Day 1: Potential jurors face personal questions as Lori Vallow Daybell’s trial begins
The first day of the highly anticipated jury trial of Lori Vallow Daybell began early Monday morning at the Ada County Courthouse where reporters, court staff, members of the public and dozens of possible jurors made their way to see the case for the so-called doomsday mom accused of killing her two children.
Roughly 1,800 potential jurors were summoned by 7th District Judge Steven Boyce and were asked to fill out a jury questionnaire, KTVB reported. Those questionnaires were then looked over by both Vallow Daybell’s defense team and the prosecution to narrow down the enormous jury pool. The questions asked to the potential jurors were not available to the public.
The remaining jurors, in small groups, will be asked questions by the defense, prosecution and the judge this week until the respective legal teams have settled on a 12-person jury and six alternates. The public is not allowed in the courtroom during jury selection, also known as voir dire, and instead, reporters and family members are watching the process through a live stream in a separate room inside the Ada County Courthouse.
Vallow Daybell and her husband, Chad Daybell – whose trial date has not been set – have been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of her two children, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow, and three counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Chad Daybell was accused of first-degree murder in the death of his former wife, Tammy Daybell.
Vallow Daybell was also charged with conspiring to kill her former husband, Charles Vallow, in Arizona.
The prosecution, defense and judge will need to whittle down the jury pool to 42 potential jurors. From there, 18 total jurors – 12 jurors and six alternates – will need to be selected at the end of the jury selection process.
A prosecution spokesperson said that once 42 potential jurors are selected, the other undisclosed number of jurors will be dismissed.
Attorney Rachel Smith, a Missouri-based attorney who is working with the prosecution, an attorney with the prosecution, asked two female jurors if they could be fair jurors since they were both mothers. Throughout the roughly seven-and-a-half hours of the jury selection process, potential jurors with children were asked about their ability to deal with the case, seeing as two of the victims were underage.
The two female jurors in the third jury pool group said they’d be able to remain impartial.
Smith also raised concerns about circumstantial evidence and used cookies to explain it. She said that if a child steals a cookie from the cookie jar – but their parents didn’t see them steal the cookies – did they still steal the cookies?
One female juror, after some back and forth with Smith, said that while she understood the concept, she wasn’t sure she could certainly say that the child had stolen the cookie. The juror was dismissed. She was among a number of potential jurors dismissed during the day for various reasons, including work concerns.