Lori Vallow’s Appeal Could Reopen WHAT?!
What if the decision Lori Vallow Daybell is challenging is not something the jury ever heard? Her November 2 appeal hearing centered on a December 2021 order removing her chosen lawyer, Mark Means, before the Idaho murder trial began. Lori was in a state hospital after being found incompetent to participate in her defense. Yet proceedings about who could represent her moved forward.
Craig Durham, now arguing her appeal, says the judge wrongly treated Means’s earlier involvement with Chad Daybell as an actual conflict. Lori and Chad faced charges arising from the same deaths. The state counters that the judge was responding to serious ethical and practical problems, including Means’s conduct and filings while his client could not make competent decisions. The Idaho Supreme Court questioned both positions at oral argument.
This is not an appeal that proves Lori was innocent. She was convicted in Idaho for the murders of her children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, and for conspiracy connected with Tammy Daybell’s murder. She received life sentences without parole. The issue before the justices is whether the rules protecting a defendant’s choice of counsel and participation in critical hearings were followed.
Then came an extraordinary exchange: Justice Cynthia Meyer asked if a victory and new trial could put capital punishment back on the table. Durham said Lori knows that possibility exists, while maintaining substantial legal arguments would stand against it. No new trial has been ordered and no renewed death-penalty filing has been made.
Bob Motta joins Tony Brueski to separate the appellate argument from the public anger surrounding this case. The judge may have believed removing Means protected Lori. Her lawyers say the way he did it violated her rights. Those can both be sincerely argued; only the court gets to decide what follows.
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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.
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