‘Doomsday Mom' Lori Daybell demands recusal in third murder trial

PHOENIX (CN) — A mother convicted of murdering her two children and ex-husband in 2019 moved Wednesday to recuse the presiding county judge in her third murder trial, citing personal bias.

Lori Vallow Daybell’s motion comes as Maricopa County Judge Justin Beresky considers her request for a retrial on her most recent conviction in April on grounds of juror and prosecutorial misconduct.

Vallow Daybell, nicknamed “Doomsday Mom” for the radical religious beliefs she apparently used to justify murdering her children in Idaho and conspiring to murder her ex-husband in Chandler, Arizona, faces a third trial in June over the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell’s niece. In a status conference Wednesday morning in state court, the defendant accused Beresky of holding a clear and prejudicial bias against her.

“You’ve denied every single motion of mine in the year and a half that I’ve been here,” she said.

“File motions that have a legal basis, and I’ll grant them,” Beresky replied, though he had 15 minutes earlier granted the defendant’s motion to confer with counsel during lunch breaks.

Representing herself, Vallow Daybell struggled to abide by legal requirements in her April trial by not properly subpoenaing witnesses, refusing to state the relevance of certain witnesses or provide them to the state for deposition, and regularly trying to introduce new evidence after the disclosure deadline.

“I have over accommodated you on when you disclose things,” Beresky told the defendant.

On Wednesday, she again refused to explain the relevance of two witnesses on her list, neither of whom have been subpoenaed or deposed, saying only that they have a relationship to the victim.

“I have to hand over my whole case to the state?” she asked. “That’s how the rule of law works?”

“Yes, that is how the rule of law works,” Beresky answered.

He ultimately denied the motion.

Just a week after her conviction for conspiring to murder her ex-husband, Vallow Daybell demanded a new trial and claimed a juror Googled her and learned of her previous convictions before delivering the verdict. In the interview she references, given to multiple media outlets on the courthouse steps, a juror named Karl said he returned to the jury room and “immediately Googled her” after delivering the verdict.

Vallow Daybell appears to be taking that statement out of context in her motion, claiming that he looked her up before a verdict was reached.

Beresky had chided the juror during the trial for being on his phone; he said he was texting his daughter and promised it wouldn’t happen again.

In her motion, Vallow Daybell throws out a slew of other accusations including prosecutorial misconduct, violations of rules regarding discovery and expert testimony and judicial prejudice.

State prosecutors responded by explaining the full context of the interview and citing multiple separate interviews the juror participated in, in all of them saying he never learned anything about her until after the jury delivered its verdict on April 22.

To combat further juror misconduct, Vallow Daybell requested that her name not be included in juror questionnaires for the upcoming trial so potential jurors can’t research her case.

“How do we screen for if people have heard about you if we don’t give them your name?” Beresky asked.

She had no answer.

Last week, Beresky denied her motion to dismiss on grounds her right to a speedy trial had been violated. Prosecutors explained her second trial couldn’t have begun any earlier, because of scheduling conflicts with both them and Beresky throughout the latter half of May.

In-person jury selection in her third trial is set to begin in Phoenix on May 30, with opening statements on June 2. The state says its case will last about five days. It’s unclear whether Vallow Daybell will call any witnesses — she called none in April.

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