Minutes after Kouri Richins' divorce attorney left the stand, prosecutors asked to play a recorded jail call. The defense fought hard to keep it out.
Marie Bramwell just testified that Kouri met with her once, paid a retainer, and never followed through on a divorce. Now prosecutors want the jury to hear what Kouri said about that meeting from jail. Before any of it plays, the defense raises hearsay and Sixth Amendment objections, and the two sides battle over which parts of the call the jury gets to hear. Watch how Judge Mrazik works through both arguments and lands on a limiting instruction.
When the call finally plays, Kouri is talking to her brother. She's frustrated, profane, and has a lot to say about both divorce consultations. Pay attention to how she frames Eric's secret estate planning versus her own meeting with Bramwell. Both sides will use her words in closing arguments.
⏰ KEY MOMENTS
00:00 - Prosecution offers the jail call. Defense objects immediately. The jury gets sent out. 03:10 - Lewis raises the Sixth Amendment. You can't cross-examine a phone call. 13:29 - Judge and attorneys negotiate which parts of the call come in and which get cut. 37:59 - Jury returns. Judge delivers the limiting instruction on what they can and cannot consider. 39:12 - The call plays. Listen to Kouri's tone from the first word. 40:37 - Kouri tells her brother Eric "did it first" and "took action on it illegally." 41:14 - "I threw the paperwork away. I don't want anything." Kouri's own words about the divorce consultation.
On March 4, 2022, Kouri Richins called 911 from her Francis, Utah home at 3 a.m. Her husband Eric was unresponsive. Toxicology revealed five times the lethal dose of fentanyl. Eric had no history of drug use.
Prosecutors allege Kouri had been taking money from Eric for years. They say she owed lenders more than $1.8 million and had opened nearly $2 million in life insurance on Eric without him knowing.
Eric discovered the financial issues in 2020. He changed his will, created a trust naming his sister as trustee, and removed Kouri as beneficiary.
One year after Eric's death, Kouri published a children's book about a father watching over his son from heaven. Four weeks later, she was arrested. The defense maintains her innocence.
This channel continues the work of Steven M. Askin, a criminal defense attorney who was disbarred in 1998 for refusing to violate attorney-client privilege, then criminally convicted in 2010 for teaching people their constitutional rights from a coffee shop in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He passed away in February 2024, but not before he and I started this channel together.
I am Steven M. Askin II. I am not an attorney. I am a watchdog. I cover criminal trials to educate the public about due process, the presumption of innocence, and constitutional protections. Every video on this channel is part of building the machine the system feared my father would create: a public trained to watch, question, and demand accountability.
This is not entertainment. This is education. This is oversight. This is Justice Is A Process.
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