Jodi Arias, life or death? Day 3 of deliberations in penalty phase retrial

Beth Karas is a former Manhattan Assistant DA and a legal analyst who has been covering the Jodi Arias trial from the beginning.

PHOENIX - An Arizona jury is entering its third day of deliberations in Jodi Arias's penalty phase retrial.

Her case has spawned two trials, countless motions and hearings, and hundreds of hours of testimony but, after a 4-month retrial, we are no closer to understanding what really happened on June 4, 2008, when she stabbed to death her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander. The jury's verdict will tell us little other than what punishment she should be given for butchering him--a murder so cruel, argued the prosecutor, that only the death penalty will satisfy society's demand for justice.

The job of the new jury in this penalty phase retrial is not to second guess that she's a murderer and that she could be put to death for her crime. In 2013, the first jury made those decisions but deadlocked on whether she should live or die which is why all the same players reconvened last fall to select a new jury to decide her fate.

This retrial was the defense's second chance to present evidence to support a call for leniency--a life sentence rather than death for Arias. They hope to convince at least one juror to spare her life since a second deadlocked jury is a "win" for Arias. Arizona law gives the State two opportunities to seek death. After two, the sentence is life.

The weeks of testimony were largely an assault on Travis Alexander's character. The defense argued that Arias is mentally ill with Borderline Personality Disorder which made her incapable of handling her tumultuous relationship with Alexander, and that he was emotionally and physically abusive.

Both the prosecution and the defense accepted the mental illness diagnosis. To support emotional abuse, the defense displayed email and text exchanges between Alexander and Arias in which he berated her during some of their numerous arguments but the arguments were never put in their full context. The evidence of physical abuse by Alexander came solely from Arias whose expert witnesses, both psychologists, then shared it with the jury. With no corroboration--only Arias's word--the allegations were almost meaningless.

The defense portrayed Alexander as a controlling man who charmed women and, in his search for a wife, left a trail of dejected girlfriends. While we heard that Alexander was a popular man in his Mormon community and did many good works, he was also deceitful--holding himself out as a 30-year-old virgin to his friends and church colleagues while repeatedly and secretly engaging in premarital sex (taboo among Mormons) with Arias.

Those who sat through both trials learned more about the lengths to which Alexander kept his sexual appetite a secret. After the prosecutor argued for years that Alexander's computer contained no pornography, the defense proved during this retrial that it did exist and the State was forced to agree. The inference is that Alexander consumed porn and lots of it. Jurors may wonder why they should be lenient just because he secretly enjoyed sex and may have watched porn.

Regardless of a life or death verdict, Arias will appeal. She'll argue that her right to a fair trial was compromised by errors in the police handling of the computer and in the State's misrepresentation at first trial that there was no porn on it. The computer porn was evidence that would have bolstered her credibility in 2013 when she faced days of withering cross-examination by a prosecutor so aggressive one defense expert witness was treated at an emergency room for anxiety.

Arias testified publicly for 18 days during her first trial, but in the retrial the judge permitted her to offer testimony in private because she claimed to be too inhibited to testify in open court after receiving death threats at the jail. Her secret testimony was disrupted, however, when the order came down from the Arizona Court of Appeals last November that she could not continue her testimony behind closed doors; that the public, not just the jury, had a right to be present. At that point, Arias refused to continue testifying and never got around to describing to this jury the details of the day she murdered Alexander. As a result, her credibility was not put to the same test.

It's been almost seven years since Arias murdered Travis Alexander. Now 34, she has been locked up since mid-July 2008. Arizona taxpayers have already paid millions of dollars for her defense and prosecution. A death sentence will likely mean millions more in her appeals.

You can view the website for Crimesider guest writer Beth Karas at KarasOnCrime.com.