in without a witness. “If those 100 pages are going to be published, we want all 1,000 pages published,” she says, referring to the transcript. Judge asks defense now they want to do that. Lewis says all 7.5 hours could be played for the jury. Lewis says Lauber was being influenced by law enforcement and many of her statements were inconsistent.

10:29 a.m. Court is back in session. Judge discussing whether the interview transcripts should be able to go back with the jury. Bloodworth says the state is trying to recall Carmen Lauber as a witness to admit the transcripts. The prosecution has reached out to Lauber’s attorney and has not heard back. Prosecution clearly wants to have the interview transcripts in as evidence.

10:10 a.m. Judge asks prosecution if this is a pivotal part of their case and if so, he needs to rule before O’Driscoll takes the stand. Prosecution asks for five minutes to discuss. Court in recess.

10:03 a.m. The prosecution wants to bring in statements made by Carmen Lauber to O’Driscoll in a police interview. Defense adamantly objects and says that it should have been taken care of when Carmen was on the stand, as they would not be able to cross-examine the statements. Judge says Lauber could be recalled by the defense for questioning. Lewis says the statements should not be brought in through O’Driscoll’s testimony.

9:49 a.m. Judge and prosecution now discussing statements made by Carmen Lauber. Defense attorney Wendy Lewis objects to having any interview transcripts with Carmen Lauber and Det. O’Driscoll brought into the trial.

9:40 a.m. The “Walk the Dog” letter is now being discussed. I recorded a video about the letter here. Bloodworth says he can envision a scenario where the defense says the six-page letter was part of a fictional 65-page manuscript and the context is within the volume of a book. “That is untrue and we can prove that by proving how it was recovered,” Bloodworth says. Bloodworth wants to show O’Driscoll a copy of the letter and proposes his exact wording of how he would introduce it.

9:39 a.m. Judge and Nester go back and forth. Nester objects to all the jail calls and wants judge to give special instructions to the jury. Judge says he will.

9:19 a.m. Defense and prosecutors debate over what jailhouse calls and text messages should be admitted into the trial including a message that says “she thought she would be set for life if he died.” Defense objects to that message, but judge is allowing it in.

9:07 a.m. Discussion over interview redactions is completed. Judge will now discuss jailhouse interviews with the defense and prosecution. Bloodworth says the interviews will be introduced into the trial through Det. O’Driscoll.

9:01 a.m. More discussion over redactions and if portions of the interview should be allowed in.

8:44 a.m. Another part of the interview will be unredacted, judge rules following request from defense. Attorneys and judge discuss other portions of the interview – what should be redacted, what should remain.

8:40 a.m. Judge agrees with the state and says the information from the interview can come out during the trial. The interview will not be admitted.

8:35 a.m. Judge Richard Mrazik is on the bench. Public and media are filing into the courtroom. First issue to be discussed deals with Detective Jeff O’Driscoll, who is expected to testify today. Defense attorney Kathryn Nester references a transcript of an interview O’Driscoll did with Kouri Richins and seeks to have several redacted pages admitted into evidence. Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth says the interview context can be drawn out through questioning during the trial. Bloodworth says the interview was peppered with Kouri’s “self-serving statements” and does not want these portion of the interview in.

8:31 a.m. It’s day 11 of Kouri Richins’ murder trial. The prosecution is expected to rest today or tomorrow. The attorneys and judge have issues to discuss before the jury is set to arrive at 9:30 a.m.