Jury selection continues in Lori Vallow-Daybell trial
ADA COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI) - Wednesday is day three of jury selection in the murder trial of Lori Vallow-Daybell in Ada County.
She is charged in the deaths of her son JJ Vallow and daughter Tylee Ryan, along with the death of her husband ChadDaybell's late wife Tammy.
Lawyers from both sides have spent the last three days narrowing down the jury pool from about 18,00 to 42.
We had hoped to be able to say the 42nd juror from the voir dire was approved, but we didn’t get there on Wednesday, Linda Larsen reports.
Just moments ago, the judge dismissed the last three jurors from Wednesday's panel.
So from the group of 42 jurors that are needed from the voir dire part of the trial, we are still three short sitting right now at 39.
From that pool of 42 will come the 12 jurors and six alternates that will be seated to hear the case against Lori Vallow.
As soon as those 42 have been selected, the court will be moving on to what is called peremptory strikes where each attorney will have 12 strikes to take people off the jury without cause.
After that, the judge will schedule opening arguments which should take place later this week.
How does this next part of jury selection differ from the voir dire section?
In voir dire, the judge or attorneys from either side of the case could could ask for a dismissal of one of the perspective jurors based on cause for example if they have already formed opinions of Lori Vallow-Daybell’s guilt or innocence, iIf they have heard or seen too much information or media about the case or if they know any of the people involved in the case or if they have hardships like job or child care issues.
In the next phase, the peremptory strike phase, the attorneys can dismiss any potential jury member without cause. At this time they are trying to get the 12 best people to serve on the jury. Sometimes the attorneys get a feel that a juror might favor one side more than another or they just wouldn’t be as good as someone else.
That is the time they would use those peremptory strikes to remove that person. So now we are moving into that phase ,the opening arguments could start in the next day or two, depending on what the judge wants to do.
