WATCH LIVE: Lori Vallow Daybell asks Idaho Supreme Court for new trial

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12:33 p.m. Nye describes information from the Arizona cases regarding dark spirits and zombies related to the Idaho cases. Moeller: “What you’ve just described paints a big picture and a big operation. But your opponent might say that the murders were quite different in Arizona and Idaho.” Nye says this needs to be looked at broadly.

12:31 p.m. Nye: “The district court finally said enough. You’ve gone too far. I’ve tried to give you a death-penalty-qualified attorney to help you, and you’ve continued to violate your client’s rights. You’re done.” Moeller asked about the 404(b) issue – the fact that information from the Arizona trials was brought into the Idaho trials.

12:29 p.m. Nye says this is an unorthodox case and the court tried to help by appointing Jim Archibald in the case of Lori Daybell. Mark Means was still on the case. “He said I’m going to let you keep the attorney of choice and add some additional resources.” Means went on to sign the filings – “he was flying solo even though he knew this conflict issue was out there.”

12:27 p.m. Nye addresses the question as to why the court didn’t wait until Lori was competent. Nye says the court had to act because Means was actively violating his own client’s constitutional rights. Nye says the court said if and when Lori became competent, the court could inquire of her and she could have come back to the court and asked for Mark Means. But nobody did. Nobody asked or said anything about it.

12:25 p.m. Justice Brody asks about the conflict of interest and the waiver. Nye says Boyce was worried about the potential conflict of interest and the things Means was doing. “How is that going to look to the public? Is that going to instill confidence in the court system or how can the judge let this happen to this poor woman who at the time was incompetent?”

12:22 p.m. Nye says Means never filed an objection “as any reasonable attorney would have done.” “Nothing that happened here is normal.” Nye says the Sixth Amendment does not allow a district court to remove an attorney based on competency and that is not what Judge Boyce was doing here.

12:16 p.m. Nye says Means was filing confidential information about Daybell while Lori was incompetent and the court had to act by removing him. Moeller says the judge may have moved the case forward when Lori was incompetent by filing things under Chad’s case. Nye says that would be inappropriate and he doesn’t believe Boyce was doing that. “The court had an incompetent defendant who was facing the death penalty and a co-conspirator also facing the death penalty.” The judge is trying to balance all these things, and Justice Meyer chimes in, “Not to mention an attorney who may be running amok.”

12:13 p.m. Justice Brody asks about decisions being made during Lori’s case while she was incompetent. Shouldn’t the judge have waited? Nye says no because Means was violating his client’s rights to effective counsel. Moeller asks if the reason the judge jumped in was to “stop the bleeding” with Mark Means. Nye says it would have come back to bite him had the district court not stepped in.

12:10 p.m. Nye says the attorney and the client were being inconsistent about their relationship. “If you have an attorney and client who are not being straight, that in and of itself is a red flag. And those are the things that the district court relied on.”

12:08 p.m. Nye references the tweets and news releases Mark Means put out saying he was representing both clients. Means was asked by a judge if he represented both clients. He said no. The state had to interject and then Means said, “Well, for media only.” The judge found that Means represented both clients.

12:07 p.m. Nye references the April 2020 jail call between Chad and Lori. Chad told Lori they had consolidated to one attorney and Chad was paying Lori’s legal fees. “One co-conspirator was paying the other co-conspirator’s legal fees.” When the police were searching Chad’s property for the kids, Chad called Mark Means first – not John Prior.

12:06 p.m. Nye says Lori Daybell has not shown any evidence that Means did not represent both of them; she just says it’s a disputed fact. Nye says one attorney was representing two defendants both charged with conspiracy in the same crime and the judge needed to act.

12:04 p.m. Durham saving time for rebuttal. Jeff Nye from the Attorney General’s Office will now argue on behalf of the state. He begins by saying Mark Means represented Chad Daybell as an attorney of record. “It’s a fact.” He quotes the call when Chad said, “Mark is my attorney” in the jail call.

12:02 p.m. Durham says Chad and Lori both waived the conflict of interest, but the court said it wasn’t going to honor the waiver because of the seriousness of the case. Durham says if the judge doesn’t follow that waiver at the high levels of crimes, then justice isn’t served. Moeller responds that’s one way to look at it, but another way is that the judge was taking it very serious.

12:01 p.m. Moeller says the court was trying to protect Lori Daybell’s right to a fair trial with an attorney who wasn’t going to damage her case and the court was also trying to protect the trial itself. Moeller says had Boyce not taken the actions he did, there would have been complaints about what Mark Means did during the trial and it would have been brought up on post-conviction relief.

11:59 a.m. When it comes to having an attorney, Durham says the court can’t say, “We don’t think this is a wise choice for you.” Justice Meyer responds by saying, “Doesn’t it come to competence?” Durham says it wasn’t that Means wasn’t incompetent or unable to do the job, but he was doing things that were “unorthodox.” Meyer says, “And potentially harmful to their client.”

11:56 a.m. Chief Justice Brody asks about motions filed by Mark Means. Durham says he filed them under oath, which was unorthodox. Justice Meyer mentions that Boyce said Means interjected himself as a witness and disclosed attorney-client information. Means continued to file motions when the case was stayed and Lori was incompetent. Those are some of the reasons Boyce removed Means from the case.

11:54 a.m. Moeller: Finding an actual conflict of interest is a higher bar than finding a potential. Couldn’t it be argued that finding an actual means there was a potential? Durham: I understand what you’re saying…I think the court was trying to bolster this into something it wasn’t. It was not an actual conflict of interest. Durham says there was no evidence of a conflict of interest.

11:53 a.m. Moeller asks about the tweet Mark Means posted saying he was representing Chad Daybell. Durham says he can’t disagree that Means had an attorney-client relationship with Chad Daybell at the time, but the question is what was the scope of the relationship and did it create a conflict of interest.

11:51 a.m. Moeller says “He explained the conflict right there.” Durham goes on to explain that there was not a real conflict of interest. Mark Means was the public face to handle the media and John Prior was to handle criminal matters for Chad. Durham says Chad never shared any factual details with Means about the case and never learned anything from Means about the case.

11:48 a.m. Durham references a jail call between Chad and Lori where Chad says Mark Means is “our” attorney and Mark is replacing their media attorney. He also says “eventually I’m going to go with the other guy,” referring to John Prior. Moeller quotes a line from the call where Chad says, “Mark is my attorney. He is your attorney and unless we turn on each other…”

11:46 a.m. Justice Moeller: “Wasn’t there certainly a potential conflict of interest? This was a conspiracy case so in those cases, it would have been common for one side to point to the other…so how did the judge get it wrong when the standard is a potential conflict?”

11:44 a.m. Durham says the death penalty would be untimely but Daybell understands the risks. Durham proceeds with the conflict of interest argument. Mark Means represented both Chad and Lori in the beginning, but Durham says there wasn’t a legitimate conflict of interest.

11:43 a.m. Justice Meyer asks if a mistake was made and a new trial is granted, does that put death back on the table? Durham says he doesn’t believe so. “Ms. Daybell is aware of the risks in this case and she’s choosing to proceed with his right to appeal knowing the possibility of what you have suggested is out there.”

11:42 a.m. Durham says the district court took away her choice to choose her own attorney and changed her attorney while she was incompetent. “That flawed process led to a flawed result.” “The sixth amendment requires more than that. It’s an abuse of discretion.”

11:41 a.m. Chief Justice Brody and other justices are on the bench. Craig Durham appearing on behalf of Daybell. He begins argument.

11:38 a.m. Hearing was supposed to start at 11:15 a.m. MST. Waiting on the justices to take the bench.

11:20 a.m. Retired Rexburg Police Det. Chuck Kunsaitis and Fremont County Detective Bruce Mattingly are both here in the Supreme Court chambers to observe proceedings. A few reporters and members of the public are also here.

11:15 a.m. In the courtroom for Lori Vallow Daybell’s appellate hearing in front of the Idaho Supreme Court. Her attorney is asking that all charges be dismissed or that she’s at least given a new trial. Craig Durham is representing Daybell. Jeff Nye will argue on behalf of the state. Each side will get 30 minutes to make their arguments. Durham can reserve some of his time for a rebuttal if he wishes.

ORIGINAL STORY

BOISE (AP) — The Idaho Supreme Court is scheduled Monday to hear Lori Vallow Daybell’s appeal of her convictions in that state for killing her two youngest children and conspiring to murder a romantic rival.

She is asking the court to reverse her convictions in the deaths of Joshua “JJ” Vallow, Tylee Ryan and Tammy Daybell, whose husband married Vallow Daybell weeks later. JJ was 7, and Tylee was 16. Vallow Daybell holds doomsday religious beliefs and has claimed that people in her life were possessed by evil spirits.

The children went missing in 2019. Their bodies were found buried in rural Idaho on the property of Vallow Daybell’s new husband, Chad Daybell, an author of several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.

Vallow Daybell was sentenced to three life sentences in the state, while Chad Daybell was sentenced to death for the three killings.

Vallow Daybell was convicted separately in Arizona for conspiring to murder her estranged husband and her niece’s ex-husband, the latter of whom survived.

In the Idaho appeal, her lawyer argued that a lower court denied her a speedy trial, that it would not let her keep the attorney of her choice — the judge ruled that there was a conflict of interest because the lawyer had represented both her and her husband — and that it should not have allowed jurors to hear about the shootings involving Charles Vallow and Brandon Boudreaux in metro Phoenix.

Months after filing for divorce from Vallow Daybell, Charles Vallow was fatally shot in July 2019 in Chandler by Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, whose claim of self-defense was later called into question by investigators.

Nearly three months after Charles Vallow’s killing, someone parked in a Jeep fired a gunshot at Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell’s niece, as he was driving up to his home in Gilbert, another Phoenix suburb. The shot narrowly missed Boudreaux.

Prosecutors say Vallow Daybell conspired with Cox to kill Charles Vallow so she could collect money from his life insurance policy and marry Chad Daybell, then her boyfriend. Cox, who was identified by prosecutors as the person who shot at Boudreaux, later died from a blood clot in his lungs.

Vallow Daybell received two life sentences for her Arizona convictions, and she has appealed those as well.

EastIdahoNews.com reporter Nate Eaton is attending the hearing in Boise. He will be posting live updates on this story and you can watch the livestream in the video player above.