Vallow Daybell was convicted of conspiring to kill her former husband, Charles Vallow, on April 22. Less than two weeks later, she has requested a new trial.
PHOENIX — Less than two weeks after being found guilty of conspiring to kill her former husband, Charles Vallow, Lori Vallow Daybell has filed a motion for a new trial.
The documents were filed in Maricopa County Superior Court on May 1 under Rule 24.1 of the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article II, Sections Four and 24 of the Arizona State Constitution.
Vallow Daybell, who represented herself in the trial, is making the motion on several grounds, the first of which is due to what she claims is juror misconduct involving Juror 15.
The court documents say this claim stems from an interview Juror 15 did with Fox10 Phoenix where the juror showed they had knowledge of Vallow Daybell’s convictions in Idaho for killing her children, Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow, by saying, “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…’”
Those convictions were not allowed to be presented as evidence in Vallow Daybell’s April murder conspiracy trial, and several jurors 12News spoke with after the trial indicated that they did not know about them until after the trial.
Vallow Daybell is also claiming that she was prevented by the court from presenting statements from Tylee Ryan and Alex Cox during the trial, according to the court documents.
“Both of these people were present during the shooting of Charles Vallow and thus some of their statements were not hearsay as they show effect on listener pursuant to Arizona Rules of Evidence 803(3),” the documents state.
Alex Cox, Vallow Daybell’s brother, shot and killed Charles Vallow in July 2019 and prosecutors believe he conspired with his sister to end Vallow’s life. He could not testify or be charged in the case as he died in December 2019.
Vallow Daybell also claims that expert testimony from Chandler police Detective Daniel Coons was impermissible as she “was precluded from even discussing that Alex conducted a walk through, much less his statements with Chandler Police Detectives during that walkthrough,” according to the court documents.
The documents add that Coons was one of the detectives who went on that walk through.
“This walk-through was precluded as inadmissible hearsay, however, it formed the basis for Det. Coon’s questioning with the medical examiner and how he then investigated this case as Alex Cox indicated he shot the victim in self-defense,” the documents state.
The documents go on to claim that the state violated discovery rules by entering the “graykey” for Charles Vallow’s cell phone as evidence during the trial. Vallow Daybell claims she had been requesting the graykey, so she could have it reviewed by an independent expert, according to the documents.
The documents also claim there prosecutorial misconduct in the trial, which allegedly took place on April 8, during the cross-examination of retired Chandler fire Captain Kent Keller, when “the State elicited irrelevant, prejudicial, and improper character evidence” by asking Keller if he overheard Vallow Daybell talking with police on the day Charles Vallow was killed.
The final claim for a new trial comes from what Vallow Daybell says as a lack of impartiality by the Court, which did not allow her to present “a defense by striking her witnesses, including but not limited to Nate Eaton and Brandon Beaudreax before they were even called to the stand.”
Eaton is the News Director for East Idaho News, which has reported heavily on Vallow Daybell’s case. Boudreaux, whose name was misspelled in the court documents, is the ex-husband of Vallow-Daybell’s niece. Vallow Daybell is also charged with conspiring to kill Boudreaux in Gilbert in 2019. That trial is scheduled to begin in June.
The court documents also raise an issue with the cross-examination of Serena Sharp, whose testimony focused on Vallow Daybell’s extreme religious beliefs, including how she believed that Charles Vallow had been possessed by an evil spirit named “Ned.”
Ultimately, the documents state that Vallow Daybell believes she deserves a new trial because the jury consulted “extraneous information” which the State needs to prove did not taint the verdict.
The court documents can be found in their entirety below.
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The post Lori Vallow Daybell requests new murder conspiracy trial in Arizona appeared first on World Online.
