Does anyone know when TA went to his Bishop? When was TA expelled from the Temple? Is this same Bishop scheduled to testify? I am thinking (not a good thing) that TA went to his Bishop before CMJA could give the Bishop TA nude photo's, CMJA nude photos, his journal entries, possible phone sex tape, or her writing a letter describing TA calling CMJA the three hole wonder, etc. or CMJA sent the Bishop letters describing the relationship, the Bishop called TA and held a meeting and he was expelled from the Temple. Now that would send me on a rant for sure.
Travis & Deanna went to their own Bishops and confessed their sex stuff. Both were given whatever sanctions, but Travis lost his Temple Recommend. He was still working on getting his priviledges back so he could do Temple work at the time of his death. The blackmailing Jodi could do with this info would be very concerning IMO. If she went "public" with this info (ie: his friends, family, church members, co-workers, prospective clients) knew of this - it would have a significant impact on his life. I do not know if he would be excommunicated (my dear friend who is an active LDS says yes) because this would be a second "transgression" while he was still working on the first one. It most certainly could have an impact on every aspect of Travis life if she alleged pedophile stuff. Either way, she threatened to smear Travis if the death penalty wasn't taken off the table. I think she used this tactic on Travis threatening to smear his "30 yr old virgin" image if he didn't give her credit for the book, take her to cancun, (take your pick)
since your client has already been convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances. Does the DT think they are such magicians the jury will forget about all that "unpleasantness" if they distract & delay sufficiently? Cause that's a pretty tough thing to forget-being an especially heinous murder and all.
I've got to think that, to most normal people, these messages would be more illustrative of how much she tormented him while he was alive, prior to viciously murdering him. Not seeing how this is mitigation. I've never heard of DP mitigation being approached in this rather novel way. Not even sure what the point is-seems to veer between he deserved to die because he used her for sex, was mean to her, wouldn't emotionally commit to her, liked little boys, no, little girls and between him allegedly wanting to commit suicide which I guess means she somehow helped him or just sped his death up as he was going to die soon anyway so it's not THAT bad. But never about Jodi and how she realizes she made poor choices and is remorseful about killing and lying and lying and lying. No, nothing about Jodi, the actual convicted killer. Novel. Really.
This question has been nagging me - Any Atty's who want to chime in I would love to hear!
Could this whole defense strategy be some of the following:
1) Jodi demands this defense be presented and nothing else
2) Nurmi knows that this defense will not fly but is forced to proceed with JA's wishes - he has tried multiple times to get off this case.
3) Nurmi set up this defense with the aspect of not providing any mitigation factors so that it could be overturned on appeal for "ineffective counsel".
4) Jodi demanded the closed courtoom - Atty's patched together a way to buy a little time to get her on the stand in secret
5) Jodi alleges child *advertiser censored* - (blackmail, means to close courtroom, diminish & trash Travis to make her look better)
6) There are no other witnesses willing to stand up and talk about how she could be a benefit to society in some way (other than tshirts, reading & recycling hair)
7) there is a "daisy chain" that leads to Jodi's innocence (ha)
*ETA - please don't throw stones - JMO