Retrial for Sentencing of Jodi Arias - Day 19 - Shortest Court Day, EVER

[AZlawyer]

LOLOLOLOLOL! You shoot and kill someone because you hate them and want them dead but....oh, your honor, I didn't mean for them to suffer. Right.

Right, exactly. She wanted to kill him in a Christ-like manner as she would have presumably said if she'd described the murder in her journal.

 

[bznbear]

No one who follows this case here or anywhere would be on the jury, they would have been excluded during voir dire. I wouldn't want to be on the jury simply because I have no patience for this type of case/trial day after day. It's not a "who done it" it's a "yep, she did it and now we're going to spend months on looking at why and if there were mitigating reasons for it." Zzzzzzzz.

BBM I have to disagree. When I first started following the case I had not formed an opinion regarding guilt/innocence, so in that vein I can see some of us being chosen. But I'm with you as far as patience goes.

 

[Love Never Fails]

Right, exactly. She wanted to kill him in a Christ-like manner as she would have presumably said if she'd described the murder in her journal.

Oh my....you are so right. How do you explain crazy?

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I think it does matter. If it was determined that she shot him first then can claim she was going for a "merciful" killing and wanted to shoot him in the head and have him die quickly/suffer less. But her "merciful" plans were messed up by him fighting back, so she had to stab him and slit his throat. She just had to.

In my opinion it's a less heinous scenario than stabbing someone, shooting them and then slitting their throat.

Anyways JSS the first judge had first written an opinion saying how heinous cruel the first scenario was and how it qualified for the DP. THEN the prosecution said that the stabbing came first and according AZL, JSS had to pretty much twist herself into a pretzel to defend her new position that stabbing first is even more heinous than the first scenario. Her ruling made it possible for this to be a DP case. Everytime she's about to lose me, I think about that and I keep believing in good old way too damn cautious JSS.

** Edited after reazing AZL's correction to what actually happened

I don't see that it would matter either way. This murder was beyond cruel and a total overkill no matter which came first or last.

It certainly meets the definition of cruel, no matter the sequence of events and that is what makes it a proper death penalty case.

If she did shoot him first incapacitating him where he was defenseless to protect himself and then further victimizing him by stabbing him repeatedly and finally cutting his throat from ear to ear then that is just as bad or worse, imo as the shot coming last.

If I was on this jury the sequence wouldn't matter to me. It is the overkill and cruelty that would matter completely.

In fact at the moment I cant remember any other case where the murderer killed the victim in three different ways.

 

[Hope4More]

AZL...thanks for the shot last reply and links to court minutes.

If I understand correctly, the potential appeals issue is whether or not Flores' original shot first testimony was a "harmless error?"

I don't see pretzel twisting logic by JSS in deciding that it was harmless. The DT can't and didn't claim that a shot first killed Travis.

Even if he was shot first, he fought back and was thus alive, and necessarily experienced physical and mental pain. And even if JA original meant to kill him "mercifully" by shooting him, she had to have known that he was suffering as she stabbed him dozens of times, and as his hands were sliced trying to ward off the blows. There is no way he was quiet as those agonizing blows fell.

As for the knife. The best spin the DT can put on the gun first then knife scenario is the ridiculous proposition that she had the presence of mind after shooting Travis to " remember " and reach for the rope cutting knife conveniently left in the bathroom.

All that such a gun first scenario points out is how determined she was to see him dead. IMO, its always been clear that she shot him last. She used a knife precisely to inflict the maximum amount of pain. She said as much while being interrogated by Flores.

 

[Amster]

The legal community in Arizona should be eternally grateful that Sherry bowed down, once again, to the convicted killer and nixed showing this farce live and in living color. What an embarrassment....still can't understand why an incompetent judge is allowed to continue to disrespect the jury, the victims, the prosecutor, the COA and most likely the Supremes of Az.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

AZl, it also raises the question to me of how she could claim self defense in her trial? How does anyone say that murdering someone by gunshot is merciful? Being merciful means allowing that person to live, right? She took his life! How was that merciful? It wasn't as if he had a terminal disease and they had been married for 60 years and she thought she would lessen his agony!! For any attorney to stand before a jury and say she was trying to be merciful, well...if I was on the jury I would laugh out loud. I don't mean to offend you, but the antics of lawyers defending a murderer and claiming she was being merciful by shooting him is horrible.

Arguments aside, JA slithis throat and stabbed him repeatedly. There was no self defense involved. All she had to do was to run nd get help next door, call 911, but no. She cleaned up, showered him, left him there, called and left him a voicemail, grinder Ryan Burns and covered her tracks. No self defense in any of that. I hope JM wins his case, in spite of crazy lawyering and insane judges.

Exactly. The only one who had defensive wounds was the victim she murdered.

 

[Caylee Advocate]

Please god, I hope nobody calls, this is the kind of nonsense that happened in the first trial with defense witnesses, and it was beyond stupid IMO. Let the people do their jobs in peace. I hope it wasn't an Alexander, but some IDIOT who thinks JSS's boss/supervisor has time to be taking calls from people who should be doing better things with their time.

IMO, this would be so over the top stupid. Do people even realize what kind of a shitstorm that would create? At times I would love to shake JSS until she is cross-eyed, simply because she appears so weak (and I have said that on numerous occasions), but I damned sure wouldn't want her replaced, can you imagine the delays in doing so? JMO, but I have faith that everything will be resolved, later than sooner. I put 90% of the blame for the delays on JW and KN, the other 10% on JSS.

 

[LambChop]

How does one try to visit an inmate with the intention of threatening them? Do they write on the visitor's form that they are there to threaten her? It does not appear the visitor was able to visit her. So how would they know that for sure?

 

[AZlawyer]

AZL...thanks for the shot last reply and links to court minutes.

If I understand correctly, the potential appeals issue is whether or not Flores' original shot first testimony was a "harmless error?"

I don't see pretzel twisting logic by JSS in deciding that it was harmless. The DT can't and didn't claim that a shot first killed Travis.

Even if he was shot first, he fought back and was thus alive, and necessarily experienced physical and mental pain. And even if JA original meant to kill him "mercifully" by shooting him, she had to have known that he was suffering as she stabbed him dozens of times, and as his hands were sliced trying to ward off the blows. There is no way he was quiet as those agonizing blows fell.

As for the knife. The best spin the DT can put on the gun first then knife scenario is the ridiculous proposition that she had the presence of mind after shooting Travis to " remember " and reach for the rope cutting knife conveniently left in the bathroom.

All that such a gun first scenario points out is how determined she was to see him dead. IMO, its always been clear that she shot him last. She used a knife precisely to inflict the maximum amount of pain. She said as much while being interrogated by Flores.

The issue on appeal would be whether JSS was required to strike cruelty as an aggravating factor in light of the fact that it was based on admittedly false testimony. JSS acknowledged that the testimony was false, which ordinarily would mean striking the agg factor, but then quite reasonably pointed out that if Flores had instead testified (in 2009) to the exactly opposite thing Horn actually said (in 2013), the result would have been the same. And for extra insurance she threw in the fact that the DT had already known about Horn's testimony for a year and hadn't said a word about it. (Presumably this was due to a pretrial interview of Horn.)

Harmless error is a thing that comes into play only at the appellate level. The appellate court could say: (1) we agree with JSS that the DT was late in raising this argument (but then that would be ineffective assistance of counsel...), (2) we agree with JSS that the murder qualified as cruel with "gunshot last" and that it doesn't matter what Judge Duncan's reasoning was as long as she got it right, or (3) we disagree with JSS--she was required to strike the agg factor--but it was harmless error. Number 3 makes literally no sense, of course; if she was required to strike the sole agg factor but didn't, and a death sentence was imposed, that would be an error that directly affected the sentence.

If JA meant to kill him instantly with the gun and only stabbed him because, e.g., he disarmed her or the gun jammed or it slipped out of her hands and slid across the floor and the only handy weapon was a giant knife that just happened to be there, the fact that he suffered would not constitute "cruelty" for legal purposes because she didn't know he WOULD suffer before it happened. She only knew he WAS suffering and was trying to put an end to it.

This is all hypothetical obviously.

 

[bsk]

Right, exactly. She wanted to kill him in a Christ-like manner as she would have presumably said if she'd described the murder in her journal.

She needed to do it in a positive manner so as not to violate the Law of Attraction.

 

[Hope4More]

I do think it is worth it and to give in would show weakness and would show how the justice system can be manipulated by defense attorneys and defendants into forcing the results they want.

Since you brought up the second resentencing phase it made me think of something.

From what I have read this has happened in AZ on four prior occasions before this one. During the resentencing phase three defendants were sentenced to death and one received LWOP, iirc.

What I would like to know is which Judges handled those particular cases and how long did those resentencing cases take to be completed.

Something tells me none of them were like this circus that is happening in the JA trial.

Maybe AZlawyer knows of the cases and knows how long each one took to retry.

I don't think they need to reconsider the law because, imo, there will never be another case like this one. As someone said earlier....it is an anomaly and that's putting it mildly.

IMO

We disagree.

I'm not talking about JM capitulating mid-trial by dropping the DP. Once the DA decided to retry, the retrial should and will go on until whatever conclusion.

And I'm not suggesting that AZ law be rewritten solely because of the JA trial. I don't know how much an anomoly JA's retrial is, because I haven't read up enough on those 4 other penalty retrials.

Even if all 4 others went swimmingly, though, that wouldn't change my mind. Sometimes it takes an unusual single circumstance to illuminate flaws in a system. I think the JA retrial has done just that.

Bottom line, I don't think there is any equitable way to conduct a DP penalty retrial. For better and for worse, the jury sitting now is experiencing an entirely different trial than did the first jury. They've "missed out" seeing JA on the stand for 18 days, and thus don't have the context of seeing her attack the prosecutor, smirk, tell endless lies, etc. etc. etc.

And so much more. Toss in the additional reality that the definition of mitigation is so wide open, and the rules about admissibility so lax, that even a sterner judge wouldn't be able to prevent an unremorseful killer from using a retrial to inflict additional pain to survivors.

JMO, but once is enough.

 

[wenwe4]

Please don't any WS'rs call JSS boss. I am sure that they are well aware of the length of this trial - court schedules are backing up because of it, no doubt. (IMO)

I do understand the frustration and I have been guilty of being outraged at the snail pace of this trial.

Just to put this in perspective the trial started on Oct 21st, there have been 36 potential days for trial (M - Th) not including Thanksgiving or the 2 week Christmas holiday. If court were to have been held from 9 - 5 there is a potential for 6 hrs daily = total of 216 hours.

To date, jurors have been present 16 days for a total of 69 hours of testimony.

 

[sharpar]

The lenght of this trial is only a moment compared to the time ja will spend in solititude at perryville.
Calm down folks

 

[TexMex]

We disagree.

I'm not talking about JM capitulating mid-trial by dropping the DP. Once the DA decided to retry, the retrial should and will go on until whatever conclusion.

And I'm not suggesting that AZ law be rewritten solely because of the JA trial. I don't know how much an anomoly JA's retrial is, because I haven't read up enough on those 4 other penalty retrials.

Even if all 4 others went swimmingly, though, that wouldn't change my mind. Sometimes it takes an unusual single circumstance to illuminate flaws in a system. I think the JA retrial has done just that.

Bottom line, I don't think there is any equitable way to conduct a DP penalty retrial. For better and for worse, the jury sitting now is experiencing an entirely different trial than did the first jury. They've "missed out" seeing JA on the stand for 18 days, and thus don't have the context of seeing her attack the prosecutor, smirk, tell endless lies, etc. etc. etc.

And so much more. Toss in the additional reality that the definition of mitigation is so wide open, and the rules about admissibility so lax, that even a sterner judge wouldn't be able to prevent an unremorseful killer from using a retrial to inflict additional pain to survivors.

JMO, but once is enough.

I think the 18 days on the stand cut both ways. The original jury saw her as a smirking liar..true. But it made a couple of them (especially the forman) see her as a troubled girl. IMO seeing her on the stand for sooo long humanized her to some of the jury.

 

[RR0004]

How does one try to visit an inmate with the intention of threatening them? Do they write on the visitor's form that they are there to threaten her? It does not appear the visitor was able to visit her. So how would they know that for sure?

Leave a calling card?

 

[Luvrosco]

I wonder if the TA family regrets not going for LWOP. I understand they feel she deserves the DP, but this has got to be grueling for them. JMO

 

[Hope4More]

The issue on appeal would be whether JSS was required to strike cruelty as an aggravating factor in light of the fact that it was based on admittedly false testimony. JSS acknowledged that the testimony was false, which ordinarily would mean striking the agg factor, but then quite reasonably pointed out that if Flores had instead testified (in 2009) to the exactly opposite thing Horn actually said (in 2013), the result would have been the same. And for extra insurance she threw in the fact that the DT had already known about Horn's testimony for a year and hadn't said a word about it. (Presumably this was due to a pretrial interview of Horn.)

Harmless error is a thing that comes into play only at the appellate level. The appellate court could say: (1) we agree with JSS that the DT was late in raising this argument (but then that would be ineffective assistance of counsel...), (2) we agree with JSS that the murder qualified as cruel with "gunshot last" and that it doesn't matter what Judge Duncan's reasoning was as long as she got it right, or (3) we disagree with JSS--she was required to strike the agg factor--but it was harmless error. Number 3 makes literally no sense, of course; if she was required to strike the sole agg factor but didn't, and a death sentence was imposed, that would be an error that directly affected the sentence.

If JA meant to kill him instantly with the gun and only stabbed him because, e.g., he disarmed her or the gun jammed or it slipped out of her hands and slid across the floor and the only handy weapon was a giant knife that just happened to be there, the fact that he suffered would not constitute "cruelty" for legal purposes because she didn't know he WOULD suffer before it happened. She only knew he WAS suffering and was trying to put an end to it.

This is all hypothetical obviously.

I'm still a little confused about the grounds for appeal. JSS did comment in her ruling that Flores' false testimony was a "harmless error, " given what she believed to be evidence that Travis suffered and that JA should have known that he would suffer.

My interest in JSS' rulings on agg is entirely about whether or not she's vulnerable on the issue later on during appeals, or if she at least perhaps believes her agg rulings might be open to attack.

 

[Hope4More]

I think the 18 days on the stand cut both ways. The original jury saw her as a smirking liar..true. But it made a couple of them (especially the forman) see her as a troubled girl. IMO seeing her on the stand for sooo long humanized her to some of the jury.

Perhaps. Either way, the first jury necessarily saw a very different defendant than one who for all but one day has sat next to her attorneys, quietly doodling.

 

[Nali87]

The issue on appeal would be whether JSS was required to strike cruelty as an aggravating factor in light of the fact that it was based on admittedly false testimony. JSS acknowledged that the testimony was false, which ordinarily would mean striking the agg factor, but then quite reasonably pointed out that if Flores had instead testified (in 2009) to the exactly opposite thing Horn actually said (in 2013), the result would have been the same. And for extra insurance she threw in the fact that the DT had already known about Horn's testimony for a year and hadn't said a word about it. (Presumably this was due to a pretrial interview of Horn.)

Harmless error is a thing that comes into play only at the appellate level. The appellate court could say: (1) we agree with JSS that the DT was late in raising this argument (but then that would be ineffective assistance of counsel...), (2) we agree with JSS that the murder qualified as cruel with "gunshot last" and that it doesn't matter what Judge Duncan's reasoning was as long as she got it right, or (3) we disagree with JSS--she was required to strike the agg factor--but it was harmless error. Number 3 makes literally no sense, of course; if she was required to strike the sole agg factor but didn't, and a death sentence was imposed, that would be an error that directly affected the sentence.

If JA meant to kill him instantly with the gun and only stabbed him because, e.g., he disarmed her or the gun jammed or it slipped out of her hands and slid across the floor and the only handy weapon was a giant knife that just happened to be there, the fact that he suffered would not constitute "cruelty" for legal purposes because she didn't know he WOULD suffer before it happened. She only knew he WAS suffering and was trying to put an end to it.

This is all hypothetical obviously.

I don't understand the bolded part. Anyone want to help make it a little clearer? What result?