PHOENIX (Court TV)—Lori Daybell has requested a new trial in Arizona for several reasons, including juror misconduct, a discovery violation and prosecutorial misconduct.
Lori Daybell, representing herself, appears in court during her Arizona trial. (Court TV)
Last month, Daybell was convicted of conspiring to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. That conviction followed several other convictions in Idaho, where she was sentenced to several life terms for the murders of her two youngest children, J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan, as well as the murder of her fifth husband’s first wife.
Daybell says that Juror 15 in her Arizona trial knew about the Idaho case, which amounts to juror misconduct. Daybell never testified in her Arizona trial, which meant that her prior convictions and the deaths of her children were never introduced as evidence.
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Following the verdict, Juror 15 did an interview with the media in which he said, in part, “You know I feel sorry for her, driving home yesterday, I was like God she’s spending the next three lives in prison, in a cell.” Because Daybell never testified at her Arizona trial, she argues in her motion that the juror should not have known about her previous conviction. Juror 15 noted in the same interview that he had been inclined to find Daybell not guilty until the day of closing arguments.
The motion accuses the prosecution of misconduct by eliciting “irrelevant, prejudicial and improper character evidence” at trial, including editing portions of her police interview to eliminate moments where she showed emotion.
In her motion, Daybell also accused the judge of bias in its rulings both before trial and during testimony.
Daybell, who represented herself at trial, filed the motion pro se with the help of her paralegal. She is expected back in court on May 14 for a status conference ahead of her next trial in Arizona on charges she conspired to murder her niece’s ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux, in October 2019. That trial is expected to begin at the end of the month.
