SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — The criminal case for the Kamas mother accused of killing her husband is now moving forward. Today, new trial dates were set for Kouri Richins.

In a pretrial conference on Friday, Judge Richard Mrazik, attorneys for the prosecution, and attorneys for Richins met to set a new jury trial date. Judge Mrazik confirmed that the stay on the trial has been lifted.

The jury selection has been set for Feb. 10 – 13, and 17 – 18 in 2026. The jury trial will commence Feb. 23 and run for five weeks, Monday through Thursday, until March 26, 2026.

Judge and attorneys’ discussion

During the pretrial conference, Ritchins’ attorneys Kathy Nester and Wendy Lewis discussed their thoughts on the timeframe that would be needed for a trial. They asked for two weeks of jury selection and five weeks of trial.

“We all agree that now that the appeal has been declined and we are looking at a Summit County jury, I think we are gonna need two weeks for jury selection, simply because so much of it’s going to have to be done individually due to the press questions,” Nester stated. “We all think it might be a wise idea to add a week to how long the trial is gonna be as well.”

Lewis stated that Richins is “amenable to those dates,” and although everyone would like the trial to move forward quickly, a date before the end of the year would be difficult. Judge Mrazik agreed and said that he had availability for such a long trial starting in January. Brad Bloodworth, with the prosecution, said that he had availability as well.

“Can we have a goal of getting the case to the jury on Wednesday of the fifth week?” Judge Mrazik asked. He added that it would be wise to “build in” deliberation time. Lewis and Nester said that they could set that goal.

There was some back-and-forth on how long jury selection should go. Judge Mrazik was uncertain that a full eight days was necessary, and said that they were widening the pool so it should be easier to select a Summit County jury.

“Jury team is planning to qualify a sufficient number of Summit County jurors to send questionnaires to 2000, increasing the numbers to maximize your chances of having an ample pool,” Judge Mrazik said.

Richin’s attorney, Nester, said that having additional days for jury selection would be necessary due to the high number of witnesses and experts that could be called by both sides.

“I’ve looked at their witness list and it’s massive. I mean, of course, they may not call everybody on it, but even if they called two-thirds of the people on it. I mean, a lot of these witnesses aren’t going to be five minutes long, they’re gonna be lengthy witnesses,” Nester explained.

Judge Mrazik agreed to having a longer jury selection process, and giving them five days over two weeks to complete jury selection. He said that they could interview 20 jurors in the morning and 20 in the afternoon each day.

The jury selection and trial were set for February 2026. Other hearing and conference dates were discussed and will be set in the future.

Who is Kouri Richins?

Kouri Richins was initially charged with aggravated murder and three counts of possession with intent to distribute in 2022. Later, she faced additional charges for attempted aggravated murder, two counts of mortgage fraud, two counts of insurance fraud, and three counts of forgery.

Richins allegedly caused the death of her husband by using fentanyl in 2022. Afterward, she wrote a children’s book about grief and promoted it, even once visiting ABC4’s lifestyle show Good Things Utah. A full timeline of events can be read here.