Lori Vallow: Attorney amends appeal, asks for mental health records
- Vallow was sentenced to life earlier this year for killing her youngest kids
- She was also found guilty of conspiring to kill her husband's late wife
- Lawyer filed notice of appeal raising issues over Vallow's mental fitness
Lori Vallow Daybell sits between her attorneys and looks at notes during her sentencing hearing at the Fremont County Courthouse in St. Anthony, Idaho, Monday, July 31, 2023. (Tony Blakeslee/EastIdahoNews.com via AP, Pool)
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(NewsNation) — The new attorney for Lori Vallow, who was sentenced to life earlier this year for the murder of her two youngest children, filed an amended notice of appeal and requested her mental health records, according to media reports.
Lawyer Craig Durham is asking the Idaho Supreme Court to take a closer look at over a dozen issues, the East Idaho News writes. Durham requested transcripts from 35 court hearings from between May 2021 and July 2023, when Vallow was sentenced.
Jim Archibald, who had been Vallow’s defense attorney during the trial, filed an original notice of appeal in September listing 16 issues he intended to raise, the Deseret News reported.
Included in Durham’s amended appeal are questions from the original notice about whether the judge was wrong to find Vallow competent for trial, even when she had spent 10 months in a mental hospital, and if he erred in denying Arichibald’s request for her to be hospitalized rather than proceeding to trial.
Another question that was raised in the original notice was whether Vallow’s right to a speedy trial was violated by the prosecutors’ requests for continuance.
Along with asking for all sealed filings in the case, Durham also asked for Vallow’s mental health records.
As East Idaho News points out, the appellate process is a long one that can take years. Idaho’s attorney general will assign a lawyer for the prosecution, and that attorney, as well as Durham, will prepare written briefs and likely present oral arguments before the state’s Supreme Court gives a decision, according to the East Idaho News.
Vallow was convicted in May of killing her two youngest children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, who was almost 17, and of conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, the previous wife of her husband, Chad Daybell. The siblings went missing in September 2019, and their bodies were later found on Chad Daybell’s property.
Chad Daybell is facing murder charges in JJ, Tylee and Tammy Daybell’s deaths, with his trial set to start in April 2024, per Court TV.
During Vallow’s trial, more information came to light about her and Chad Daybell’s doomsday beliefs, which were described by some as cult-like. Cult experts say Chad Daybell, who followed a group called “Preparing a People” took the organization’s teachings to an extreme. He would talk about zombies, and tell people the world was going to end.
