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| Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander in better times. |
Phoenix, AZ—The trial of Jodi Arias was an entertainment
driven spectacle. It was a lot of
things, but a fair trial it was not. The
defense lawyers were not up to the task and failed miserably. I suspect that a lot of the sidebar rulings of
Judge Stephens contributed to this enormous judicial fiasco.
Arias lost confidence in her lawyers but had no way to fire
them and bring in new ones. She felt no options but to attempt to take
charge. Had she better lawyers I doubt
she would have lost confidence. Arias
was smart enough to see they could not cut the mustard.
As a criminal investigator I specialize in self-defense
cases. The use of deadly force is based
on the reasonable man standard. Here
Arias says she was abused and afraid but seems to have too little evidence to
back up that claim.
Arias lied to police about the circumstances of Travis
Alexander’s death. Most Americans can’t
even tell the truth about why they were late for work let alone admit killing
someone. There was nothing extraordinary
about the lies of a frightened and confused Arias told.
Most Americans don’t have a clue about their absolute right
to use deadly force in self-defense.
Those that must resort to this kind of act, nearly always go into a
panic. They unnecessarily lie, cheat and
steal to cover up a justifiable event. These
untrained and ignorant people later try to convince cops, prosecutors and
juries of the necessity for the killing and it almost always falls on deaf
ears.
Obviously had Arias simply refused to talk to the cops and
asked for a lawyer she’d never have been charged! Arias was nothing more than a
dumb, panic driven kid that may well have been covering up a justifiable event.
Remember there was no witness to the killing. We must assume that the disparity of force
between Arias and Alexander was more than sufficient to justify the use of
deadly weapons.
With Arias there was yet another significant issue, her
mental health. Was she paranoid? Was her paranoia a temporary thing brought on
by PTSD? When you take a combination of
abuse, fear, a violent altercation and PTSD the reasonable man standard may
change. What really counts is what was
in Arias’ mind at the time of the killing.
Frankly we are not clairvoyant!
The claim of Arias of justifiable self-defense has not been
fully explored by this trial. The mental state of Arias may have placed her situation
where she was convinced that she had no other options. PTSD pushing Arias over the edge may have influenced
her mental state. Arias’ memory gaps
seem contrived but traumatic events do cause those things to happen. The jury could only guess the truth here and
Arias was an exposed liar and juries hate liars.
In any event the burden of proof was somehow shifted in this
flawed trial. Arias was actually and
unlawfully required to prove that her actions were justified! In the end Arias could not meet that
burden. The state was not forced to
prove that Alexander did not attack Arias. Proving a negative is always
impossible. Nobody could succeed in
proving what happened sans independent witnesses.
The Arias jury should have been sequestered away from the
media circus and the Internet. The trial
was nothing short of a legal lynching.
Arias far too easily took control of her defense away from her
overwhelmed lawyers. Judge Stephens
should have intervened if for no other reasons over the questionable mental
health issues plaguing Arias.
A new trial is in order sans the TV cameras, circus and a
want to be celebrity prosecutor. This
time the jury must be protected from the influences of the true crime TV
celebrities and the courthouse lynch mob.
I think I could help Arias if there was funding. I’d want full control to pick her new defense
lawyer and for that lawyer to engage new experts. I have two venerable and gifted lawyers in
mind for the task and would love to work with them on a retrial. They both are no strangers to death penalty
cases.
Jodi Arias deserves a new trial at the minimum. Calling her trial a circus was actually
polite. That trial was un-American, unfair and disgraceful.
We have felt bad for the members of the Alexander family for
their sad loss. We have treated them
with full dignity and respect. On the other hand we have left the family and
friends of Arias in the dirt and mud. That too was very wrong.
4 comments:
Paul, as you know, I am inside the courtroom of the Jodi Arias trial and am at this moment watching security keep an eye on final deliberations. Those 12 people deliberating in there disagree with you, the State did prove that Travis did not attack Jodi. They also unanimously agree that Jodi carefully planned out her attack on HIM. This jury has sat through months of forensic testimony on the nature of Travis's wounds and compared that to Jodi's lack of wounds. Travis was much bigger than Jodi, if he body slammed her onto tile, where were her bruises? I have many other details I could highlight but I'll just wrap up with asking a question I've been meaning to ask: do you find it possible that any hermetically sealed jury absolutely sanitized from contact with the outside world might reach the same decision this one did? Is there any chance in your mind that the facts are just as this jury decided they are?
Camille Kimball
Thoughtful posting!
I agree that the use of mobile devices, tablets, and the totalizing effect of the internet pose considerable challenges to what constitutes a fair trial.
Sequestration may have in fact been in order.
However, if she was acquitted would that have been a fair trial? If the public was swayed by her contention that Alexander abused her (of which absolutely no evidence exists...not even from his former girlfriends), would the prosecution have been right to claim that the trial is being unduly swayed by public opinion?
Was O.J.'s trial a fair trial? Remember, it had non-stop media coverage--most everyone thought he was guilty...but he got off. Why? Much harder case to prove. He denied he killed his wife.
But what we do know is this:
1. Jodi admittedly killed Alexander.
2. Jodi in fact nearly beheaded him--and short of a sword, that takes an effort that only EXTREME hate and aggression, or complete tunnel-rage could explain. After having stabbed him dozens of times, mounting him and sawing away at his throat (again, short of a clean slice with a samurai's sword) seems beyond the pale of reasonable self-defense.
3. No one likes a liar---not even your boss, when you lie about being sick. So maybe we are hypocrites, but that does not make Jodi's CONSISTENT and NUMEROUS lies any more palatable.
4. Finally, Jodi had to prove that she was a victim of abuse, because she was on trial for (admittedly) killing Alexander. She claimed, in defense without any material evidence, that he physically abused her. So of course she has to PROVE or offer viable evidence to back up this JUSTIFICATION of the act she is being tried for.
Therefore, I do not think that the court got things backwards.
Also, her attorneys did very well if you ask me (Willmott more so than Nurmi).
Given what they had to work with, the pictures, the blood-smear, the gas cans, the incredible coincidence of the .25 caliber bullet and the theft of an identical caliber from her grandparents, the incredible support from Alexander's former friends and girlfriends (and it seems that abusive behavior is a pattern, not a one-off deal)---how would you have defended her?
As a champion of self-defense (and I am as well), I know that a bullet would have been fine. Or perhaps she might have panicked. So don't you think she would have unloaded the gun on him? Why the knife? Where's the knife?
It was conveniently by the bed? For sex games? But its a sleight bed--take a look at the photos. There's no place to tie anyone's hands or feet.
You see, NOTHING she said adds up. How much "reason" does reasonable doubt require?
My take away is that you are right that we owe it to justice to reconsider the role of media in the courtrooms--we are standing on very tenuous ground with all of this devices, and immediate uninformed spreading of information.
But I think this trial had nearly 6 months (including 17 days for her to personally make her case) to get things more or less right.
Thanks for the comments---keep writing brother!
Thoughtful posting!
I agree that the use of mobile devices, tablets, and the totalizing effect of the internet pose considerable challenges to what constitutes a fair trial.
Sequestration may have in fact been in order.
However, if she was acquitted would that have been a fair trial? If the public was swayed by her contention that Alexander abused her (of which absolutely no evidence exists...not even from his former girlfriends), would the prosecution have been right to claim that the trial is being unduly swayed by public opinion?
Was O.J.'s trial a fair trial? Remember, it had non-stop media coverage--most everyone thought he was guilty...but he got off. Why? Much harder case to prove. He denied he killed his wife.
But what we do know is this:
1. Jodi admittedly killed Alexander.
2. Jodi in fact nearly beheaded him--and short of a sword, that takes an effort that only EXTREME hate and aggression, or complete tunnel-rage could explain. After having stabbed him dozens of times, mounting him and sawing away at his throat (again, short of a clean slice with a samurai's sword) seems beyond the pale of reasonable self-defense.
3. No one likes a liar---not even your boss, when you lie about being sick. So maybe we are hypocrites, but that does not make Jodi's CONSISTENT and NUMEROUS lies any more palatable.
4. Finally, Jodi had to prove that she was a victim of abuse, because she was on trial for (admittedly) killing Alexander. She claimed, in defense without any material evidence, that he physically abused her. So of course she has to PROVE or offer viable evidence to back up this JUSTIFICATION of the act she is being tried for.
Therefore, I do not think that the court got things backwards.
Also, her attorneys did very well if you ask me (Willmott more so than Nurmi).
Given what they had to work with, the pictures, the blood-smear, the gas cans, the incredible coincidence of the .25 caliber bullet and the theft of an identical caliber from her grandparents, the incredible support from Alexander's former friends and girlfriends (and it seems that abusive behavior is a pattern, not a one-off deal)---how would you have defended her?
As a champion of self-defense (and I am as well), I know that a bullet would have been fine. Or perhaps she might have panicked. So don't you think she would have unloaded the gun on him? Why the knife? Where's the knife?
It was conveniently by the bed? For sex games? But its a sleight bed--take a look at the photos. There's no place to tie anyone's hands or feet.
You see, NOTHING she said adds up. How much "reason" does reasonable doubt require?
My take away is that you are right that we owe it to justice to reconsider the role of media in the courtrooms--we are standing on very tenuous ground with all of this devices, and immediate uninformed spreading of information.
But I think this trial had nearly 6 months (including 17 days for her to personally make her case) to get things more or less right.
Thanks for the comments---keep writing brother!
There are a lot of things that simply don't add up in this trial.
It is curious that Flores did not interview Dustin Thompson (an Alexander roommate who is now in jail for Mortgage Fraud) after his ex-wife Ashley Reid anonymously reported her suspicions that Thompson was involved in the murder. It is suspicious that Reid subsequently died of a supposed suicidal gunshot wound to the head.
Why did Alexanders roommates not find it suspicious that his wallet, car keys. mormon ring that he never went anywhere without were all left on the kitchen table while his car was in the garage and he was supposedly in Cancun, without his Wallet? How did the bloody sheets go for 5 days without being noticed in the washing machine, especially in a house of with several roomates?
Why did no one notice the putrid smell of a decomposing body, particularly when in Flores report he notes that the smell was strong in the house?
It is eerily suspicious that the Mormons have a historical faction known as the Danites that practised a Blood Atonement ritual called the Endowment Ritual that sacrificially spills the sinners blood on the ground by cutting the throat from ear to ear. The ritual is performed to release the soul of a sinner of adultery or other sins to heaven. Rumours have it that modern day Danites are in Utah and Arizona.
No doubt Alexanders sexual habits are not in line with the Mormon Church, especially as he was considered a Church Elder.
It also makes me wonder how Arias managed to shoot and stab Alexander drag his body back into the shower, over a two inch shower stop without leaving marks on the body from the shower stop, all in 62 seconds. She must be mighty strong, or others were involved.
It appears to me that Arias was set-up to take the fall. It is no wonder that many of her friends were afraid to testify in the trial. Perhaps Arias is afraid to tell the truth for the safety of her family.
I truly hope that one day the truth behind what really happened is exposed in order for Justice to be served.
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