Trial day 53: REBUTTAL; #162

[IBsleuthin]

The ME has years of experience and has done thousands of autopsies so I'll go with whatever he says. Plus, everything he said makes sense to me.

But...but...aaaaaahhhh never mind. This was a good post.

 

[MrW]

I am so tired of the defense TH's saying no premeditation because of the messy crime scene. Why is it so difficult for them to think that JA had a whole murder plan in her mind. One where she would arrive, have sex, get him in the shower, torture him a bit and kill him right there. She didn't expect that it would take a heck of a lot more. This was not in her mind. Everything went amiss and then it was all improvised. I'm not even sure she ever planned on using the gun, I think the gun was a prop to keep her in the shower, where she could stab him. I think the gun was used last because although he was already dead, his body could have been making sounds and she shot him to be "humane", as she said in the police interview.

BBM - I agree with most of your points here. I have a good friend who was LE for 30+ yrs, our wives are good friends and love watching CSI-type TV... He loves to tell the ladies that "murder is messy" and even the best planned murder can go awry. If the victim doesn't have the "decency" to die immediately, well, even a planned killing can get very messy - quickly... I've been to a few crime scenes (not many) when I worked for a mortuary pick-up service during college. The scene is much more intense than the goriest TV or movie, just because it's real - add in the smells, and, well, it's not pleasant.

 

[kaydono]

I understand but the REALITY is that families don't want to face the REALITY when there are problems with children. Parents Protect Their Children. It is human nature. I know.

Yupp, exactly. My instinct, as a parent, if I saw behavior that concerned me with my son or daughter, would be to seek outside help. The Arias's skipped that part.

 

[ElleElle]

O/T ~ According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Smith will be eligible for parole on November 4, 2024, after serving a minimum of thirty years. She is incarcerated at South Carolina's Leath Correctional Institution, near Greenwood.

Source: Susan Smith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Susan Smith, if I remember correctly, was found guilty of first degree murder. I cannot, off hand, recall why she was not sentenced to DP. Was is due to her state not having the DP? I forget.

 

[wasnt_me]

Why do you think TA was naive? He was almost 31 yrs. old.

I don't think age correlates with being naive. Sometimes in relationships, I still find that I'm naive at 40.

 

[kaydono]

O/T ~ According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Smith will be eligible for parole on November 4, 2024, after serving a minimum of thirty years. She is incarcerated at South Carolina's Leath Correctional Institution, near Greenwood.

Source: Susan Smith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2024? wow

 

[m1279]

Thinking of something I heard today. The jury watches the family and their behaviour. We've seen sadness, grief from travis family. Jodie's mom has sat in court, giggling, smiling, at the most crucial times. She doesn't even attempt to show any kind of remorse to the victims family.
The grandmother looks confused and out of place! Poor thing. I'm not putting Jodie's mom down! I've tried to put myself in. Her shoes. I have two grown daughters myself, I think I would feel shame that my child could do such a heinous crime. I would want to give the family a hug and express my. Remorse.
I'd be ashamed that my child could be so evil.
I would cry for my child of course but I would put responsibility where it belongs! Tough love. I wouldn't try to excuse what she did! I wouldn't be biased and say well if he hadn't done this or that.
The man has a family he was. Human he was loved.
Rant over:slap:

This is terrible, but I actually asked my mom the other day what she would do and how she would react if I were in a position such as JA (hypothetically!!). I was telling her how JA's mom was reacting in court and such. She said she would be there to support me, she wouldn't turn her back, but she would feel intense shame, and intense sympathy for the family of the victim. This isn't something I'm seeing from JA's supporters in the courtroom. Of course, I have no way of knowing if she/they have reached out to TA's family, but I'm assuming they haven't.

 

[kaydono]

This is terrible, but I actually asked my mom the other day what she would do and how she would react if I were in a position such as JA (hypothetically!!). I was telling her how JA's mom was reacting in court and such. She said she would be there to support me, she wouldn't turn her back, but she would feel intense shame, and intense sympathy for the family of the victim. This isn't something I'm seeing from JA's supporters in the courtroom. Of course, I have no way of knowing if she/they have reached out to TA's family, but I'm assuming they haven't.

Jodi's 500 page letter does not count. :floorlaugh::floorlaugh:

 

[ElleElle]

She suffered from post-partum depression, but still kept having children; it just escalated after every one. And not to mention being cooped up in an RV with 4 kids while hubby is at work. moo

Premeditation can mean you keep going and going and want the person dead. You don't stabout and run like self defense, you don't stop and you deliberately cause wounds that you know no one will survive from.

Andrea Yates is severely mentally ill. Her saying that Satan was telling her to kill the kids shows clearly this, and not sane premeditation- unless it can be proven that Satan really does talk to people.

Heck I had a guy chase me on my unit once, swearing that I was his ex-wife and that he was going to "f me up" if he ever saw me again. Which I could have taken as a threat of assault (well it would have been an actual assault if my awesome fellow coworkers hadn't stepped in). I knew it was his schizophrenia talking. He wasn't on his meds.

2 days later his thinking had cleared up to the point that he at least knew I wasn't his ex and he said he wasn't going to assault me (but he still didn't like me so I still had a different person care for him just in case lol) So insane threats like that aren't like real Premeditation because its the organic brain disease talking.

Anyway She is the epitome of clinically and legally insane. She had a long history of having these issues and no one realy advocating for her to get her help and taking her seriously. SMI people can have a difficult time getting taking care if themselves and sometimes they don't think they need help and that nothing is wrong. Had she gotten the proper help, if she had not fallen through the cracks, if she had a husband who wasn't completely clueless and kept insisting on pregnancies (which messed her up more and more and the SMI can be very easy to manipulate) then its pretty darn likely that tragedy would never have happened. She is in a psych hospital forever-which is exactly where she should be. Unfortunately not many people understand this unless they work in the field, love someone with SMI, or deal with it themselves.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

 

[kaydono]

The pain and anguish that is expressed, every single day of this trial, is so obvious in the entire Alexander Family. I cannot imagine not being overcome with guilt, witnessing that every day, knowing my child caused it.

 

[IBsleuthin]

This is what I was trying to figure out. She said she lost her phone. Gus gave her a phone. This was supposedly in April. So we are on phone number two. Okay.

May 22nd she is so excited about her new phone arriving because she lost her phone a couple days prior. So phone number 3.

As I asked the other day, does this mean 3 phone numbers? 3 SID or SIM cards? Don't you have to get a new SIM each time this loss happens? I don't know if that means a new number, but if it does, isn't it amazing how Travis always had her number, but she was "breaking away" from him as indicated on May 22nd? again, I ask, what better way to break away than moving and changing your number? What perfect time to change your number than with a loss phone incident?

~~~~~~~~

I'll just say this...

Let's say you and I work together and every single day for a year you ask me simple questions about work and I LIE to you. You know I'm lying because you work there. Every single day you catch me in another lie for the next year and then the year after that until finally for FIVE YEARS you have caught me in a lie. Lie, lie, lie. WHY THEN would you POSSIBLY think that you could ask me anything about my cell phone and I would be telling you the truth?


It is a phenomenon called DENIAL. Humans do it all the time to reduce the amount of anxiety they will feel over an ever shifting landscape particularly when they cannot rationalize what has happened.

I for one, cannot begin to understand why people believe ANYTHING she says outside of her name. I wouldn't believe anything she says in connection with this case. She herself has admitted that she lies. That's what she does. She lies. For all we know she went to Walmart and bought FIVE throw away phones.

There's all the stuff we know and then there's ALL the stuff we don't know.

 

[ctmom]

I somewhat agree.

I think she wanted a "clean kill" and tried to shoot him first and something happened to the gun. A jam/misfire? Although, she succeeded at the end to shoot him him in the temple.

She then resorted to Plan B- the knife.

She brutally stabbed him in the back. She wasn't going to leave until she made sure he was dead, but I still think Plan A (gun) failed. Otherwise, why else would of she stole it from her grandparents?

IMO
Given the last minute krap the DT has flung...

If 1st degree murder is gonna be a slam dunk..
PRE-MEDITATION has to be beyond a reasonable doubt in every jurer's mind.
JM did great with the gas cans, gas purchases, Dr. Demaret's BPD, hair color change, white car rental, ryan burnes as alibi, no cell phone and Jodi's lies...

However, I will feel much more "slam dunk" confident when Juan stresses the stolen gun more, the timing of the robbery re: 2 days after jodi got the text where Travis calls jodi out on her wacco BS 1 week before the murder..... during closing arguments.

Not sure whether the knife or gun came first (It could have jammed) but the fact is...
1) She did shoot him and admits it
2) She did admit to getting rid of the gun (key evidence) somewhere in the desert.....The one piece of evidence that could prove pre-meditation BEYOND ANY DOUBT ... The gun that was stolen from grandpa a week earlier ......

BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT PRE-MEDITATION
ENSURE's a 1st degree murder conviction.

 

[Katie-L]

The ME has years of experience and has done thousands of autopsies so I'll go with whatever he says. Plus, everything he said makes sense to me.

If Justice was reduced to that - anyone accused would be automatically sentenced.

 

[Boytwnmom]

I'm a little sick of hearing this particular excuse. IMO, a judge needs to ensure she makes thoughful, legally sound rulings that can be defended. The defendent will always appeal if they are convicted. But to preface every decision with an analysis of whether it would likely cause a successful appeal is to focus on the wrong issue. The judge is essentially a hostage to the whims of the defense. Are there times when you give the defense what it wants? Sure. But it should not be based solely on the fact that the decision could be appealed.

As an in house counsel I work hard to make sure my client company is not "paralyzed' with fear that if they fire someone they will be sued, if they don't offer money to a customer with a bogus complaint they will get sued or the customer will go to a TV station and give us bad press. I try to eliminate that fear based approach to decisionmaking by focusing on making sure my clients make good decisions. Decisions that can be easily defended in court or the press if we need to defend them.

I was the HR attorney for many years. We had many cases brought against us for discrimination for example. Every state and the federal government has agencies that will, for free, take your case if you are a member of a protected class, like being over 40 or a minority. In all the years I handled those, we never lost a single one.

Why, because we DIDN'T discriminate and we could show it. We had clear, uniformly applied policies. We kept good records and had well trained managers who were taught not to say or do stupid things and knew there were consequences if they did so anyway. I concentrated on making sure we did things right and then we were free to make decisions and not be held hostage by a bad employee who threatened to sue us if we fired them. And, yes, there were times I said no, you can't fire them, because it was a situation where the perception could be we did do something wrong. But the primary focus was on doing things right so you were free to make good decisions the majority of the time.

I guess I just have a hard time empathizing with a judicial system that is so afraid of defendents that it has to allow unfair trials. If that's the case, we have a huge problem that needs to be addressed.

Thank you for this post and I totally agree. I am afraid the DT has been trying to cause their own reasons for either an appeal or mistrial. To me all along, it seems the DT is purposely trying to initiate things so they can later turn around and claim that it was invalid that it happened.

That is why I keep saying the judge needs to stick by her guns and not keep allowing jurors to be removed unless there is a darn good technical reason they should be removed.

We keep hearing people say that it is best to give the DT everything so there is no reason for appeal, but to me, it is just this sort of thing of allowing stuff in that may become the appeal.

 

[twall]

A neighbor? wow? can you see my "bad hair day" from there? :floorlaugh::floorlaugh:

lol, I'm not that close! I just noticed the city and you are closer to me than other Hoosiers on WS so I said neighbor.

And I agree about Ft. Wayne not being a great vacation spot...but it does have a nice zoo and mall!

 

[Sleuth13]

Yes, the car rental guy did testify the car Jodi returned smelled of smoke.

Jodi Arias Trial - Day 8 - Part 1 - YouTube

Somewhere in here though.

Thanks for posting!! I'd almost forgotten about her messing with the license plates on the rental car!! I guess that lie got lost amongst the 1,000s of other lies she told!!!! I hope as the jury recalls every lie, they realize she tried playing them like a fiddle and they send her to death row without blinking an eye!!

 

[ElleElle]

Yes, at the end of the hallway where the carpet meets to the bedroom.

The drag pic was originally taken upside down. I think he his throat was already slit at that point because of the amount of blood running down his shoulder.

This sounds gross, but I still can't picture her dragging him with the deep laceration and his head not falling off. *sorry :blushing:

I think the speculation is she cut his throat in the hallway---hence the large amount of blood there.

 

[Plumeria5]

Yes, the car rental guy did testify the car Jodi returned smelled of smoke.

Jodi Arias Trial - Day 8 - Part 1 - YouTube

Somewhere in here though.

Maybe from a bonfire she had near the car?

 

[wasnt_me]

~~~~~~~~

I'll just say this...

Let's say you and I work together and every single day for a year you ask me simple questions about work and I LIE to you. You know I'm lying because you work there. Every single day you catch me in another lie for the next year and then the year after that until finally for FIVE YEARS you have caught me in a lie. Lie, lie, lie. WHY THEN would you POSSIBLY think that you could ask me anything about my cell phone and I would be telling you the truth?


It is a phenomenon called DENIAL. Humans do it all the time to reduce the amount of anxiety they will feel over an ever shifting landscape particularly when they cannot rationalize what has happened.

I for one, cannot begin to understand why people believe ANYTHING she says outside of her name. I wouldn't believe anything she says in connection with this case. She herself has admitted that she lies. That's what she does. She lies. For all we know she went to Walmart and bought FIVE throw away phones.

There's all the stuff we know and then there's ALL the stuff we don't know.

Yes, she's a liar, but she also said she killed Travis. I believe her on that one. All I was simply doing was talking about whatever she was doing with these phones and wondering if she never got new SIMS or changed her numbers, is that a good way to prove a lie in this phone incident.

 

[Rocco]

I don't think age correlates with being naive. Sometimes in relationships, I still find that I'm naive at 40.

I agree. There are areas we can be naive in, not just in relationships, no matter how old we are.