After a jury found her guilty of premeditated first-degree murder last week, Jodi Arias enters the "aggravation phase" of her trial Wednesday where her victim's family, and a medical examiner will testify among others as jurors determine whether Arias acted "cruelly" and if she deserves the death penalty.
A 32-year-old waitress and aspiring photographer from California, Arias was convicted in the grisly first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in June 2008. Arias admitted to killing her former lover, so her guilt wasn't up for debate - but her intent was. Arias' defense revolved around on the beliefs that she could not premeditate murder, or fully comprehend or take responsibility for her actions because Alexander abused her so intensely that it fractured her psyche, and Arias was forced to kill Alexander in self-defense because she feared for her life due to his alleged habitual physical and emotional abuse.
Arias was often cold and emotionless in the courtroom. She sat through four months of proceedings so seemingly self-assured that she would somehow beat the odds, and jurors would believe she only defended herself that she once explained, "no jury in the world would convict me." But minutes after the verdict was announced, the walls fell down. Arias teared up in her first interview, and publicly stated that she preferred the "ultimate freedom" of death to life in prison.
"The worst outcome for me would be natural life," Arias told FOX10. "Longevity runs in my family, and I don't want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place. I said years ago I'd rather get death than life and that still is true today. I believe death is the ultimate freedom, so I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it."
As the trial now moves into the "aggravation phase," jurors will now determine whether or not Arias killed Alexander in a "cruel, heinous, or depraved" manner that would warrant the death penalty. Arizona law defines "cruel manner" as when a victim suffers physical and/or mental pain.
Medical examiners found that Arias stabbed Alexander 27 times, primarily in the back, as well as the torso and the heart, slit Alexander's throat from ear to ear with so much force it almost decapitated him, shot him in the face, and dragged his bloodied corpse to the shower where she left him crumpled over - all in the course of 106 seconds.
The jury will then consider those factors against other possible mitigating circumstances, like Arias' accusations of physical abuse, and the defense's claims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and acute memory loss.
The aggravation phase is expected to last about one day, and a verdict arrive as soon as the end of Wednesday.
Legal sources believe prosecutor Juan Martinez will argue for Arias to receive the death penalty. The state's attorney will likely first call Dr. Kevin Horn to the stand once again, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on Alexander's body.
Horn testified earlier in the trial that Alexander had been stabbed prior to being shot in the head, a statement that contradicts Arias' claim that she shot him in the head and then stabbed him as he continued to fight her. The prosecution's contention that Arias stabbed Alexander before she shot him is significant to the prosecution's case that Arias was not acting in self-defense, and didn't commit a crime of passion, but was rather "posed to strike," and premeditated killing Alexander, a position that will likely play a central role in the prosecution's argument for the death penalty.
Horn's often lurid testimony elicited a few rare instances of Arias crying in court. Horn previously detailed the chronology of Alexander's wounds in explicit detail for the court. He testified that Alexander would have been debilitated almost instantaneously after the gunshot to the head because the bullet went into his brain. He said that Alexander would not have been able to protect himself against someone wielding a knife, which was "obvious," he said, due to various defensive wounds discovered on Alexander's hands during his autopsy, which he said were caused by his attempts to shield his face to block Arias' stabs or wrestle the knife away from her
"If you have injuries to the backs of the forearms or to the palms or backs of hands, it's consistent with someone trying either to grab the knife or fend off wounds, fend off injury," Horn testified in January.
The prosecution is also expected to call the lead detective in the case to the stand in order to show the jury the ghastly extent of the crime scene and explain how the massive amount of blood spilled around the room was indicative of a struggle to fight off an attacker.
Once the jury decides on the aggravating factors, jurors will then vote in the trial's penalty phase. As jurors determine Arias' sentencing, Alexander's relatives will likely testify about the victim to show the effect he had on their lives and to show what his loss has meant to them. Both the prosecution and defense will prohibited of asking Alexander's family questions.
Arias will be allowed to make a statement prior to jurors voting in sentencing, and her family will also likely speak to the court to appeal to jurors to spark sympathy and call for them to give her life in prison.
Court resumes with the "aggravation phase" Wednesday at 1 p.m. EST.
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