BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s senate on Thursday rejected the two Supreme Court candidates that President Javier Milei nominated by decree earlier this year, dealing a major blow to the libertarian leader.
The congressional defeat could complicate the implementation of Milei's radical state overhaul of Argentina, as analysts say the president had hoped to fill the Supreme Court vacancies with appointees who would rule favorably on challenges to his economic reforms.
Milei in February bypassed Congress to appoint two controversial Supreme Court candidates, invoking a clause in Argentina’s constitution that he said empowered him to fill the vacant seats during the legislature's summer recess.
Politicians sharply criticized the move as an overreach of executive power, saying that a president has extremely limited authority to make judicial appointments during a congressional break.
“It's a serious institutional conflict that the executive branch has initiated against the legislative and judicial branches,” said Sen. Anabel Fernández Sagasti from Unión por la Patria party, the hardline opposition bloc. “What we are discussing is an institutional assault.”
Both of Milei's candidates — federal judge Ariel Lijo and conservative law professor Manuel García-Mansilla — had failed last year to secure the two-thirds majority required to confirm the candidates in the senate, where the president's libertarian coalition holds just seven of the 72 seats.
Milei resorted to presidential decree to fill the two vacant seats on the five-judge court, testing the boundaries of his executive power as he has repeatedly done over the past year to overcome his minority in Congress.
His nominees have provoked fierce debate across the political spectrum. Lijo has drawn criticism from anti-corruption watchdogs and opposition from centrist parties scandalized by allegations that he laundered money, abused judicial authority and stalled graft cases assigned to him in federal court. Lijo has denied the accusations.
During the heated hours-long debate over the candidates on the senate floor Thursday, centrist lawmaker Luis Juez referred to Lijo by the name of a famous Argentine hypnotist, saying, “I call him that because he'll put your judicial case to sleep if it suits political powers."
García-Mansilla has faced resistance from the left-leaning Peronist opposition movement, which holds 45% of seats in the senate, for his conservative stance on social issues like abortion.
The vote was not close. Lijo failed to pass with 43 “no” votes and 27 for, while García-Mansilla received 51 votes against and just 21 in favor.
Milei has fiercely defended his candidates as worthy of serving on the nation's highest court and accused lawmakers of unfairly politicizing his nominations.
In a statement late Thursday, Milei's office said it “repudiated” the senate vote.
“The senate has rejected nominations proposed by the president for purely political reasons and not for reasons of suitability,” it said, arguing that leaving the two seats empty on the court constituted an effort to obstruct justice.
It said Milei would seek to “restore people's confidence in the institutions using all the tools that the constitution and popular vote have placed in his hands.”
Others breathed a sigh of relief at what they saw as a sign of Argentina's democracy working.
“Today the Argentine Senate put a stop to one of the most serious attacks on judicial independence since the country’s return to democracy," said Juan Pappier, deputy director of the Americas at Human Rights Watch. “President Milei risked undermining some the very basic checks and balances of Argentina’s democratic system.”
Argentine Supreme Court justices, Manuel Garcia Mansilla, left, and Ricardo Lorenzetti wait for the arrival of President Javier Milei at Congress where he will give his annual address to the nation at the start of the legislative year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Argentine Supreme Court justice Manuel García Mansilla, top, shakes hands with President Javier Milei at Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, March 1, 2025, on the day of the president's annual address to the nation at the start of the legislative year. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
FILE - Argentine Supreme Court Justices, from left, Manuel Garcia Mansilla, Ricardo Lorenzetti, Carlos Rosenkrantz and Horacio Rosatti, wait for the arrival of President Javier Milei to give his annual address to the nation, which marks the start of the legislative year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
PHOENIX (AP) — Lori Vallow Daybell, who was convicted of killing her two youngest children and conspiring to murder a romantic rival, is on trial again Monday. This time, she's accused in Arizona of conspiring to murder her estranged husband.
In opening arguments, the prosecution argued that Vallow Daybell conspired with brother Alex Cox to kill Charles Vallow and cash in on a life insurance policy, while espousing the belief that Charles was possessed by an evil spirit.
“Lori Vallow is why Alex was able to shoot Charles,” prosecutor Treena Kay said. “Lori Vallow is why Charles is dead.”
The case has drawn significant public attention in part because Vallow Daybell, 51, has doomsday-focused religious beliefs. She isn't a lawyer but has chosen to represent herself in the six-week trial.
A jury of 16 took their seats in a Phoenix courtroom, including four alternate jurors. Kay provided a detailed timeline and argued that phone records, witness testimony and forensic evidence will show that Cox’s shooting of Charles was “not self defense.”
Kay also said Vallow Daybell conspired in the killing so that she could move forward with marrying her then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, an Idaho author who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.
Vallow Daybell has pleaded not guilty and has not spoken publicly about the details of Vallow's death. Here's what to know about the case.
Vallow was fatally shot in July 2019. Vallow Daybell then moved to Idaho with her children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan. She married Daybell just two weeks after the death of his wife, Tammy Daybell. The children went missing for several months before their bodies were found buried in rural Idaho on Chad Daybell’s property. JJ was 7 and Tylee was 16.
Vallow Daybell is already serving three life sentences in Idaho for the children's deaths and for conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell. Chad Daybell was sentenced to death in the three killings.
Four months before he died, Charles Vallow filed for divorce from Vallow Daybell, saying she had become infatuated with near-death experiences and had claimed to have lived numerous lives on other planets.
He alleged she threatened to ruin him financially and kill him. He sought a voluntary mental health evaluation of his wife.
Police say Vallow was fatally shot by Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, when Vallow went to pick up his son at Vallow Daybell’s home in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb. Vallow Daybell’s daughter, Tylee, told police that she confronted Vallow with a baseball bat after she was awakened by yelling in the house.
Tylee said she was trying to defend her mother, but Vallow took away the bat, according to police records. Cox told police that he fired after Vallow refused to drop the bat and came after him.
Cox told investigators that Vallow Daybell and the children left the house shortly before the shooting. Investigators say she went to get fast food for her son and bought flip-flops at a pharmacy before returning home.
Cox, who claimed he acted in self-defense and wasn’t arrested in Vallow’s death, died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs. Cox's account was later called into question.
Vallow Daybell was a beautician by trade, a mother of three and a wife — five times over.
Her first marriage, to a high school sweetheart when she was 19, ended quickly. She married again in her early 20s and had a son. Then, in 2001, she married Joseph Ryan, and they had Tylee. They divorced a few years later, and Ryan died in 2018 at his home of a suspected heart attack.
Charles Vallow entered the picture several months later. Vallow and Vallow Daybell married in 2006 and later adopted JJ, but by 2019 their marriage had soured. The two were estranged but still married when Cox fatally shot Vallow.
Public interest from around the world only grew as the investigation into the missing children took several unexpected turns, each new revelation seemingly stranger than the last.
Daybell, who was once a contestant on “Wheel of Fortune,” has been the subject of a Netflix documentary and Lifetime movie.
“I want to see how she commands the courtroom,” said Bill Hurley, a spectator who jockeyed for one of about 40 seats in a packed courtroom gallery. Hurley is from the Phoenix suburb where Charles Vallow was shot in 2021, and has been closely following the case.
While representing herself, Vallow Daybell has complained about news coverage of her criminal cases, invoked her right to a speedy trial, questioned whether a government witness was truly an expert and engaged in disputes over the pre-trial exchange of evidence.
At a hearing last week, she lost a bid to strike three people from the prosecution’s witness list, including the grandmother of her adopted son. Another witness says Vallow Daybell spoke about Vallow as being “possessed” in the months before his death. When the judge asked her to argue her point, Vallow Daybell lowered her head, sighed and paused a few seconds. “Their information is not firsthand," Vallow Daybell said. "These witnesses are all coming together. They are watching everything that goes on on TV regarding this.”
If convicted in Arizona of conspiring to kill Vallow, she would face a life sentence.
Vallow Daybell will wear civilian clothing during her trial and will not be handcuffed or shackled when jurors are in the courtroom. She, however, is expected to be wearing a belt-like device under her clothes that will let a jail officer deliver an electric shock by remote control if there's a disturbance.
The Idaho investigation began at the end of 2019 when Vallow Daybell's adopted son's grandmother, worried about his welfare, reached out to police. Vallow Daybell had been evasive when asked about her two youngest children.
Chad Daybell called 911 in October 2019 to report that his wife Tammy Daybell was battling an illness and died in her sleep. Her body was later exhumed, and an autopsy determined she died of asphyxiation.
Idaho police did a welfare check on the kids in November 2019 and discovered they were missing and hadn't been seen since early September. Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell left town a short time later, eventually turning up in Hawaii without the kids. She was arrested in Hawaii in February 2020 on a warrant out of Idaho.
Defense attorneys told jurors that she was a “kind and loving mother” who happened to be interested in religion and biblical prophesies.
A witness at the Idaho trial said Vallow Daybell believes evil spirits have taken over people in her life and turned them into “zombies.”
This story has been updated to correct the attribution to a quote accusing the defendant of being the reason why Charles Vallow is dead. It was Treena Kay who was quoted, not Kay Woodcock.
FILE - A boy looks at a memorial for Tylee Ryan and Joshua "JJ" Vallow in Rexburg, Idaho, on June 11, 2020. (John Roark/The Idaho Post-Register via AP, File)
FILE - Larry Woodcock speaks to media members at the Rexburg Standard Journal Newspaper in Rexburg, Idaho on Jan. 7, 2020, while holding a reward flyer for Joshua Vallow and Tylee Ryan. (John Roark/The Idaho Post-Register via AP, File)
FILE - Lori Vallow Daybell talks with her lawyers before the jury's verdict is read at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho on May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, File)
