Unhappy with Idaho jail meetings, Lori Daybell’s attorney says she should have cellphone

REXBURG — Lori Vallow Daybell’s attorney wants his client to be given a cellphone so they can communicate with each other, and he’s asking that jail video cameras be turned off whenever the two meet.

Attorney Mark Means filed a motion in Fremont County on Jan. 19 regarding attorney-client communication.

Daybell has been in the Madison County Jail since March 2020. She is charged with two felonies related to the concealment, alteration and destruction of evidence regarding two of her children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan. Authorities found Tylee’s and JJ’s bodies buried on Chad Daybell’s property in June.

In the motion, Means argues that he could not meet face-to-face with Lori Daybell in an attorney-client room from March through June. Over the past nine months, the Madison County Jail and other facilities in Idaho have implemented restrictions on visitors because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Means says from March 30 to June 9, he was permitted to communicate with Daybell only on the telephone.

“My client is allowed to speak with counsel through two telephone options. One telephone is at the desk of the deputy and my client is handcuffed to said desk approximately 2 feet from the ear of a deputy,” Means wrote. “The other option is through a recorded line (Telemate) approximately 15 to 20 feet from said deputy/deputy clerk.”

Means raised concerns that Telemate calls might be recorded. In an affidavit filed last March, Lt. Jared Willmore of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office confirmed two calls were accidentally recorded on March 31, and then deleted. One call lasted a minute while another lasted nearly a half-hour, Willmore said.

Beginning in June, Means met face-to-face with Daybell, but he says on Jan. 5, he arrived at the jail and was denied access to the attorney-client room.

“The only option (was) to converse with defendant through the ‘public’ room and metal corded telephone, again with two video cameras videotaping these privilege meetings,” Means wrote. “The past and current circumstances the defense is forced, arbitrarily, to deal with in preparation for trial are unfair.”

Means asks Judge Steven Boyce to grant him uninterrupted, face-to-face meeting time with Daybell as needed. He also requested a cellphone for Daybell that she could use only to communicate with Means, and asked that the jail “be ordered to shut off video recordings (and) other recording device(s) during privilege communication.”

A hearing on the motion has not been set.

On March 22, Means and John Prior, the attorney for Chad Daybell, will go before Boyce and argue that charges should be dismissed against their clients. There also is a hearing to move the trial venue from Fremont County.