Arias death penalty option, PHOENIX (AP) — Jodi Arias' effort to get the death penalty option in
her murder case temporarily set aside was met Friday with a swift
rejection from the Arizona Supreme Court in a one-sentence response
denying the motion filed just hours earlier.
Arias is charged in
the June 2008 stabbing and shooting death of her lover in his suburban
Phoenix home. She claims self-defense, while authorities say she planned
the attack in a jealous rage. Testimony has been ongoing since early
January.
After failing to win a mistrial or stay of the death
penalty option in the lower court earlier this year, her defense
attorneys sought relief Friday from the state's highest court, which
quickly rejected it. Her trial is set to continue Monday with the death
penalty still on the table if prosecutors can secure a first-degree
murder conviction.
Arias' attorneys argued in early January before
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens, who is overseeing
the trial, that the lead detective on the case perjured himself during a
pretrial hearing aimed at determining whether the death penalty should
be considered an option for jurors.
Mesa police Detective Esteban
Flores testified at the hearing that based on his own review of the
scene, and a discussion with the medical examiner, it was apparent that
Alexander had been shot in the forehead first. Arias then repeatedly
stabbed and slashed him 27 times and slit his throat, he said.
However,
shortly before the trial began, the prosecution changed its theory of
how the killing occurred, stating that Arias first stabbed Alexander,
slit his throat and in a final savage salvo, shot him in the head. Their
story aimed to undercut Arias' claim of self-defense by noting the
sheer brutality of the attack.
Arias' attorneys claim she shot
Alexander first to fend off his attack on her, but the bullet didn't
stop him, forcing her to continue to fight for her life by stabbing him,
which they are hoping could lead to a conviction on a lesser
second-degree murder charge or even an unlikely acquittal.
Contrary
to Flores' testimony at the previous hearing, a medical examiner later
told jurors the gunshot probably would have incapacitated Alexander. So
given his extensive defense wounds, including stab marks and slashes to
his hands, arms and legs, it wasn't likely the shot came first.
The
detective later acknowledged that he misunderstood the medical examiner
in his mistaken testimony, but he never admitted committing perjury.
Stephens denied the mistrial motion and testimony continued.
Prosecutors declined comment Friday. Defense attorneys have not responded to a telephone message from The Associated Press.
Arias,
32, has been on the witness stand for nine days, describing in
painstaking detail specifics of her life in the years leading up the
killing — from an abusive childhood to dead-end jobs. Yet when asked to
detail events from the day she killed Alexander, Arias drew a blank,
noting there were "huge gaps" in her memory from that day.
She has
said she only remembers shooting at him, putting a knife in the
dishwasher and disposing of the gun in the desert as she drove from
Arizona on her way to Utah to see a friend. And she immediately began
planning an alibi "to "throw the scent off for a little while."
Arias'
grandparents reported a .25 caliber handgun stolen from their Northern
California house about a week before the killing — the same caliber used
to shoot Alexander — but Arias claims to know nothing about the
burglary. She says she brought no weapons to Alexander's home on the day
she killed him, again attempting to undercut the prosecution's theory
of premeditation.
During her cross-examination Thursday, the
exchanges grew so heated that the judge admonished Arias and prosecutor
Juan Martinez to stop talking over each other. Arias smirked at times,
while Martinez stammered in frustration.
"Do you have memory problems, ma'am?" Martinez asked.
"Sometimes," Arias replied.
Martinez
hammered back, noting it's puzzling that she can't remember such
crucial details to the case, yet "can tell us what kind of coffee you
bought at Starbucks sometime back in 2008."
Arias first told
authorities she knew nothing about Alexander's death. She later blamed
it on masked intruders before eventually settling on self-defense. She
now says she remembers Alexander in a rage, body slamming her and
chasing her around his home.
She said she grabbed a gun from his
closet, and fired it as they tussled. She had no explanation for the
multiple stab wounds and slit throat.
However, according to court
records, she previously told police before her trial began that
Alexander was unconscious after she shot him, but then "crawled around
and was stabbed."
Via : http://finance.townhall.com/home/news/regional/2013/02/22/prosecutor-questions-woman-in-arizona-murder-case-n1517941
