The Jodi Arias Death Penalty Retrial: A Juror’s Perspective
by The 13th Juror MD
DAY 37
“A CONFIRMATORY BIAS”
Each juror prepared for court after a week off in the Jodi Arias death penalty retrial. Every single juror anticipated coming in because it meant they were a step closer to deliberations. Many were happy that the prosecution had rested its case. All of them would feel like they have been on the trial forever. Their admonishment not to watch the news has been active since early October of last year. The air is getting the feel of spring with the temperatures in the low eighties. They keep their heads high but each is getting irritable. It is becoming a confined space in one’s own mind and the admonishment closes the walls around their sanity.
The other dynamic that captures a juror’s mind at this stage is the ever growing fear of becoming an alternate juror. I have no doubt upon their arrival in the jury room this morning, that they asked Janet what steps in the trial were next. Some would even have thought the case was over after the prosecution rested. A juror is not given a guide or a calendar of evidence or witnesses. They are not allowed to ask the court anything about the trial but they can ask procedural questions.
The first question asked would have been, “What’s next?” Janet would have explained that it is the sur-rebuttal segment where the defense can present witnesses. Some would have groaned quietly. The next question would have been regarding the selection of alternates. Janet would have explained that at the end of the case, there would be a lottery held with the first numbers selected at random as the chosen alternates. The alternate is an “on-call” status juror who keeps the same admonishment not to speak to anyone or see anything related to the case. It is a fate no juror wants. One is excluded from the world and from their fellow jurors.
I watched as the jurors were filed in and seated in their usual seats. I also watched their faces when Dr. Geffner was called to the stand. In a juror’s mind clock, they remember Dr. Geffner as being on the stand for two weeks. There is not one juror who was happy to see him. The jurors are restless and his past testimony had only aggravated it.
Dr. Geffner made got comfortable in his seat and smiled at the jury. He was dressed in a gray suit with a white shirt complimented by a conservative red and blacked striped tie. He looked toward Jennifer Willmott.
“Good morning,” she said crisply. She was wearing a tan and black colored business skirt suit and high heels.
“Good morning,” he answered. He looked eager and ready to go.
“How long have you been a psychologist?”
“Thirty-five years.”
“Do you include the time that you were a student?” Jennifer Willmott asked.
The Doctor looked toward the jury. “Only when I applied for my license.”
“So, were you considered a psychologist when you getting your degree?”
“Oh, no,” he answered.
“Let me ask you this. Can you even use the word psychologist while you are learning?”
“No. You cannot use the word until you are licensed,” the Doctor responded.
“Tell me. When was Dr. DeMarte licensed?”
“July of 2010.”
“Was she practicing for eight years?”
Again, Dr. Geffner looked toward the jury. He smiled. “No, she was not. That is completely unethical in this profession and it is a clear violation of the American Psychologist Association regulations. It is ‘Ethics 101’ that you cannot say the word psychologist in this profession without being licensed. The date in her ad shows that she has been practicing eight years but she was not licensed until 2010. That is a grievous violation of ethics,” he responded, concern in his salt and pepper bushy eyebrows.
Jennifer Willmott turned on her heel and marched to the defense table. She picked up a sizable pile of labeled documents and walked them to the judicial assistant to the left of the judge. She got some copies and walked over to Juan Martinez and held them out for him. Again, she turned on her heel and took position in front of Dr. Geffner after she gave her witness copies. Her right hand held the documents in mid-air as she continued her questioning. One could see the glitter reflecting on her blue polished fingernails.
“You gave a letter to Dr. DeMarte explaining how the DAPS test was done since she did not do this test. You explained how it was administered. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“There are things she needed to be aware of or should have been aware of?”
“Yes. It was in regards to the two traumas that I identified from the test results,” he answered.
“What were the two traumas?”
“The first trauma was the domestic violence that the defendant experienced and the second was the trauma of the murder,” he said as he looked at the jury. “I even had two notes on the document but they are ‘whited’ out.”
“So,” Jennifer Willmott pursued, “one of the traumas was the day of the killing. But, I thought Dr. DeMarte said the DAPS test could not be valid with two traumas. Is that not right?”
“Actually,” Dr. Geffner answered with a chuckle, “there can be a multitude of traumas. Consider her experience with child abuse and the trauma of domestic violence in her household.”
“Okay? What about in April of 2008 when Travis choked her? Do you remember Dr. DeMarte’s testimony?” Jennifer Willmott asked.
“Yes.”
“Dr. DeMarte claims that Jodi stopped clawing at him in the middle of being choked and assaulted. Do you remember that?”
“Well, yes, I remember what she said,” he answered. “There’s nothing in the reports that indicate that happened.”
Jennifer Willmott nodded and changed the papers in her hand. “Dr. DeMarte also comments on the DAPS test saying that the emotions of a trauma should never change. She called it a static event. Do you remember that, Doctor?”
“Oh, yes,” he said with a laugh. “I disagree completely as my thirty five years of experience will tell you that, first of all, the emotions of a remembered event do, in fact, change over time. They adapt as the trauma gets further away. Second of all, you have to consider when you think about it now as opposed to what you thought about the event then. You will get varied results and responses.”
“Let me ask you this,” Willmott directed, another change in gears, “Are the results of the TSI and the results of the DAPS consistent with the defendant suffering from PTSD?”
“Oh, yes, all the testing shows she suffers from PTSD in the trauma of both events. Even the PDS test confirms that PTSD exists,” he explained to the jury.
“Okay, let’s review the Malingering test,” Jennifer Willmott said. She shuffled to a new document in her hand while Dr. Geffner followed suit. “What is the Malingering test?”
The Doctor looked at the jury again. It looked like it was going to be a long speech. The jury looked at him without any emotion on their faces. “You see, malingering is a purposeful adjustment by the person taking a test to alter their results by either faking good or faking bad. In some cases, a person taking the test may want to make themselves look crazy or make themselves look really sane, pretending to be something they are not. We have a test that checks consistency and can reveal malingering or embellishment of the truth, if you will.”
“In your assessment, did you see any sign of malingering?”
Dr. Geffner smiled affably. “Oh, no, absolutely not. I could not even trick these tests. That’s how good the malingering test is.”
Jennifer Willmott went to the podium, set down a couple of papers and came back, returning to her stance about five feet from the Doctor. “Let’s talk about sharing answers…”
She dove into a discussion with her witness on Dr. DeMarte sharing test results with Juan Martinez. It was certainly made to be a great violation in the profession’s code of ethics. A reasonable juror is certainly asking what other alternatives are available to communicate to the prosecutor of the case. Copyright laws are not a priority to this jury given they have victim who was stabbed twenty-nine times before further atrocities were committed. Its importance is trivial in comparison.
The return from lunch was marked with Jennifer Willmott spending time discussing the results of the MMPI with the defendant. Dr. Geffner and Willmott went into great deal about scales, sub-scales, clinical scales, computer profiles and interpretive results.
These test results revealed that Jodi Arias was submissive and scored well below average in hostility levels. Dr. Geffner emphasized that her explosive behavior attributes were significantly low and seething could not be an emotion the test results showed. Her anti-social attitude was well below the average. Most importantly, every scale contradicted that any anger was within her. It was apparent that she would not hurt a fly and all tests supported it.
Dr. Geffner made a point to say that this was confirmatory bias. This bias was inherent in Dr. DeMarte’s testimony as clarified by the contradictory results.
Juan Martinez objected regularly throughout the day. In some cases, they were based on relevance and in others, they were based on the long-winded narratives that Dr. Geffner would break into. I could see Juan Martinez occasionally jotting notes down, the top of his pen danced along a legal pad. He was building his hit list for cross examination.
“Let us take a look at Exhibit Number 842,” Jennifer Willmott directed authoritatively. “In these statements from the restaurant she worked for, The Purple Plum, she had started there in May of 2008 as a bartender. She left July 8, 2008 after she was arrested. The statements tell us that she was not after all the men. Instead, they say that she would oftentimes be distracted and unfocused. People she worked with always had to get her attention. What does this tell you in its contradictory nature?”
The Doctor turned his chair to the jury. “You see, she was clearly suffering the effects of PTSD. There’s a disassociation that is common with this disorder.”
Jennifer Willmott was interchanging exhibits on the projector for everyone to see. Her fingernail polish could be seen briefly as she straightened each document. “What is your assessment on the statement of her employer, Gary Brinkman, who states that when she worked there at seventeen years-old, she was bright and bubbly. Yet, the second time she worked there in April of 2008, she had no emotion and was flat. What do attribute the behavioral change to?”
“It is certainly a disassociation related to her trauma of domestic violence,” Dr. Geffner answered. He was very self-assured in his diagnosis.
Jennifer Willmott spoke of Arturo Rodriguez of Caso Ramos saying Jodi Arias was hired as a bartender and she was very sad. He is also a Pentecostal Pastor from Mexico City. He always felt she wanted to cry. She showed no particular interest in men.
“Doesn’t that contradict what Dr. DeMarte claimed?” Willmott asked.
“Absolutely,” the Doctor agreed.
I watched the jury as Jennifer Willmott and the Doctor went about their business. The jurors did not look comfortable. One juror was picking at her cuticles absentmindedly. I watched another juror who was looking down. He was immobile and I wondered if he was asleep. He was not. Another juror looked like she was intently drawing something because during the multiple sidebars, she continued to stay intent in her lap. I watched another move uncomfortably in his seat.
Jennifer Willmott put up another exhibit. She was discussing how nice Jodi Arias was at The Purple Plum and how she was never inappropriate, another contradiction she had said pointedly. I wonder how many jurors noticed the statement regarding her behavior of a work schedule change and her kicking a hole in the wall.
The confirmatory bias was no longer working in the defense team’s favor. Somewhere in the drudgery of the repeated testimony of Dr. Geffner, the tables did turn. Somehow, the defense team had managed, through repeated contradictory statements, to drive home the point that Jodi Arias was almost a person that one should empathize with. There was a great sadness in her lack of emotion. It was almost as if she were blessed by the Virgin Mary herself with an enumeration of her angelic qualities.
“Did you take note that Dr. DeMarte accepts Travis Alexander’s statements as true?” Jennifer Willmott asked at one point.
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you consider the source of these statements?”
“These statements were mostly based on Travis Alexander’s roommates and friends.”
“Isn’t that confirmatory bias?”
“Absolutely,” he answered. “To ignore statements from all sides is misleading. It is not appropriate and not the way a forensic evaluation should be done.”
“Do you want to look at Exhibit Number 615 with me?” Willmott asked Geffner.
“Sure,” he eagerly agreed.
Jennifer Willmott read from the large screen in front of the jury. “Regan Housley, in a Gmail chat to Travis Alexander, refers to Jodi Arias as scary and crafty. Do you see that?”
“I do.”
“Regan mentions that Jodi Arias figured out Travis’ password. How is this important?”
The Doctor swings his chair toward the jury as he has done all day. The jury does not look to be in rapt attention. “This is an example of all the evidence coming from Travis Alexander. He is the one who told her about the password and he is the one telling Regan Housley that Miss Arias is scary. This only shows that he was manipulative for the benefit of himself.”
“This is contradictory to what Dr. DeMarte says, isn’t it?”
“It sure is. None of us can say physical or mental abuse occurred. This only comes from the defendant. But, we have supporting statements that we must consider. I have thirty five years of experience and sixteen thousand pages of study I did that confirms both child abuse existed as well as domestic violence with Travis Alexander.”
I notice that nobody in the jury has been taking notes for what seemed like hours.
Dr. Geffner was talking to the jury. “Dr. DeMarte does not have the experience to know what research is. I’ve had over thirty years of going to conferences and being on committees. I have always been aware of current research in areas of domestic violence and abuse,” he boasted.
Suddenly, something started beeping from the media area of the courtroom. Dr. Geffner stopped speaking and everyone looked toward the offending area as the room went silent. Randy, the Bailiff, got up and walked half way over. I did not want to be the guy whose stuff went off in the middle of court and chose not to look that way and embarrass anyone further. The sound stopped and court resumed.
Dr. Geffner continued. “Dr. DeMarte does not know the names of any journals. Journals are where current research is posted. All she can mention are some articles she might have read but nothing comes from journals. The editors are friends of mine and her lack of knowledge is dangerous,” he said confidently.
The moment the afternoon took a drive even further south was when Jennifer Willmott put up the beautifully crafted graph of all the girls that Travis Alexander had spoken with simultaneously over a period of time. Each girl’s name was listed with her own designated color of red, yellow, blue, green and a host of other rainbow colors. Its beauty was only overshadowed by its lack of value.
Somewhere in the monotony of the dialogue between Dr. Geffner and Jennifer Willmott, the wheel of power and control emerged, a sight the jury remembered from a month ago. It was a tedious and long drive back into the blood spatter that remained of Travis Alexander’s reputation after it got thrown into the street again. The jury was tired of that long and winding road of rehashed speculations.
The dynamic of the jury is changing because they are tired of the length of the trial. Not one thought that this would extend into the spring of their lives. It was becoming a time of restlessness not only for length but for the pink elephant that sat in the defendant’s chair. They did not want to hear from another doctor. They wanted to hear from the person wearing a white top with tan pants.
No one from the court can tell them she is not getting back on the stand. They are wondering when she is coming back up. Everything they are hearing has become white noise to them. They want and beg for evidence to sway them one way or another and the only one in the room that can do that is the defendant.
I have sat in the presence of Dr. DeMarte and I can comfortably say that despite what evidence was revisited, there is very little that will change their minds on how they feel about Dr. DeMarte. She has been the only person to explain why Arias committed such a vicious and cold-hearted, evil crime. She painted a picture of a woman who, by having a vacant hole in her soul, had learned to take the personality of the mate she was with. Within that disorder, something made her seething mad. In that anger, that has been vehemently denied by her defense team, she premeditatedly killed and did it in a vicious manner.
The jury is restless because they are not receiving answers. They are being drawn an image of an angel while the brutal death of Travis Alexander stares in their face. The story they are being told does not match the image of the victim’s death and what a prior jury decided. The defense team has not qualified this death with supporting mitigating factors. Her actions are contradictory to the picture that the defense has created.
The jury has its own confirmatory bias in that another jury has given them two verdicts. There is only one verdict left for this jury to decide and its simplicity is in the decision for life or death for the defendant.
It will bother the jury that somebody claimed she had no anger inside. The Doctor spoke of puzzle pieces fitting together. This piece does not fit. It is clearly an expression of anger left in the remains of Travis Alexander.
I watch the family of Travis Alexander as they sit in the front row. They are strong and resolute in their determination to see this trial through. They are as tired as the jury is in hearing the stories and speculation from an affable Doctor. They are patient and they carry themselves strong.
It will not be long from now that the jury will realize that Arias is not coming back to the stand to take ownership of the crime and to show remorse. They will be denied the opportunity to hear the rest of the story from the killer.
It is the defense team’s greatest mistake and it will not be realized until the discussion of twelve jurors echo off the walls of the deliberation room.
The task would come to fruition not too far down the road and the defendant’s fate will soon follow…
“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)
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