Sentencing and beyond- JA General Discussion #8

[pocketaccent]

Such vile lies. Still doing everything in her power to demean and humiliate Travis.

Page 4
Arias and T.A. met the following weekend at their friends’ residence in California, for a PPL event. (Id., pp. 103-104). Once everyone was asleep, T.A. arrived at Arias’s bedroom for a night time rendezvous. (Id., p. 106). T.A. initiated sexual contact. (Id., p. 118). Arias knew that T.A. was Mormon. (Id., p. 90). He wore his temple garments during that sexual encounter. (Id., p. 121). The next morning, they attended a Mormon church service together. (Id., p. 126).

Page 11
They slept until noon. (Id., p. 115). They had sex. (Id., p. 117).
T.A. wanted to tie Arias up. (Id., p. 120). He loosely tied her wrists to the bed. (Id., p. 122). She was naked and he wore his Mormon garments. (Id., p. 123). They took
photos of themselves having sex. (Id., pp. 129-130; 134).

 

[RickshawFan]

He was getting a BJ from Arias in his Mormon garments? Hard to picture this if the garments are supposed inhibit temptation from being actualized? (I might be out of line on this since I'm not Mormon and really don't have a clue.)

Apologies to moderator if urban slang is off limits; I don't know how to say that more delicately.

 

[RickshawFan]

If JSS threatened to report Wilmot and Nurms to the Bar, presumably that means they did an aggressively thorough job of preventing their client from citing "incompetence of counsel" as a basis for appeal. might regret bringing up this factoid, even if it's true.

 

[RickshawFan]

Silence from the forum gang. You must all be reading the brief!

 

[Hope4More]

If JSS threatened to report Wilmot and Nurms to the Bar, presumably that means they did an aggressively thorough job of preventing their client from citing "incompetence of counsel" as a basis for appeal. might regret bringing up this factoid, even if it's true.

The had about exactly zero imput into her attorneys' opening brief.

1. Her attorneys are only allowed to use the trial record itself. They are not permitted to solicit any additional information from the for use in the brief.

2. Appellate briefs are arguments that the trial judge erred or abused her discretion on matters of the law. The has nothing to contribute to these arguments, and no appellate attorney would solicit their client's uninformed opinion about any of the arguments laid out in their brief.

 

[Ktblair]

She's cooked because she went over the top in this brief, too, by saying she didn't get a fair trial because she had to wear a stun belt (like no other defendant has to, LMAO). Including this little gem makes the whole rest of the document a laughable reach. And if she had to claim that to make her case, clearly there's nothing else at the bottom of the barrel: we've gotten to the scrapings of the dregs.

LMBO!

 

[Ktblair]

She can't add more evidence, though?

I would definitely hope the prison officials aren't so lackadaisical when it comes to the

 

[pocketaccent]

The had about exactly zero imput into her attorneys' opening brief.

1. Her attorneys are only allowed to use the trial record itself. They are not permitted to solicit any additional information from the for use in the brief.

2. Appellate briefs are arguments that the trial judge erred or abused her discretion on matters of the law. The has nothing to contribute to these arguments, and no appellate attorney would solicit their client's uninformed opinion about any of the arguments laid out in their brief.

Thank you, that's good to know. I thought the lied additionally.

 

[RickshawFan]

The had about exactly zero imput into her attorneys' opening brief.

1. Her attorneys are only allowed to use the trial record itself. They are not permitted to solicit any additional information from the for use in the brief.

2. Appellate briefs are arguments that the trial judge erred or abused her discretion on matters of the law. The has nothing to contribute to these arguments, and no appellate attorney would solicit their client's uninformed opinion about any of the arguments laid out in their brief.

I'm quite confused by this answer, so let me try to summarize. The attorneys took all this cr**p and threw it in their brief. They weren't persuaded to do this by ? Where were all these "facts" coming from except from the ? How about the topics? From the transcript?

E.g. the stun belt idiocy was during the trial? Or thought to highlight it NOW and claim she was wincing and afraid of being electrocuted? Too bad she wasn't, now that I think of it.

 

[RickshawFan]

If JSS threatened to report Wilmot and Nurms to the Bar, presumably that means they did an aggressively thorough job of preventing their client from citing "incompetence of counsel" as a basis for appeal. might regret bringing up this factoid, even if it's true.

I meant to say that it would be very hard to claim appealability if Wilmot and Nurms were that aggressive in being the 's advocates.

 

[Ktblair]

I just got a "can't get enough of your stuff" trophy! Thank you everyone for this prestigious honor! *blows kisses* muah muah muah thank you,thank you! *Bows*

 

[pocketaccent]

I just got a "can't get enough of your stuff" trophy! Thank you everyone for this prestigious honor! *blows kisses* muah muah muah thank you,thank you! *Bows*

 

[geevee]

You sure can't tell that by the way this reads, every lie she ever told and then some are included.

I'm on the stun belt now, apparently it inhibited her ability to participate in her own defense, yet it did not inhibit her from going Pro Per twice and acting as her own attorney to get even more lies on the record. Yeesh.

ETA: I was quoting Hope's post above, I guess I forgot to make sure it was included.

 

[RickshawFan]

I'm thinking the Appeals attorneys are shooting themselves and the in the foot with the mountainous piles of florid embellishments. a) I doubt the COA is gonna be thrilled by getting a double dose of BS in the trial and repeated BS in the brief. Most of the time, more is not more and b) evidently, they've been around the too long and now sound exactly like her. This is not a good look.

 

[Hope4More]

On the law.

Excessive publicity, yada yada. What's interesting is that 's attorneys (POSA, for ease of typing) don't seem to be arguing that JSS erred by not granting a change in venue or jury sequestration.

Instead, POSA's chief argument is that JSS erred by allowing the media excessive access, an error they contend JSS acknowledged when she forbade live coverage of PP2.

That's faulty reasoning twice over.

1. The legally relevant question about excessive publicity tainting a trial is whether or not members of the jury were exposed to the publicity. JSS polled jurors daily during both trials, asking if they had heeded her admonition to refrain from reading or discussing the trial, etc. The jury each day said they followed her admonition.

Absent any EVIDENCE presented by a DT at trial that jurors had in fact been tainted, and that the trial judge had then abused her discretion by ignoring juror misconduct, appellate courts assume good faith & conduct by trial juries.

The jury was clean, the verdict was not tainted by excessive publicity, and JSS restricting media access during PP2 was not an admission of error that she should have done likewise during the guilt phase.

And PS. What a completely absurd argument to make, that the crowds & media coverage tainted the jury without them even being aware of it!

And no matter that jurors said, explicitly, repeatedly, that they weren't concerned for their safety, and that they didn't feel threatened or upset when the media occasionally filmed them , POSA knows better.

 

[RickshawFan]

I'm on the stun belt now, apparently it inhibited her ability to participate in her own defense, yet it did not inhibit her from going Pro Per twice and acting as her own attorney to get even more lies on the record. Yeesh.

Besides, wasn't she in shackles and jail garb when she was ProPer? Definitely less inhibiting..... So much more comfy. LMAO.

 

[Hope4More]

I'm quite confused by this answer, so let me try to summarize. The attorneys took all this cr**p and threw it in their brief. They weren't persuaded to do this by ? Where were all these "facts" coming from except from the ? How about the topics? From the transcript?

E.g. the stun belt idiocy was during the trial? Or thought to highlight it NOW and claim she was wincing and afraid of being electrocuted? Too bad she wasn't, now that I think of it.

POSA is only allowed to argue that JSS erred in rulings or abused her discretion.

The foundation for each and every one of POSA's arguments was laid at trial, by the DT, either by motion or by objection.

Therefore, either Nurmi or Willmott made a motion or an objection relating to the wearing a stun belt.

If you'll recall the stunt DT tried to pull at trial relating to the belt, you know just how disingenuous POSA's complaint about the belt (and brace is).

Remember that it was in fact JM who objected to allowing the to take the stand each day AFTER the jury was seated? JM knew what the DT was trying to do- have the limp up to the stand, flashing that stun belt, precisely so a POSA could use the belt as an appellate issue. FAIL.

 

[Ktblair]

Thanks! Your emoticons are cute

 

[Hope4More]

Easier to add this way, Rickshaw.

1. The "facts" in their brief come from the trial record (that includes everything allowed into evidence, not just testimony....so, journals, phone & text logs, etc. etc).

2. Again, POSA's arguments can only be chosen from the litany of motions & objections the DT made at trial.

It would have behooved POSA to have pruned their arguments, provided solid legal grounds as to how JSS erred, and to have done some cursory editing at least (they've had years to polish their gem of a brief), but......seriously. POSA keeps proving that they'll have to work hard if they ever want to one day become mediocre, rather than borderline incompetent/ineffective counsel.

 

[RickshawFan]

I never understood the pedophilia thing. You can't kill a pedophile in cold blood any more than you can kill anyone else in cold blood.

Never mind whether or not the pedophile letters could be introduced at trial, why did JM even have to go as far as pointing out that they could have been cut and pasted and then copied? Should never have happened: even if not forgeries, they would have had no bearing on whether or not murdered the guy in heinous fashion.

Besides, you're only a victim of a paedophile if you're a child or young person. was neither. How could she possibly claim the murder was the byproduct of pedophilia?

All irrelevant IMO, and JSS could have skipped all the messing about with the pedophilia thing. Since the unnecessary messing about was in 's favor, however, it would be very hard to claim that the messing about was grounds for appeal.