The attorney representing Lori Vallow has asked for his client to be given a cell phone while in custody on conspiracy charges.
As EastIdahoNews.com reports, Vallow’s attorney Mark Means filed a motion for accommodations in his communication with the jailed mother. Vallow’s children, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old J.J. Vallow, were found dead in her husband Chad Daybell’s backyard in Salem, Idaho, this summer. Both children were last seen alive in September 2019, and Vallow never reported them missing.
According to the report, Means wrote in his motion that pandemic conditions have significantly limited his ability to communicate with this client, and that Vallow does not have adequate privacy foAr attorney-client privileged communications.
“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 two feet from the ear of a deputy,” Means wrote in the motion obtained by EastIdahoNewscom. “The other option is through a recorded line (Telemate) approximately 15 to 20 feet from said deputy/deputy clerk.”
Means alleged that he was denied access to an attorney-client meeting room at Madison County Criminal Justice Center in Rexburg, Idaho.
“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.”
The lawyer has asked that Vallow be given a cellphone to communicate only with him, and has also asked that none of he and Vallow’s jailhouse meetings be recorded on audio or video, according to the report.
Vallow is in custody on felony charges of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence. Daybell is charged with the same conspiracy counts, on top of two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.
Neither Daybell or Vallow have been charged with murder, but Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood said in a recorded conversation with Vallow’s sister that prosecutors would be filing conspiracy to commit murder charges.
