SIDEBAR #8- Arias/Alexander forum

[RR0004]

http://wildabouttrial.com/wat-courtroom.html

The fact that Jodi's parents weren't shocked that she triple murdered Travis, as we saw on their interview tapes, make Tara think the tapes would have been a "game changer"!

I'm not sure I agree 100% with that. I think it may have given some another "mitigating" factor and that would have been mental illness (even though it was never part of the DT's CIC).

 

[kscornfed]

I think that is where the age thing came into play. My parents would see those comments as ABUSIVE, no matter what the context was. They would consider it a very ugly abusive action to call a woman names like that, repeatedly.

I however, being younger and having kids in their 20's, know that kids these days speak like that to each other. They use 'ho' and b---tch and skunk in everyday conversations. [ ha. autocorrect did not want me to say '*advertiser censored*.'

I do find it surprising that they thought her childhood was abusive though. A wooden spoon? My grandma had a HUGE wooden spoon in the kitchen that her kids gave her as a joke, but in response to her habit of punishing them with a quick whack to their backsides. They were not abused, they were being 'corrected' as she called it. And it is that same Irish Grandma who called me 'Katydid.' :heartbeat:

i'm old and all i saw was a one sided presentation of a bad argument between 2 people. i would never call that 'abuse' unless he spoke to her like that all the time, which we know he did not.
i'd also be surprised if they bought her abuse as a child----i think corporal punishment was far more prevalent when us 'old' people were kids. getting smacked with a wooden spoon doesn't sound all that bad to me, frankly, plus i'm sure the little b**ch deserved it.

 

[katydid23]

Here's a great immature way to release some of your tension, for anybody who needs it... there's an iPhone app called Action Movie FX. You can film a video clip and add in effects such as missiles, crashing cars, etc.
The other night I took a clip of Jodi's allocution and added in drones to take her down at the end, and I have to admit, it was pretty entertaining. :floorlaugh:

I was mad at my 20 yr old DD about something and I skyped her and admonished her. Turns out that I jumped to conclusions. Falsely. :angel:

So she later sent me a video clip on 'vine' in which she added those explosions and car crashes and incoming missiles to my angry rant, which was pretty funny. :trainwreck:

 

[TXProfessional]

Question:
Did you find Nurmi very hard to listen to with all the sex talk day after day after day?

Answer:
for some reason I'm not seeing the ? But it was hard listening to the sex talk over and over and Nurmi liked to talk

 

[gngr~snap]

I'm not sure I agree 100% with that. I think it may have given some another "mitigating" factor and that would have been mental illness (even though it was never part of the DT's CIC).

True. Then add in that they may not have tried to get her any help when she was still a minor... It might just open a whole new can o worms.

Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

 

[katydid23]

i'm old and all i saw was a one sided presentation of a bad argument between 2 people. i would never call that 'abuse' unless he spoke to her like that all the time, which we know he did not.
i'd also be surprised if they bought her abuse as a child----i think corporal punishment was far more prevalent when us 'old' people were kids. getting smacked with a wooden spoon doesn't sound all that bad to me, frankly, plus i'm sure the little b**ch deserved it.

I am old too. I am 60. But my parents are in their 80's. And they thought Travis was abusive because of his words to her. I gave up trying to convince them differently.

My mom got whacked by the wooden spoon and did not see it as abuse. But some older people might have actually felt abused by corporal punishment, who knows.

 

[elementary]

I tend to think by not allowing her family members to plead for her life may have worked in the killers favor, by making abuse by her parents seem more likely.

I am sure the jurors didn't know the whole story there.
I do hope they will watch the interviews Flores did with them.


Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

This is a major limb for me to got out on, but it makes me wonder about the absence of the family for the penalty phase non-verdict because chances for a non-verdict verdict were pretty probable. On the other hand, in my right mind, the excuse was that they weren't properly notified and therefore the DT would never, ever use this fact without the attendant excuse in a retrial of the penalty phase. Never, ever....

 

[karen302]

If I may, I have issue with the notion that penalty phase and mitigation is a "personal" thing and jurors can just come up with things. It IS personal, but personal to the extent that it has to be FROM EVIDENCE presented, and it has to be SUBSTANTIALLY PROVEN, MEANING IT IS MORE OFTEN TRUE THAN NOT TRUE. Let's say some jurors took the text message as verbal abuse...okay that's fine...they are SILL not done though...it has to be SUBSTANTIALLY PROVEN. Did Travis verbally abuse Jodi more often than no?? I don't think so.

According to the "capital case instructions of 2011" from the Arizona Bar website (I couldn't find the specific ones for this case and didn't have time to mull around for it):

"That is, although the defendant need not prove its existence beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant must convince you by the evidence presented that it is more probably true than not true that such a mitigating circumstance exists."

"More probably true than not true" is NOT the same as "Did Travis verbally abuse Jodi more often than no?? "

As I understand the instructions - the number of times doesn't matter, the question is "Is it more probably true that Jodi Arias was abused(during her lifetime) than not."

I can see how from the evidence presented, some might come to this conclusion.

As for the "personalness" of the decision -

"A mitigating factor that motivates one juror to vote for a sentence of life in prison may be evaluated by another juror as not having been proved or, if proved, as not significant to the assessment of the appropriate penalty. In other words, each of you must determine whether, in your individual assessment, the mitigation is of such quality or value that it warrants leniency in this case...
In reaching a reasoned, moral judgment about which sentence is justified and appropriate, you must decide how compelling or persuasive the totality of the mitigating factors is when compared against the totality of the aggravating factors and the facts and circumstances of the case.

The "moral judgement" to me makes it a personal decision by each juror.

The information presented here from the Arizona Bar can be found at:
http://www.azbar.org/media/58847/4-capital_case_instructions_revised_2011.pdf

 

[TXProfessional]

Question:
Did you believe there was any abuse by Travis, either emotional or physical?

Answer:
no!!! I thought at times he said some mean things but I never thought she was abused!

 

[gngr~snap]

This is a major limb for me to got out on, but it makes me wonder about the absence of the family for the penalty phase non-verdict because chances for a non-verdict verdict were pretty probable. On the other hand, in my right mind, the excuse was that they weren't properly notified and therefore the DT would never, ever use this fact without the attendant excuse in a retrial of the penalty phase. Never, ever....

I have no idea what really happened, but it was the last day before a 4 day weekend - if a non verdict had not come in. I don't get why they weren't there honestly... To be there for 5 months and then bail in the last hours?? :waitasec:

Oh well I am not going to try and make sense of it.

Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

 

[TXProfessional]

Question
How was the foreman chosen? Was he elected, or did he volunteer?

Answer:
We had talked before about putting names in a hat and picking that way but idk if that is how they did it!

 

[TotallyObsessed]

OMG this just blows me away....from the Wendy Murphy article linked above. Explains why Jodi's family did not testify on her behalf in the sentencing phase.

By refusing to put Arias’ friends and family on the stand, defense attorneys knew they might lose the battle but would likely win the war if the jury voted for death. The Ninth Circuit’s predisposition to reverse death penalty verdicts when mitigation witnesses are not called was a near guarantee that Arias would never be put to death. This remains a viable strategic option given that a new jury will be impaneled to decide the death penalty issue in July, which means we can expect Arias’ family members again to sit silent instead of begging for Jodi’s life. Perhaps the prosecutor should consider calling Jodi’s mother to the stand, if only to expose the strategy and create a record that would at least make it more difficult for the Ninth Circuit to indulge the nonsense.

Refusing to call mitigation witnesses may eventually save Jodi Arias’ life, but the author of the article below notes that it isn’t ethical. The recent evolution of this ugly strategy has inspired legal scholars to urge that such lawyers be reported to the bar and sanctioned for the unethical practice of law, though since defense attorneys control most licensing boards, don’t hold your breath. Chances are much better lawyers who pull this stunt will win awards because in the American legal system, a lack of ethics in criminal defense work isn’t punished so long as the ends justify the means. Which begs an important question for the rest of us: Is saving one psychopath’s life really worth the loss of integrity for an entire legal system, and who do we hold accountable if the answer is “no?”

 

[Hope4More]

http://wildabouttrial.com/wat-courtroom.html

The fact that Jodi's parents weren't shocked that she triple murdered Travis, as we saw on their interview tapes, make Tara think the tapes would have been a "game changer"!

I think they could have had the opposite effect...convinced jurors that she was at least emotionally abused by her parents. Her father spoke about her like she was a stranger, and like he wanted to wash his hands of her. That neither parent leapt to her defense no matter what they thought possible IMO says more about them than about her.

The mother interview would also have bolstered jurors who considered mentsl illness a mitigator.

 

[AZWatcher]

Thank you so much to those pasting tweets! I'm not proud to admit I just don't get twitter. I can't get the order of it ... Can't tell how to decipher which questions she's responding to. I feel so f'kin old.

 

[elementary]

I don't think they believed she was physically or sexually abused by him. They just mentioned that some of the holdouts believed she was abused in childhood and abused VERBALLY by Travis.

I have to wonder however--if they are going to give her mitigation points for the verbal abuse, what do they feel about her LYING about the pedophilia and physical abuse? Was there any outrage about that?

Great points.

But my point is still, why not bring in all the testimony that dealt with the alleged verbal abuse? And discuss it in context of possibilities, instead of having some jurors simply accept that this is what it actually signified?

And yeah, WHAT about her lies of pedophilia and physical abuse? The instructions have always been, if a witness is is not credible to you, you can dismiss the rest of the testimony. What happened to that in the penalty phase?

 

[karen302]

Comments need to be placed in context, IMO. They certainly were said in anger. Abuse suggests an ongoing pattern. Show me the pattern.

I'm curious - if someone beat me up physically once...would you not define that as abuse? Or do they need to do it repeatedly for it to be abuse?

 

[aa9511]

Question:
Did you find Nurmi very hard to listen to with all the sex talk day after day after day?

Answer:
nurmi enjoyed far too much. Noticable!

Hi TxP....the last tweet I saw in the exchange was the one where Tara is talking about the Hello Kitty purse? After that it's not pulling up anything for me....do u know what happened, or where can i get the second part of the interview?

 

[gauntlet]

Question:
Did you find Nurmi very hard to listen to with all the sex talk day after day after day?

Answer:
nurmi enjoyed far too much. Noticable!

Ha. Her reply to that 'disappeared', Wild said Answer to the last question is coming in a second, thanks for your patience people. and then he asked it again. She then said:

Tara Kelley ‏@tarakelley320 12s

@WildAboutTrial for some reason I'm not seeing the ? But it was hard listening to the sex talk over and over and Nurmi liked to talk #17WAT

 

[TXProfessional]

Question:
What is your opinion of Juan's style towards Dr. Samuels and Laviolette?

Answer:
he was good, a little over the top at times but it worked! They were very flustered on that stand with him!

 

[polleypockets]

I'm not sure I agree 100% with that. I think it may have given some another "mitigating" factor and that would have been mental illness (even though it was never part of the DT's CIC).

don't forget when mom said that jodi like to complain she was raised w/ abuse but it wasn't true - it was her imagination - paraphrasing - that really gets rid of the formans mitigating factor - no parent abuse and show she lies about abuse imo