The Jodi Arias Retrial: A Juror’s Perspective
DAY 17
“BOULDER OF EVIDENCE”
This is the third phase of the Death Penalty Retrial of Jodi Arias for the premeditated and heinous murder of Travis Alexander. The third phase is sometimes called the sentencing or penalty phase. It can also be called the aggravation and mitigation phase. This phase is different from the first two phases for a Jury. In the prior two phases, they reach a decision “beyond a shadow of a doubt” and this is done collectively and requires a unanimous vote. The verdict in the first phase determines the type of murder. The agreement of a verdict in the second phase is the death penalty qualifying phase.
The third phase requires a Juror to come to his or her own decision in deciding life or death for the defendant. Their path of knowledge and experience does not have to be agreed upon by the Jury as a whole. Each Juror makes their decision influenced by their own personal experiences. It is usually those same experiences that are drawn out of the Voir Dire Questionnaire prior to their final selection.
One of those questions read, “Have you ever experienced Domestic Violence in your direct household? Please explain:”
In the mitigation phase, a Juror must ultimately decide if there is a preponderance of evidence, or it is more likely than not, that mitigating factors will reduce the culpability of the Defendant’s act. For the Juror to give abuse weight as a mitigating factor, they must determine that it was more likely to have existed than not. The Juror may decide that some abuse may have existed but it is not enough to reduce culpability. Or, they may decide it did exist and should be considered as a mitigating factor There is a specific law addendum that focuses on Domestic Violence that the Jury is given.
Juan Martinez has to convince twelve Jurors that the Defendant’s aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors in this case.
The Defense team only has to convince one and they win the best possible scenario in their case: the life of the Defendant.
Sometimes, when I go to the Jodi Arias Retrial, I feel like I am walking down a slightly unfamiliar path but know exactly what is around the corner. I spent six months as a Juror the similar case of the brutal killing of Dale Harrell by Marissa DeVault. Our case had similarities that extend to this Jury. It had a similar path of testimony and it required twelve of us to pass through all three phases separated by deliberation periods. The longest period we deliberated was in the third phase of the trial. We deliberated over three and a half weeks to reach a decision in the sentencing phase. It is the most difficult phase of all. The difficulty is entrenched in “a preponderance of evidence” as opposed to a “shadow of a doubt”. It is the decision that requires truth from the soul as well as experiences of life.
Our Jury had three Domestic Violence survivors on it. This Jury is more likely than not, to have two to four Jurors who have experienced Domestic Violence. I am one of the three Domestic Violence survivors. It is not a fact I am proud of and it is not a badge. It is a life experience that requires soul searching in determining if someone else was a victim of a similar experience. There are rarely witnesses. There are rarely those who will stand up and admit they were abusers. There are the people who look away and pretend it does not exist.
I know that the Jurors who admitted on the Voir Dire that they had experienced Domestic Violence all regretted writing the experience down while they were driving home. A Juror completes the Voir Dire without any notice that a question like that will appear. The answer to that question was a big reason they were qualified for the Jury. Its importance will be realized in the deliberation phase and the law recognizes its challenges.
The day opened with Dr. Geffner on the witness stand being questioned by Jennifer Willmott. It was not the most exciting day for many because the day was spent mostly on the education of the Jury on Domestic Violence. It began with some loose and sloppy evidence when Jennifer Willmott put Dr. Geffner’s DAPS (Detailed Assessment of Post-Traumatic Stress) Report on all the screen for the Jury to see.
The Jury saw what I saw. The paper displayed on the screen had been copied about twenty times with little gray flecks all over the documentation. There were a bunch of scribbled dates on the top of the sheet done in Sharpie. The dates were scribbled out and changed. The Doctor claimed he got his paperwork mixed up. The graphs on the screen did not look computer generated although they may have been.
The center of the graph has a thin line going through it. It is the “mean” or average results. Jodi Arias’ results featured a bar graph that was at the very top of the graph. Dr. Geffner stated that her results “profile is extreme with some exaggeration.”
The Jury won’t look at that document in the deliberation room. It impeached itself by its presentation so all the words that may have been spoken to the Jury may as well have been the same white noise we hear in the Gallery when the Judge has a bench conference.
He and Jennifer Willmott continued the education of the Jury on Domestic Violence by putting up a chart that was circular with pie slices.
“If you look at it as a pie,” Dr. Geffner said in a professorial tone, “You will see that each piece is has a name for it and represents a segment of Domestic Violence. Consider the entirety of the pie as power and control. One piece of it is physical abuse. This covers such things as hitting, hair pulling, slapping and generally violent physical behavior.”
The Jury looked at him and I saw two or three taking notes. I would have expected more taking notes. I remember as a Juror that I took notes on everything because I did not have the knowledge to discern what was important or not. There were times I did not take notes because we had either heard it before or the testimony was valueless because the witness had impeached him or herself.
In my book, “Brain Damage: A Juror’s Tale”, one such witness was Stanley Cook who was a direct witness to the murder of Dale Harrell. One would think a Juror would be a voracious note taker when that witness was on the stand. Once you meet the witness in the book, you’ll understand why none of us wasted our time with notes.
The fact that few are note taking tells me many are not appreciating the weight of his testimony as the Defense would like.
The Doctor continued, “There is emotional abuse which includes putting a person down, calling a person names and blaming the other person for many things. We can see another slice enumerating isolation as a form of abuse. The abuser will keep a person hidden away from family and friends.”
Although it was simple to follow, it became tireless in its unending detail of the complete rainbow of the abuse spectrum such as sexual abuse, intimidation, economic abuse, using male privilege to control and threats of suicide.
I felt the air change when Jennifer Willmott began pursuing how these attributes applied to Travis Alexander. I thought this Psychologist affable yesterday and my opinion changed with each question that Willmott asked. I did not feel that this was a foundation of what Travis Alexander was as a person and I did not agree with the Doctor “making the pieces” fit. I don’t think the Jury liked it either because we were back on Travis Alexander with only one day of respite in his character assassination.
The Jury wants to know about Jodi Arias and this argument was deflected in the wrong direction. Juan Martinez objected to much of this testimony’s relevance throughout the day.
The Jurors who have experienced Domestic Violence were not relieved when the Doctor’s focus changed to the upbringing of Jodi Arias.
The Doctor spoke in long paragraphs about the Psychological reactions to being an abused child and how it manifests itself in adulthood. He talked of the loss of identity a victim goes through. He speaks of the fears, guilt, shame, self-blame, depression and suicidal thoughts of victims of child abuse. He was not afraid to speak of the dependency, emotional instability and host of other ramifications of abuse that appear in adulthood.
The Doctor drizzled the knowledge he was conveying to the Jury by randomly connecting it to Jodi Arias and the abuse she allegedly suffered. He spoke of the wooden spoon incident about seven times throughout the day emphasizing its welts. It was because of her upbringing that she became the introverted victim that she was. The results of abuse were conveyed in her cognitive, emotional and social character of being a victim of intimate partner violence.
Jodi Arias’ mother sat in the front row. I wonder what the Jury searched for on her face.
Juan is going to have a field day on this Psychologist. I noticed that the Doctor brought up incidents between Arias and Travis Alexander from 2006, 2007 and 2008. He used these dates more than once. The Jury is wondering how that is possible if they only dated for four months.
The Jury was also introduced to a new “memory gap” from Dr. Geffner. He claimed she had issues remembering anything from when she was twelve to fourteen years of age. I don’t think it got past the Jury to see that it coincidentally lined up with when she was caught growing Marijuana in her room in the seventh or eighth grade. The Doctor offered that she could not remember the trauma she must have suffered.
We are in the middle of the afternoon and no one on the Jury is taking notes.
Her second memory gap surrounds the murder of Travis Alexander but the Doctor does say she is “remembering bits and pieces”. I looked toward the Prosecution table and thought about what Juan Martinez might do with that tasty morsel. Juan loves dates. Dr. Fonseca remembers that much of her interrogation.
This Jury does not care to see this Doctor any more. His evidence is like an artificial boulder made from Styrofoam. It looks big and heavy and when lifted it is weightless.
Those who have survived Domestic Violence, a most horrific thing to go through, can see straight through this Red Herring. There is nothing there and its value lost in paperwork somewhere. Somebody forgot to prove that Jodi Arias experienced abuse whether it was in her childhood or by the hands of Travis Alexander. The rest of the Jurors will dismiss it far faster than those who have experienced it.
The feigning of abuse by partner or parent is particularly personal to those who have been persecuted by an abuser. It makes us angry because it diminishes its great importance and reality that it exists. It exists behind closed doors and to the deaf ears of neighbors. It has many forms and its damage is real. Many survive and some do not survive its effects. We have heard stories of feigned abuse all of our lives which is survivors reminder, and it upsets us.
There is a line between discipline and abuse. If the discipline is physical to a child, the line is defined by the presence of a mark.
The Jury will have an impossible time trying to link abuse to Jodi Arias.
Jodi wore her “poor little me” face all day. I did not see her look at her mother once…
“Every good relationship that develops as a result of this Trial is the manifestation of the Spirit of Travis Alexander.”
Justice 4 Travis Alexander…
Justice for Dale…
Paul A. Sanders, Jr.
The 13th Juror @The13thJurorMD (Twitter)
The 13th Juror @The13thJurorMD (Twitter)
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