The Jodi Arias Death Penalty Retrial: A Juror’s Perspective
by The 13th Juror MD
DAY 31
“BALLET OF A PSYCHO-KILLER”
I remember the first time I saw Dr. Janine DeMarte and it took me an hour and a half to realize it was the second time I was seeing her. She walked to the stand wearing a black business skirt suit with a soft blue blouse and stood a little taller than average in her high heeled shoes. She appeared in phase one and phase three of the death penalty trial of Marissa DeVault and the brutal killing of her husband, Dale Harrell.
I had seen her when the first Jodi Arias trial was televised back in 2013.
It was from the jury box that I got to know her even though I had never met her. She was to the guys on the jury what Sy Ray, a detective for the Gilbert, Az Police Department, was to the ladies on our jury. Like Cy Ray, she is a good looking human being. She seems young upon first sight similar to someone you might see going through the process of law school. She carries a natural beauty accentuated by a scholarly demeanor.
We learned on that jury that she had received her Doctorate from Michigan State University in Clinical Psychology, had completed an extensive amount of training and research in domestic violence, antisocial behavior and criminology. Her resume was supplemented by field experience in forensic psychology, sex crimes and psychological disorders. In our case, it took her one day on the witness stand, being questioned by Eric Basta, prosecutor for the justice of Dale Harrell, to untangle the defense psychological experts of Dr. Carp, Dr. King and Dr. Conte.
I can comfortably say that jurors will have a love affair with her testimonial counter to Dr. Fonseca and Dr. Geffner.
Juan Martinez presented her and I saw the jury note takers busy. He was able to extract the same history of her experience as expertly as Eric Basta did, with fluidity, and quickly.
“Have you ever been called a hired gun?” Juan Martinez asked.
“No,” DeMarte answered. She sat at attention in the witness chair with her head arched forward when speaking into the desktop microphone.
“Has any Judge ever said that you lacked credibility?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been found to have committed any unethical behavior?” Juan asked. He was using the back door to go after Dr. Geffner’s long string of court rulings and legal machinations after some of his testimonials.
“No, I haven’t,” Dr. DeMarte answered.
“When did you first interview Arias?” he asked. The jury was used to Juan Martinez and his complete lack of pleasantries with any witness. He only referred to the defendant as either, simply ‘Arias’ or ‘the defendant’.
“July of 2011,” DeMarte answered.
“For what purpose?”
“I was to do an evaluation for psychological disorders.”
“How many times did you speak with the defendant?”
“I spoke with her four times for four hours and totaled about seventeen hours with her,” she answered without referencing any notes.
“Did you give her just psychological tests?” Juan asked as he paced a couple steps.
“No. We gave her a reading test, as well.”
“Why would you do that?” Juan questioned.
“It is important in understanding a person for validating any test results. We need to understand the mental acuity of a person which ties directly to understanding the psychology of that person to make a proper assessment,” she explained.
“What did you find?”
“She scored at a high level,” DeMarte answered. She quickly opened a file from in front of her and read, “12.9, almost at the highest level.”
I looked toward Arias who sits in front of me about twenty feet away. I can only see her back and it did not look like she was interested in a word DeMarte had to say as she whispered to her other defense attorney, Jennifer Willmott, during testimony. In my times of stealing glances, she consistently ignores Juan Martinez when he is on stage. It crossed my mind that she surely would not like this psychologist.
“Any other tests?” Juan asked.
DeMarte opened another manila file and answered, “The Wexler Intelligence Scale. We spent one point five hours on this examination.”
“What were the results?”
“Scoring suggests a high intelligence.”
Juan Martinez walked to the prosecution table and picked up a sheet of paper with a bright green, Post-It sticking off the edge. He walked across to the left of Judge Stevens and handed the judicial assistant the exhibit which she promptly reproduced. He made his way to the defense table, handed the Exhibit over while saying, “Move to enter Exhibit Number 863.”
Dr. DeMarte waited patiently while Juan made his way to her and handed her the Exhibit. She took it and studied it for a second and set it in front of her.
“Have you disclosed these results to both the female psychologist as well as Dr. Samuels?” he asked. We had heard the reference to the female psychologist before and I believe she wanted her name kept secret. I suppose that was something we were all used to in this retrial.
“Yes,” she answered.
Juan walked to a projector and put the test results of the WIS that showed on various screens throughout the courtroom. DeMarte proficiently and detail explained each category of the exam while highlighting the categories that Arias did well in. These categories included a full scale IQ, perceptual reasoning, verbal comprehension, processing speed and a general ability category. In three categories, she scored far above average.
“What other tests did you perform?” Juan queried.
“We administered the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI) on August 11, 2011.”
“Is there anything significant about that test where validation would be required?”
“Yes,” DeMarte answered. “This test is a self-reporting test and can be flawed by malingering.”
“What does that mean?” Juan asked.
“Since a person self-reports incidents that might be psychologically significant, there is always a possibility that answers can be falsified. We use the term, malingering. There are tests to check for that,” she explained.
“Are you also familiar with the PDS test?”
“Yes.”
Juan started pacing as his questions accelerated. Jurors took notes as he progressed in his dance to get information from Dr. DeMarte. “How is this different from the TSI test?”
Dr. DeMarte looked toward the jury as if teaching them. One might say it is a crash course in psychology. She had the ability to quickly clarify her thoughts so the jury would easily understand.
“The PDS test identifies Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and the significant event that caused the syndrome. It is fairly specific to that event. It considers primarily the emotion a victim feels at the time of the event. The event never changes and neither does the emotion felt at the time so we call this a static event and it is a marker in a validity scale,” she explained.
The jurors looked interested.
She continued. “We also look at the results of the TSI and it considers a number of variables and is more broad in its assessment. It deals with emotional responses, intrusive experiences, anxiety and has a depressive component also.”
“What is the MMPI?” Juan Martinez asked. He looked focused as he paced in short , purposeful steps.
“The Minnesota Multi-Phasic Inventory is the most common of examinations and we used the second and newer version. It tests personality traits and attempts to identify psychological disorders,” she answered.
“Any other tests?” he asked.
“No.”
“Explain to me what happens then. You have a number of tests that you check against validity scales. You verify they are accurate to the best of your knowledge, and then what?”
DeMarte explained that they then take a combination of a person’s history, test results and interviews and then draw specific conclusions.
Juan stopped pacing and faced the Doctor. “Do you want to tell us what the conclusions were?”
Dr. DeMarte opened another folder and read the result into the microphone. “She has a Borderline Personality Disorder and a Psychological Adjustment Disorder.”
“Can you explain that?” Juan Martinez asked.
“Yes,” she said looking toward the jury. “Basically, it shows the presence of a negative psychological symptom which usually arises from a significant change in someone’s life.”
“So you’re saying it is a trauma?”
“Yes.”
“Could this trauma be from jail?” Juan Martinez asked as he started pacing again.
“It could be,” she answered.
“Could it be from a medical condition?”
“It could, although I did not see that in this instance.”
“Is this a mental illness?”
Dr. DeMarte hesitated. “It could be but generally this is a psychological disorder.”
“What of this Borderline Personality Disorder?”
“It would be a psychological disorder,” she answered confidently.
I was familiar with what happened next as I had seen Eric Basta and Dr. DeMarte do a dance in two phases of the DeVault trial. I learned from her in the first phase and witnessed the destruction of the defense team’s psychologists in a mere flash of a couple of hours. She stood solidly in facts and documentation. She paid attention to detail and juries really like that. When I heard, moments before, that she was to reappear in the death penalty phase of our trial, I was excited as every juror was. We had really taken to her in the first phase of premeditation. The third phase was going to be a blueprint of the first phase in DeVault and, somehow, I nicknamed her the “Psycho-Killer”.
A ballet began with Juan Martinez pacing the floor and leading Dr. DeMarte through a quagmire of test results and their importance to each other. She not only verified the prior examinations of Dr. Samuels and the female psychologists against her own, she checked the validity of answers against each examination taken. They revealed a concerto of malingering with inconsistent answers between tests and wildly swung emotions spoken when asked about the static event of Travis Alexander’s murder.
In one case, Arias stated it was a very emotional at the time of the event yet when asked the same question on another test, she recalled having very little emotion. Her answers were especially inconsistent with anything regarding Post Traumatic Syndrome Assessments.
Juan Martinez swayed into his prior questioning of Dr. Geffner and his realization that his results were problematic because Arias had lied on a significant question. She had carried the Ninja story into many of these examinations and given it was not true, so too followed that any diagnosis would be based on false information and rendered useless. Juan danced right down the hallway of malingering and a missed validity scale to leave the testimony of Dr. Geffner and the female psychologist as nothing but fodder in a field.
“Can you give me another example of an inconsistency that draws your attention?” Juan asked.
“Arias told Dr. Geffner that in April of 2008, Travis Alexander had choked her. She said he was in a rage and attacked her while getting on top of her. She was in fear for her life. She tried to scratch him and then stopped because she said she did not want to hurt him,” she explained.
Juan nodded as if to say that she could continue. His hands were clasped behind his back.
“Her life was in danger,” DeMarte stated. “That is an atypical response in that scenario. It is more than unlikely it could have happened that way.”
“What does that mean to you, doctor?” Juan asked.
“There are only three possible human responses if a person’s life is in danger. Fight, flight or freeze. It is not possible that someone, being choked and, in fear of their life, would stop in the middle of the attack to show empathy or protect the attacker. It is not only impossible, it is simply illogical,” she answered.
I could not tell if Arias looked her way but I am sure she could not have been pleased. She did not know it then but the bloodletting was about to begin.
The ballet would have been pleasant to watch except that it seemed like every question that the prosecutor would ask the witness, it was interrupted by Kirk Nurmi standing up and saying, “May we approach?” A five minute sidebar would follow and the jury received their information one point at a time.
This is not an uncommon experience at this phase of the trial. We went through the process as a jury and we came to understand this tactic as a way to break the rhythm of the prosecution. For the note takers on our jury, and the seven on this jury, it gives each time to keep up with the evidence. There is a half full mentality to this because jurors did not fall off the bus yesterday. We see opportunities to acquire information and Dr. DeMarte was a Mt. Everest of it.
“Do you know who Amy Lance is?” Juan asked DeMarte.
“Yes,” she answered. “She grew up with Arias.”
“Move for admission of 872” Juan said as he walked to the judicial assistant. He had his copy made, gave it to the defense and faced DeMarte. “Will you read that for us?”
“It’s a statement from Jodi Arias cousin who states that when they would attend family functions, Arias was “snide, rude and sarcastic. She could be a total bitch,” the Doctor said as she put the exhibit down.
“Would you consider the defendant as lacking in self-esteem as the Doctors for the defense claim?” Juan asked as he stood in place.
“This is aggressive behavior,” Dr. DeMarte said flatly.
“Let’s look at number 880,” Juan continued as he went through his circle of communication by handing off copies to all parties involved. “The date of this is October 25, 2008 and it is a statement from Gary Brinkman, the owner of Purple Plum, a restaurant in Yreka, California. Do you see that and will you read it for us?”
“It says she worked there two times,” the Doctor began, “with the first time working as a busser. She worked there again and came on as a server. The owner says she ignored her guests in favor of giving males attention. She was very flirtatious with the good looking guys. Of special concern was when he witnessed a guest come into the restaurant and Jodi lied to him by saying she had just moved to town and would like a tour,” she finished.
“What does this tell you as a Clinical Psychologist?”
“The behavior is aggressive and does not demonstrate a lack of self-esteem,” she stated as she set the exhibit down.
Juan Martinez put a new exhibit up and it was a statement from Arias’ half-sister, Julie. She told a story of Arias leaving the memorial service for Travis Alexander and boarding a plane. She met a guy named Nick, exchanged phone numbers and called him the next day from her house.
The jury will not miss the callousness of her disregard of the victim as well as the family. The jury has heard of the two written letters to the family after the death of Travis and this will give them a window into the soul of Arias and the person sitting in the defendant’s chair. It is one of those thoughts that will not leave your head as a juror. Your job is to understand motivations and to decide a preponderance of evidence leaning one way or another. Much looked to favor Juan Martinez with his powerful partnership of the striking Dr. DeMarte.
Juan Martinez did not miss a beat after returning from lunch. The jury listened and took notes attentively as he proceeded to display example after example of Arias being assertive and aggressive with special attention to her sexual aggressiveness with men. He pointed to letters, statements, a sex tape and Arias’ own words from her journal as he began the attack she so richly deserved. For once, it was Travis Alexander standing in the room in the arms of DeMarte and Martinez.
“Did you find any mention of abuse by Travis Alexander?” Juan asked with emphasis in his voice.
“No,” Doctor DeMarte answered simply.
“Were you able to talk to anyone who could corroborate any physical violence to Arias?”
“No.”
“Tell me, Doctor,” Juan asked with a pause, “all allegations of abuse came from where?”
“Jodi Arias.”
“Is it important that there is no mention of domestic violence in any of her journals?”
“Yes,” DeMarte answered. She turned to the jury briefly. “A journal is a personal thing. She evidenced behaviors and documentations of the smallest of details. It would be inconsistent behavior that one would avoid putting incidents in a journal because those impacts are too big for one to ignore.”
“Did you find any medical records that show domestic violence injuries of any sort?” Juan Martinez asked passionately.
“No, I did not,” she stated.
“What of the test results from Dr. Samuels and the female psychologist? Did you find anything at all that would support the existence of domestic violence?”
“No.”
Juan paused, walked to his table and took a drink of water. He turned around and asked her, “Was there any corroboration or lack of corroboration to the defendant’s argument of domestic violence?”
Dr. DeMarte did not pause when she answered, “A surprising lack of corroboration.”
Jurors love evidence they can see, touch and feel. Reasonable jurors will take most of her testimony in the deliberation room one day and they will find that it will remain standing against two other psychologists because it felt like something they could see, touch and feel.
In their acceptance of her statements, they will recognize the victim. They are continuing to realize that Travis Alexander never had a chance. There are one hundred and fifty two pictures rolling around in in their heads of the horrific death of the victim. For every day that Juan Martinez is up, it feels like Travis Alexander is in the room. It is his turn to speak and Dr. DeMarte carried a loud and convincing voice.
The jury was excused for the day. They do not know that Jodi Arias has decided not to continue her testimony on the stand. They are still waiting for her.
It turns out that they had three questions in the basket regarding her testimony last Halloween. The questions have been dormant for months. Judge Stevens directed outside the presence of the jury that those three questions had to be presented in open court.
Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott needed time. It was beginning to look like time was going to quickly become a precious commodity for Arias.
Three questions waiting for the defendant.
What could they be?
P.S. Recorded live with a pen and a piece of paper at the Jodi Arias Death Penalty Retrial.
“Every good relationship that develops as a result of this Trial is the
manifestation of the Spirit of Travis Alexander.”
manifestation of the Spirit of Travis Alexander.”
Justice 4 Travis Alexander…
