With the testimony of its last "expert witness" hobbled by his numerous admitted instances of "oversight" and professional mistakes, Jodi Arias' defense team is now in its most desperate phase yet in the trial. Will a psychotherapist's descriptions of her purported domestic abuse have any tangible effect on the jury?
A 32-year-old photographer from California, Arias is charged with the the grisly first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in June 2008, when she stabbed the 30-year-old man 27 times, shot him in the face, slit his throat from ear to ear and left his bloodied corpse crumpled over in the bathroom shower of his home. Arias' guilt is not up for debate, but her mental state at the time of the killing is. Arias' fate depends on whether the jury believes she killed Alexander in self-defense, as she contends, or was actually a jilted lover exacting jealous revenge, as the prosecution argues.
Now that psychologist and self-advertised "expert witness" on post traumatic stress disorder, Richard Samuels, is off the stand after six days of progressively deflating testimony, the defense has moved on to focus on domestic abuse with psychotherapist Alyce LaViolette, an expert who has authored books on the topic, has experience as an expert witness for both the prosecution and defense in about 30 criminal trials, and has also delivered speeches about PTSD.
Court was unexpectedly cancelled Wednesday, the judge's assistant announced about 30 minutes after the trial was to begin. No explanation was offered by the court.
Essentially backed into a corner after prosecutor Juan Martinez destroyed the credibility of its last "expert witness," the defense is currently breaking its back to prove LaViolette's professional credentials for her first two days on the stand; we've yet to hear her speak one word relating directly to Arias, or the case. The defense hasn't had much choice, though, if this is really its plan of attack. Samuels might have presented himself as a consummate authority on PTSD and dissociative amnesia, but he came off looking like little more than a hired-hand-puppet. Martinez hammered time and again that for someone claiming to be an expert, Samuels made a surprising amount of errors in his diagnosis of Arias.
When the trial picks up again Thursday, hopefully the defense will move on from this introductory nonsense. Of course, while the redundancy of LaViolette's testimony probably looks like nothing more than talking in circles to many, the defense isn't just spinning its wheels. These cursory discussions of LaViolette's background, and descriptions of domestic abuse victims in general are Arias' attorney's attempt to begin laying the ground work to show Arias was the true victim here, and not Alexander - something the defense has been trying to establish since the beginning of the trial.
In her testimony earlier in the week, defense attorney Jennifer Willmott repeatedly asked LaViolette to explain the profile of victims in abusive relationships.
"Why does someone stay in an abusive relationship?" Willmott, asked LaViolette, according to NBC.
LaViollete said a person's first experience with love usually provides insight to that question. "Some women see themselves as failures if their relationship fails," she said.
Arias has testified throughout the trial about the couple's equally violent and volatile relationship, claiming Alexander was often verbally abusive and controlling, and physically abused her on multiple occasions, breaking her finger, and slamming her to the ground.
Willmott focussed on tying traits characteristic of domestic abuse victims to Arias. She asked LaViollete if low self-esteem played a role in why someone might not leave a relationship.
"Most of us establish bottom lines ... with people who are abused, every time they cross their bottom line it is another place where they feel terrible about themselves," LaViolette said, according to The Huffington Post.
"As your self-esteem goes down you become another person ... and its easier [for the abuser] to mistreat you," LaViolette said.
The defense has repeatedly read passages from Arias' diary attempting to show that she has suffered from low self-image, depression, and thoughts of suicide for years. Her attorneys have poured through countless raunchy emails, texts, voicemails, and recorded phone conversations, hoping to portray Arias as an innocent girl who got caught up with a twisted man with a "nearly-predatory sex drive." Arias' lawyers have painted her as a naive, devout Mormon who was sexually exploited by an often sadistic and violent Alexander. Much of the defense's case rests on these characterizations.
LaViolette described people in abusive relationships as living in a constant "cycle of violence," she explained: "The cycle of violence is basically a tension building phase, an episode and a honeymoon phase. So that what happens is, there's tension, it builds, there's an incident, whether that incident is emotional or that incident is physical, whether that incident is verbal -- that happens and then there's the honeymoon and the honeymoon phase is where they make up [and] there's that rekindled hope ... that belief that things will change."
While the defense has read from Arias' diary, the prosecution has constantly rebuffed the veracity of the diary as proof of Alexander's character or actions, arguing it's merely suggestive of those contentions at best, as Arias never explicitly mentions her allegations of Alexander's physical or verbal abuse. Martinez has noted in court already that none of these allegations of Alexander's supposedly abusive behavior have been corroborated by any kind of evidence, or testimony from anyone but Arias.
Asked why some domestic abuse victims might hide their abuse, LaViollete testified that, "Isolation allows somebody to do mind control."
The trial resumes Thursday at 12:30 p.m. EST with more testimony from LaViolette.
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