Lori Vallow Daybell Update (Sept. 2026): Idaho Supreme Court Hears Her Appeal Nov. 2

Bottom line: Idaho's highest court will hear arguments in Lori Vallow Daybell's appeal on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, at 11:15 a.m. in Boise. It is the first time an appellate court has looked at the murder convictions that put her away in 2023, and she is not expected to be in the room.

Key takeaways

• The hearing is scheduled for Nov. 2 at the Idaho Supreme Court building; each side gets half an hour.
• Her appeal turns mostly on a lawyer — the one a judge took off her case in December 2021.
• Even a win in Idaho would leave two Arizona life sentences standing.

What did the court just schedule?

Court filings set oral arguments for Monday, Nov. 2 at 11:15 a.m. at the Idaho Supreme Court in Boise. Each side has 30 minutes, and Vallow Daybell herself is not expected to attend.

Her appellate lawyer is Craig H. Durham. Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye is arguing for the state.

Getting argument at all is worth a small note. Plenty of appeals are decided on the paperwork, so a court setting aside an hour means the justices want the lawyers in front of them. That is not a signal about who wins.

What is she arguing?

Four threads, and the first one carries most of the weight.

• Her lawyer of choice. Durham argues she was denied the constitutional right to keep Mark Means, the attorney a judge removed from her case in December 2021.
• Hearings without counsel. That she went through critical proceedings unrepresented, some of them while she had been found incompetent to stand trial.
• The Arizona evidence. That material from her Arizona cases should never have reached the Idaho jury.
• Speedy trial. That the delay between charge and trial broke her right to a prompt one.

How is the state answering?

Prosecutors say the trial judge made no reversible error and the convictions should stand.

On Means, the state's position is that he had a conflict: he had previously represented Chad Daybell, her husband and co-defendant. On the Arizona material, Nye argues it was properly admitted because it showed a larger plan that ran through the Idaho killings. On the delay, the state points to competency proceedings, a change of venue and the sheer size of the case.

What is she serving right now?

A stack of sentences from two states.

In Idaho, Judge Steven Boyce sentenced her on July 31, 2023, to three consecutive life terms without parole — for the first-degree murders of her children, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow, and for conspiring in the death of Tammy Daybell, Chad Daybell's first wife.

Arizona added two more. A jury convicted her in April 2025 of conspiring to murder Charles Vallow, her fourth husband, who was shot in 2019, and a second jury convicted her in June 2025 of conspiring in the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreaux, her niece's then-husband. She represented herself in both trials. On July 25, 2025 she received two life sentences, to run after the Idaho terms.

She is back in Idaho Department of Correction custody, where she will stay.

Could this appeal actually get her out?

Realistically, no — not by itself.

The best case for her is that the justices order a new Idaho trial. The Arizona sentences would still be there waiting, and each of those is life. Reversals are uncommon in direct appeals, and she would need to win on an issue big enough to have changed the verdict.

The likelier outcomes are an affirmance, or a narrower order sending one question back to the trial court. Whoever loses can ask for further review. There is no deadline for a decision.

Where is Chad Daybell?

On death row. An Idaho jury sentenced him to death on June 1, 2024 for the murders of Tammy Daybell, Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow, and he has been in Idaho Department of Correction custody since. Capital appeals in Idaho run for years.

What has Dateline aired about her?

The one most people remember is Keith Morrison's jailhouse interview, which aired on Dateline in March 2025 — the first time she had sat for television since the convictions. She told Morrison she expects to be exonerated, and he said afterward it was unlike any interview he had done.

Her name is likely to come back around. Dateline's new season starts Sept. 25, and we track the Friday lineup each week in this week's TV guide; the viewing guide covers where past episodes stream.

FAQ

Where is Lori Vallow Daybell now? In Idaho Department of Correction custody, serving life without parole.

Is she getting a new trial? Not at this point. Nov. 2 is an argument, not a retrial, and the court has not ruled.

Can she ever be paroled? The Idaho terms are life without parole, and Arizona added two consecutive life sentences on top.

Related

Other appeals on our calendar: Richard Allen's Delphi appeal, argued Sept. 21, and the Kouri Richins restitution order. The rest are in Case Updates.

Sources

• East Idaho News — Idaho Supreme Court sets the oral argument date
• KSL — the appeal issues and the state's response
• CNN — two life sentences in the Arizona conspiracy cases (July 25, 2025)
• NBC News — the Arizona sentencings and return to Idaho custody
• CNN — the July 2023 Idaho sentencing
• CNN — Chad Daybell's death sentence and Idaho's death penalty
• TODAY — the Keith Morrison jailhouse interview on Dateline

By the True Crime On Air desk · Updated 8:35 a.m. ET