Jodi Arias Trial Update: Life Or Death Decision 'Unfair,' Says Jury Foreman

It may have only taken Jodi Arias trial jurors three days to pronounce her guilty of first-degree murder, and mere hours to deem her eligible for the death penalty, but the process of deciding her sentencing was so difficult it was "unfair," according to the jury's foreman.

Following more than 13 hours of deliberation, the same eight men and four women who convicted Arias of premeditated first-degree murder informed Judge Sherry Stephens last week that they were stuck, and would have to choose a "non-unanimous agreement" as a final sentencing verdict. After the jury announced it could not agree whether Arias deserved the death penalty or life in prison, Judge Stephens declared a mistrial in the penalty phase of the trial, and dismissed jurors from proceedings.

In an interview shortly after the jury's decision was announced, jury foreman William Zervakos described the "brutal no-win situation" jurors experienced during deliberations. The 69-year-old said the jury's central concern was answering the question: How heinous does a killing have to be for the killer to deserve "a similar fate?"

"The system we think is flawed in that sense because this was not a case of a Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson," Zervakos explained to The Associated Press.

"It was a brutal no-win situation. ... I think that's kind of unfair," Zervakos said. "We're not lawyers. We can't interpret the law. We're mere mortals. And I will tell you I've never felt more mere as a mortal than I felt for the last five months."

A 32-year-old waitress and aspiring photographer from California, Arias was found guilty May 8 in the gruesome premeditated first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend, 30-year-old Alexander, in June 2008. Arias confessed 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.

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 106 seconds.

The jury determined Arias was eligible for the death penalty during the "aggravation phase" of the trial; and it only took jurors three hours of deliberation to decide Arias had killed Travis Alexander in a "cruel, heinous, or depraved" manner that would warrant the death penalty; but in a trial that personified the interminable convoluted despair of the American legal system, a clean end may have been nothing more than wishful thinking.

In a trial full of shocking, emotional displays, Zervakos said the most trying phase of proceedings came when jurors listened to victim Travis Alexander's brother and sister explain through tears how his death had impacted their lives.

"There was no sound in that jury room for a long time after that because you hurt so bad for these people," Zervakos said. "But that wasn't evidence. That's what made it so hard. ... This wasn't about them. This was a decision whether we're going to tell somebody they were going to be put to death or spend the rest of their life in prison."

Zervakos said jurors were emotionally raw during deliberations, and suggested mitigating factors may have been a breaking point for some jurors during decision-making. With tears flowing and tensions rising, jurors often found their "moral compasses" askew, and could not reconcile their personal beliefs about which mitigating factors were significant enough for the jury to save Arias' life.

"You've got Travis Alexander's family devastated, that he was killed, that he was brutally killed. You've got Jodi Arias' family sitting in there, both families sitting and seeing these humiliating images and listening to unbelievably lurid private details of their lives, and you've got a woman whose life is over, too," Zervakos said. "I mean, who's winning in this situation? And we were stuck in the middle."

Mitigating factors jurors had to consider include: Arias' "young" age at the time of the killing; Arias' capacity to comprehend the inherent "wrongfulness" of her actions or ability to act within the confines of the law was "significantly impaired; Arias could not possibly have "reasonably" understood ahead of time that her behavior during the act of killing Alexander "would cause, or would create a grave risk of causing, death to another person; While Arias was "legally accountable" for the deeds of another, her involvement was "relatively minor; Arias was suffering unusual and substantial duress"; Arias' alleged rough childhood/family background, and history of domestic abuse as a young girl, and at the hands of Alexander.

Zervakos refused to share his personal opinion of other jurors or if Arias deserved the death penalty, but he admitted he was "torn" between the disparate personas of her presented in court: a murderer and a typical woman in her 20s just trying to live her life.

"You heard (prosecutor Juan) Martinez say she was only 27. ... She's old enough that she should have known better," Zervakos said. "I didn't look at it that way. I'm looking at 27 years of an absolutely normal everyday young woman that was living a life that was perfectly normal. Then something changed the trajectory of her life after meeting Travis Alexander, and it spiraled downhill from there."

Much of the state's case against Arias focussed on her inherently "manipulative" personality. Prosecutor Juan Martinez reminded jurors repeatedly that Arias often contradicted her own testimony, providing diverse recollections of events, and told numerous outright lies which she admitted herself were falsehoods.

With the jury deadlocked on Arias' fate, prosecutors must now decide whether to continue their pursuit of the death penalty for Arias. State's attorney Martinez could possibly offer Arias a plea bargain that wouldn't require a new jury, but that likely depends on just how confident he is in his ability to once again argue for Arias' execution. Prosecutors have not yet announced their plans for the case. Both sides are scheduled to announce their plans at a June 20 status conference.

If Martinez demands the death penalty, the trial will enter jury selection all over again for the sentencing phase, which would reportedly begin July 18. If the second batch similarly can't come to a unanimous decision, Judge Stephens would then have two options. Either sentence Arias to life in prison with no possibility of parole, or sentence her to life in prison with parole possible after at least 25 years behind bars. The judge does not possess the authority to sentence Arias to death.