This is a Repost of Day 15 to clear an error. Please disregard prior Day 15. My apologies for any inconvenience this has caused. Paul
The Jodi Arias Death Penalty Retrial (Sentencing): Day 15 - "A Juror's Perspective"
"You know the Code of Ethics in Psychology? You're familiar with it?" Juan Martinez pointedly asked of Dr. Fonseca in the last day's testimony.
"Yes, Mr. Martinez," she answered. "I am familiar with the Code of Ethics."
"Under that Code of Ethics, Ma'am," he pointed out while standing his ground, "You are required to give tests and make opinions based on full and detailed research? Am I correct?"
"Well," she started, "there's a voluminous amount of..."
"Do you feel you've been objective, Ma'am?"
Dr. Fonseca looks to the Jury, away from her interrogator. "Well, you see, I use multiple data points, extensive research as well as objective research in the best ways that I can."
Juan walks up to the witness box, saying, "May I approach, Your Honor?" along the way.
Dr. Fonseca looks at the document and appears to recognize it. Juan Martinez walks a few steps toward the Prosecution table and turns around.
"You recognize exhibit 741?"
"Yes," she nods as she inspects it.
It is the Gmail chat from May 26, 2008, one of the final conversations that Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander had before his horrific murder.
"You said this was a rant, didn't you?" Juan asks her.
"Well," she laughs, "It was a term."
"It's not a Psychological term is it?" He continues without waiting for an answer. "You said it was a 5-Hour rant, didn't you?
"It was a long time," she answers.
"I want you to look at the pages in your hand. It says from 2:32 AM until 4:47 AM. That's not five hours! Is it, Ma' am?"
Dr. Fonseca appears to inspect the pages, flipping them back and forth. "It's almost three hours," she concedes.
"Actually," Juan points out, "it is two hours and fifteen minutes." He looks down at the carpet while pausing. His eyes look up until he meets hers. He does not accuse but instead simply states, "You wanted to make Travis Alexander look out of control, did you not?"
"No," she answers.
"Five hours is not correct. Is it, Ma'am? You chose five hours and it is not five hours, is it?"
"Well, not quite," she says quietly.
Juan asks her almost as if confused. "Don't you have an ethical responsibility to be accurate?"
"Yes," she answered.
She completed that line of questioning on our last day in Court.
Juan Martinez would continue that assault today with Dr. Fonseca but not until Kirk Nurmi had to get up and rebuild the house that Juan had so masterfully destroyed. I don't think anyone looked forward to another day with Dr. Fonseca.
Kirk Nurmi speaks with his witnesses as if he is working out a problem with them. Where Juan takes short, fairly abrupt steps, Kirk Nurmi likes to walk. He changes direction slowly. He holds one arm out like a Sherlock Holmes would hold his pipe while expressing a thought. Where Juan asks pointed and directed questions, Kirk Nurmi likes to give a life history of a question. It's as if he wants to encourage his witnesses to say as much as possible.
Dr. Fonseca gladly obliged with discussions about Travis Alexander being two different people, how he and Arias came from abusive families, how he kept her hidden and pointing out that he made her suffer in silence. She went on at length about the six hour rant that Travis had with Arias on Gmail.
"It's debasing," she politely explained to the Jury in relationship to the Gmail exchange of May 26, 2008. "It's insulting and demeaning and really shows their interaction patterns and the dynamics of this sexually charged relationship. This is a written example of his five hour rant and who know how many were not in writing? People might rant for an hour or two but six hours is a long time."
I scratched my head. Was it five hours or six hours?
Kirk Nurmi walked in a semi-circle in front of the eagerly awaiting Dr. Fonseca. "We began by talking about, in general terms, why sexual proclivity is important."
Dr. Fonseca begins her thoughts without ever having heard a question. "It speaks to the dynamic of these two people. It suddenly exploded. Mr. Travis Alexander spoke to Jodi like the way Juan Martinez speaks to me."
"How does he speak to you?" Mr. Nurmi queries.
"Objection! Relevance." Juan Martinez says while standing up.
It was not the first objection and it wasn't the last. Juan Martinez would not let go of her. It was like pulling in a two hundred pound Marlin from a fishing boat deep in the ocean. It was slow and heavy work but one could feel the forward progress. He was as aggressive as I have ever seen him.
A number of months back, I was a Juror for the murder of Dale Harrell. The trial of Arias and DeVault are not only similar in structure but also in the cruelness of the premeditated murder. We also dealt with days and days of Psychological testimony. We furiously took notes and we cared passionately about what we did in our service.
I remember sitting in the Jury box, (I talk about this in my book "Brain Damage: A Juror's Tale" available on Amazon.com), and I was positioned out of my normal seating. Instead of sitting on the inside end of the front row, I was on the outside of the top row. Dr. Carp, a Psychologist, was on the stand and she spoke for days much like Dr. Fonseca has. I happened to look in the Gallery, where the public and media sit, and there was Juan Martinez.
Juan Martinez was sitting in the back row alone. He had no notepad and no cellphone. I had never seen him in person but recognized him from Arias' televised first trial. He was wearing a white shirt with a pink tie enveloped by a dark suit. He sat with his hands in his lap and watched as Dr. Carp peered above her books and volumes of reports on Marissa DeVault. He was there on two afternoons. I wondered why he was there.
Today, I realized that I now knew why he was there in that courtroom this past spring. He was sizing up his adversary. It may not have been the same Psychologist but it was all based on the same general ideas. He was looking for weaknesses and reactions. He was getting ready for the retrial of Arias and it was hard for me to believe we were here. It had been a long time coming.
His homework paid off as he went in for the kill on Dr. Fonseca. She fought like a two hundred pound Marlin, never giving Juan any slack. She deflected and stuttered. At one point, she stopped looking at Juan and only looked at the Jury, her lips pursed.
"What does it say on the second page?" he asks her pointing at the document in front of her. He turns and says, "Why don't you read it for us?"
Dr. Fonseca maneuvers her glasses and reads aloud, It is written by Travis Alexander. "You couldn't get off your lazy butt to read it, could you? That's the sociopath I know so well. It feakin' figures," she says as she puts the papers down.
Juan points at her as if to say that she wasn't finished yet, motioning her to pick the papers back up. "You see that there? The next one down, Ma'am. What does it say, Ma'am?"
She reads aloud again with little effort in her voice. "I don't want your apology. I want you to understand what I think of you. I want you to understand how evil you are. You are the worst thing that ever happened to me."
The Court is silent for a moment while Juan Martinez lets it sink in. Travis Alexander was able to make a significant appearance. He makes a half turn and looks at her. He had a habit of moving to topics with little notice.
"Do you know what Greenwich Median time is?"
"Do you know what Greenwich Median time is?"
He proceeded to dual it out with her. The time was only two hours and fifteen minutes of a "rant" and not five or six hours. Being this was covered the other day, it showed her resistance to facts.It will ring as "sloppy" to some Jurors.
Her memory got very foggy again. She kept fighting off his blows by saying vehemently, "That mis-characterizes my testimony!".
"Yes or no, Ma'am" Juan Martinez would bark at her.
She quibbled over testimony she had given twenty minutes prior and Juan did not let up. He kept pulling at the line. She argued about items she testified about days before. She looked to the Judge and asked if she could help.
Judge Stevens responded, "Please continue..."
Quite unexpectedly, the Jury spoke in more ways than one. They submitted a healthy batch of questions at the completion of her testimony. Arizona is one of few states that allow questioning of a witness via an official Juror questionnaire form. They do not discuss each others questions and no one knows who the questions come from. They are independent Jurors similar to saying "I, the Jury". They submit their question and the attorneys and Judge review them before they are accepted by the Court. Not all questions are accepted and some are not read to the witness.
One Juror asked about Travis' sexual proclivity with other partners. Someone inquired whether it was his sexual habits being hidden or whether it was women being hidden. Another Juror wanted to know if the conversations of death and suicide were a form of manipulation. A Juror asked if experience and events such as pornography could change the dynamics of a relationship.
There was a question about the "trigger" in the Gmail. This Juror wanted to know what made Travis so upset. Why was he angry with her? What had she done? They were not satisfied with any answer because Dr. Fonseca didn't have any answers.
Still, another Juror asked if Travis Alexander showed off anyone else on Social Media and another asked if there were any other pictures of girls on his Facebook Account. The experienced Psychologist responded negatively to both questions.
One particular Juror asked why her exhibit was marked as starting at 9:30 PM while the record said 2:30 AM. Someone else asked where she had gotten her information from on the internet?
She answered most questions as she gave her testimony. There was nothing particularly stunning about any answer she gave because she liked to talk.
I was glad to hear the Jury asking questions. It's far too early to tell if they are leaning one way or another because they are still individual Jurors. It tells me they are engaged. It tells me they are doing what they are supposed to do. They have to listen to the completion of both sides before they can lean one way or another. They must withhold judgement until they are released to the deliberation room.
Then, we lost Juror #3. There is no applause and there is no knowledge as to why. The State has alternates for a reason. It is pointless to speculate as it will remain a secret.
There is a dynamic in the background of a Jury that few speak of. The longer a trial, the more each individual Juror vests in time and sacrifice. The serious note takers will feel a tension lurking a little more than everyone else. The thicker the notebook, the less you want to be selected as an alternate.
The alternates are picked the day the Jury goes into deliberation. By losing one Juror, each Juror has just increased their odds of being on the final twelve. They will be sad to see one go but the sadness is short lived. The Trial will go on without her and God Speed to her. I thank her for her service. She was one of the seven note takers.
"Wasn't Daniel Freeman travelling with Travis Alexander as a chaperon because Travis did not want to be alone with the defendant. Isn't that true?!" Juan Martinez asked Dr. Fonseca.
One could see that she was tired. She had darkened circles under her eyes and her fight seemed limp. Her aggressiveness had turned to sarcasm.
"Mr. Martinez, the audio on the recording wasn't very good," she answered.
"I need the Court Reporter to read the question again?" Juan asked.
The older gentleman in the pink shirt with the red tie, the Court Reporter, looked at his machine and then said, "...He didn't want to be alone with the defendant, did he?"
"I don't know. It mis-characterizes what I was saying. Daniel Freeman just went along..." Dr. Fonseca tried to respond.
"Are you saying Travis was surprised Arias came along? He was there," Juan said figuratively pointing to a passenger seat, "because Travis Alexander asked that he come along because he was afraid of Jodi Arias! Am I right?"
"I have a problem with my hearing," she said offhandedly.
"So you have hearing problems?" he said with a slap of the back of his hand on the other.
Then, she went off on him. She turned to the Jury. "You see? Mr. Martinez has memory problems. This is an example of the badgering and the slime highway that I have to go down with Mr. Martinez."
Juan stares at her. "So, Ma'am, you didn't hear it so it must not have been said." he turns and walks to the Prosecution table. "Finished with this witness..."
I think the Jury heard exactly what the Psychologist didn't hear...
Through Juan Martinez, the Jury watched the irreverent and punishing interrogation of his witness and somewhere out of the rubble, they heard from Travis Alexander.
Some Jurors may be impacted by Juan Martinez' aggressiveness. They might even feel sorry for the Doctor with so many years of experience. They may not even like him all that much. But this is not about Juan Martinez and it is not about Kirk Nurmi.
It is about a man who brutally lost his life at the hands of another. It is about the voice that speaks for him because he know longer can. It is about Travis Alexander and those who have survived his death. It is about a path to Justice and sometimes it is paved with passion.
It is about holding Jodi Arias accountable for her actions.
The Court closed today with my hearing a rumor that three defense witnesses were afraid to testify...
Justice 4 Travis Alexander!
Justice for Dale!
Paul A. Sanders, Jr.
The 13th Juror MD @The13thJurorMD (Twitter)
The 13th Juror MD @The13thJurorMD (Twitter)
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