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The (Still) Unanswered Questions: Part 2 of 5


Following on from our previous post, here’s Part 2 of our 5-part series featuring 25 of the top unanswered questions relating to Jodi’s trial.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“The (Still) Unanswered Questions: Part 2 of 5” – by Justus
(Click here for Part 1 of 5)

If I had been Jodi’s defense attorney, what follows are the next five (of 25) questions I would have put before the jury during closing arguments to counter the State’s bizarre theories. (Or if I had been on the jury, I would have presented these to my fellow jurors.)

Question #6: Why tell her supposed alibi that she’s on her way if she’s already supposedly planning a six hour trip to Mesa, commit a murder, and then at least another 10 hour trip to Salt Lake City? What kind of alibi is that?

Question #7: Why go to the trouble of supposedly removing license plates to hide her presence at Travis’ house when it would have been infinitely easier to just drape something over the plates or park down the street? Wouldn’t a missing license plate draw even more attention to the car?

Question #8: Why didn’t she kill him upon arrival at 4 am? She’s already going to be late getting to her so-called alibi.

Question #9: Why didn’t she shoot him (or quietly slit his throat) during the night when he was sleeping? Why wait until he’s fully awake with the capacity to then kill her instead?

Question #10: Why have sex with him and leave her presence all over the crime scene?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

UPDATE: The JAA Appellate Fund total currently stands at $116,061.67 — so let’s be sure to keep the momentum rolling throughout 2018, so the fund total can push on towards the ultimate target of $250,000. That in turn will help towards covering all the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction.

All donations via Justice4Jodi.com go directly to the fund. It is also the ONLY website authorized to collect donations.

In addition, please DO NOT, under any circumstances, donate through any other website or Facebook page/group claiming to be “official” and/or acting with Jodi’s approval or authorization. The same applies to any “Jodi Membership Clubs”, groups or fake Trust funds that have been set up. These sites are bogus – they continue to steal money from Jodi’s future – and they should be actively avoided. If you are aware of any such sites, please help Jodi by clicking here and reporting them.

And remember… each day that passes takes us one day closer to Jodi’s release date…

we are team jodi - and we will be victorious

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Make no mistake.

Believe it.

Prepare for it.

Be part of it.

Leave your answers to today’s questions below.

SJ
Team Jodi #WINNING <<<

Click the banner below to read Jade’s post – “Justice Denied: Why The Jurors Got It Wrong & How The Facts Decimate The State’s Case Against Jodi Arias.”:

Read - Justice Denied - Why The Jurors Got It Wrong & How The Facts Decimate The State's Case Against Jodi Arias
Click the links below to read Jade’s previous posts in the series:

Stephens, Sandbagging & The Six Month Crap-Fest
Corruption, State-Sponsored Murder & Twelve Angry Men

The Immaculate Deception: Exposed

Michael Melendez – Perjury Exposed
The Presumption of Innocence
The Great Mormon Porn Swindle

60 Comments

  1. FREE JODI ARIAS ARIZONA!!!!!
    Self Defense is NOT a Crime!!!!
    ((((JODI & TEAM JODI))))

  2. I see that the Stupid Dupers are still around. It’s been five years since Jodi was convicted and three years since she went off to prison and they are still online spewing their hate. Hate is like their opioid – they just can’t let go. Jodi (and those who dare to care about Jodi) are such delicious targets for releasing whatever misdirected hate they harbor that they go on each day to get their latest and much needed hit of hatred (their own and others), high-fiving each other and seeing who can be the most snide and cruel. And they are now also continuing to prove my point, the point being that they use their “logic” to work their way backwards into a verdict of guilt, creating scenarios to fit a conclusion and then using those scenarios to justify that conclusion. And they don’t even recognize that they are doing it (probably because that’s a little too deep for them). And then they sneer at us (because we find reasonable explanations to the same questions) by providing such shallow responses as “you act Like Jodi is so perfect she would not make a bad decision” or “the answer to all those questions is because she’s stupid.” No. Jodi is not the stupid one.

  3. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
    -Albert Einstein

    You summed it up extremely well Justus! BTW HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL!

  4. I remember when I saw these for the first time. I had asked myself.. why would you attack a man almost twice your size when he was upright, lucid and able to defend himself? This was also before I had heard about all of the physical abuse which would have made me question this even more. I do think that questions 8 and 9 can be combined as they address the same issue but I understand why they are separated. As I had said, Jodi is a victim of some bad judgment that was made worse by the lack of absolute hard evidence. I don’t know if anybody is paying attention to A&E right now, but Scott Peterson’s camp appears to be arguing the same kind of circumstances on the new yakfest which is Grace & Abrams.

    • Lance, I believe the hard evidence is there and it’s written in the blood. That blood tells a story of what happened in that bathroom and – even more important – what didn’t happen. (Nurmi needed to get off his fat ass and use some of that money provided for her case to bring in a blood spatter expert.) The blood alone on the sink and mirror says he paused at the sink sometime between the first wound and the last wound. Who does that while supposedly being viciously attacked??? Of course, the simple-minded are able to devise a scenario to explain this while ignoring the fact that 9,999 times out of 10,000 – if ever – people do not pause in the middle of being attacked; the only one who might do that is the person who is in control of the attack. This is not so hard to understand (and I do not understand why Nurmi never mentioned it other than that he was a disgrace to the legal profession and a moron) but this simple logic is ignored in favor of whatever fits some predetermined mindset. (These people need a few lessons on the meaning of reasonable doubt. It certainly doesn’t mean “if you are unable to create some other scenario in your own mind as to how it *might* have happened, only then is it reasonable doubt”. SMH!)

  5. Most people believe that travis after being shot tried to get up by using the sink. That’s why there was so much blood. While he was doing this Jodi ran and got a knife.

      • Justus,

        Nurmi, as we all know, became totally overwhelmed by this case at some early point and we all know why. he was a sex crimes attorney who had NO MURDER TRIAL experience!!! The blood expert would have been one example.. another would have been a forensic PC expert who could have accessed the pictures. The only people he brought out were shrinks so he could address her state of mind instead of arguing the facts of the scene. He likely believed she was guilty and made a decision to focus on preventing the death penalty so that he could claim his “victory” The sink evidence seems so obvious now. he exhaled the blood onto the mirror and Jodi tries to stay away from him by moving back down the hallway towards the bedroom. The possession of the knife was also very vague to me as I never heard how she got a hold of it. We knew the knife was in the area as it was considered a weapon of opportunity since they had done some rope cutting the night before at some point according to her testimony. Many of the questions that arise from this are logical… why discard the gun? why not run out of the bathroom, down the stairs and out of the house etc?. Jodi obtains the knife AFTER THE GUNSHOT but before the second attack while TA is likely in a frenzied anger from being shot. I don’t think Nurmi was capable of addressing these questions because of his mindset of her guilt and saving her life which was much simpler to handle than all of these questions that we are and have been asking. We also can’t discount the fact that he didn’t like her!!!
        Reasonable doubt is all over this case. How does Jodi’s defense bring it to the forefront and make it obvious?

    • And, Jean…so while his attacker leaves briefly to go get a different weapon than the one she already has in her hand he pulls himself up to the sink and proceeds to turn the water on and off (see page 9 of Flores’ investigation report where he says, “I noticed the inside of the sink had a combination of both deluded blood with heavy spatter on top of it. This indicated the faucet had been running initially, then turned off and the person continued bleeding for a few seconds afterward.”) Or are we to now come up with yet more scenarios to explain this in a way that coincides with guilt (and thus ignore the obvious)? Let’s see: She couldn’t continue using the gun because it must have jammed. Or maybe she only put one round-point bullet in the gun when she changed out the more powerful hollow point bullets because she thought one bullet was enough to do the job. How about when she went to change weapons he thought she had left so he decided to clean up at the sink. Yeah, that should pretty much cover it.

      • Occam’s Razor: “The problem-solving principle that, when presented with competing hypothetical answers to a problem, one should select the answer that makes the fewest assumptions.”

        …especially assumptions that are purposefully designed to arrive at a particular conclusion.

        • Going back to Jodi’s memory… how well does she remember the lull when TA is at the sink likely stunned at the site of a bullet wound on his temple which has ruined his playboy features. The blood evidence apparently proved that he stood at the faucet for several minutes possibly cleaning himself, cursing her and then chasing her again.

          Breaking News: Jodi Arias wants appeal of murder conviction to be sealed.
          Apparently, Jodi believes that her appeal will endanger certain people in the public if the appeal is not filed in secrecy.
          http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/05/15/jodi-arias-wants-appeal-murder-conviction-to-be-sealed.html

          • As far as I know, Lance, she has no memory of the lull. But it doesn’t take much to envision her thinking he was calming down, she could possibly reason with him and even help him, only to have him turn more violent because she had just shot him.

          • Interesting about the appeal. At least we know the brief’s been filed or is about to be.

  6. Not really surprising that a lot of the evidence was either bypassed and/or overlooked.

    We had a wishful-thinking fueled verdict, coupled with clueless inbred Mormon scum pulling the strings behind the scenes.

    Having said that, I’m pretty sure we’ll get to know what really happened at some later date.

    SJ
    Team Jodi #WINNING <<<

  7. Many people believe the evidence of her guilt is totally solid – no reasonable doubt, according to them. But if you ask them how they think the whole event unfolded, you will get a different story from each. How can evidence be so unquestionably sound if it “proves” different versions of the same event?

  8. Good point, and I like your earlier remarks on recent threads as well! I’ve long thought that while Jodi’s self-defense story is bizarre, there’s nothing incredible about it. By contrast, Martinez’s narrative includes numerous absurdities and at least one impossibility. My impression is that it isn’t believed even by a lot of people who believe Jodi guilty. For example, I suspect a lot of Jodi haters would concede that the gunshot was first.

    • Hey Alan/Justus,

      The Jodi haters don’t really have a choice in that regard because it was stipulated at trial finally. I will admit that Jodi’s self-defense is very unique and somewhat bizarre. However, I have said that we can’t put our rational and calm heads on her panicked shoulders as much as we may want to. One of the most unique was Jodi’s fight or flight. The bathroom struggle had both and on multiple occasions. We can ask why she didn’t sprint straight out the bathroom door and down the stairs and out the door after she shot him until we are blue in the face. It doesn’t help her. She tried to retreat back down the hallway HOPING or REASONING with him to stop. He makes his decision obviously and she defended herself. Martinez was obviously grandstanding and he should get his when this bar suit plays out. I have another question that we should ponder, if we haven’t already. When Jodi does get her appeal and hopefully convinces the appeals court for a new trial, Can she get a FAIR TRIAL anywhere in AZ?
      I also ask this due to Jodi’s concern that releasing her appeal to the public could endanger whoever is named. If the answer to that question is NO, where can she get a fair trial in that part of the country?

      • I truly believe Jodi will not receive a FAIR and HONEST trial in the state of AZ. What can be done about that, who knows? LVS/Mormon’s apparently have a strong hold on the law in that state. Totally Disgusting IMHO !! Come one Arizona I Dare You to prove me wrong!!!

  9. The AZ Republic was able to pull the appeal dates for Jodi’s case and put them in the article regarding the request to seal the appeal. Based on these dates, we won’t have a resolution until next year some time. The state doesn’t have to reply until early November and then Jodi is allowed a rebuttal to that which falls several days after
    Christmas.

    The motion is pending. Don’t expect any quick determination as to whether Arias’ sentence and conviction will stand. The deadline for filing her opening brief was pushed back to June 6. The state does not need to respond to the opening until Nov. 13, at this point, and Arias gets another reply, due Dec. 28. Those dates could change.

    That means that the Court of Appeals will not hold a hearing on the appeal until some time next year.

    • Right — and I’ve confirmed that after the CoA appeal is over, there will be several years of the PCR (post-conviction relief) process before the appellate fund will be needed to take the criminal appeal to the ASC and the federal courts.

  10. The question I have is this:

    We know why Juan didn’t put the roommates on the witness stand. Their testimony of seeing Travis last Weds evening and Thurs morning would have severely contradicted the photos on the camera because no one knew that photos existed, especially the roommates, when they gave their initial statements to Flores.

    So how can both roommates remember seeing Travis alive Weds and Thurs morning if Travis had in fact been dead Weds before 6pm? If the photos are correct then neither roommate would have seen Travis alive Weds evening or Thurs morning.

    Why didn’t Nurmi pick up on this bit of evidence or did he and was told not to pursue it because Nurmi also said that he wasn’t going to put the roommates on the witness stand either.

  11. That’s great to hear Alan! The PCR will hopefully be long enough for us to get the funds that are needed. If we assume five years of PCR, that means we would need to raise about $27K per year to get to that total that JAII has set.
    Justus- good to see the justice site back up and running. Always good reading!

  12. What’s up Dwight,

    Nurmi may have indeed known this and chose not to pursue it because we have argued here that he had very likely made his mind up on Jodi’s guilt fairly early in addition to being overwhelmed by the case file and publicity. His main focus shifted to saving her life from the death penalty which he likely privately felt was much more attainable instead of trying to argue the case. He even states this in the anniversary re-air of the trial when he touts the fact that she wasn’t sentenced to death when in fact, it was ONE JUROR. Nurmi was a sex crimes PD who, as far as I had heard, had never done a murder case just like Sherry Stephens HAD NEVER PRESIDED over one!
    The roommates were unbelievably inconsistent in their statements especially about not noticing any kinds of odors coming from the bathroom in the days after when he was found, the odor was enough to drop you to your knees! it appears that both sides felt the roommates would damage their arguments.

    • What’s up Lance! There’s no way none of the roommates didn’t smell a body for 5 days! There were people in and out of that house all the time. I also don’t buy that no one was concerned enough to go over and check on Travis for 5 days. It’s bullshit!

  13. I am very much hoping that the prison reform bill that just passed out of the house applies to Jodi and she will have the right to be moved within 400 miles of her family.

      • I’m jumping the gun because it still has a way to go to become the law, but I sure hope that it would cover inmates out of state. Otherwise, it wouldn’t help the ones most affected. My fingers and toes are crossed.

  14. Hey JD,

    I think that’s one of the many reasons that neither side wanted to put them on the stand. Their stories had too many holes in them!
    Dwight brings up a point that the photos are considered absolute proof as they are date-stamped so their statements were not possible given the accepted timeline.
    One of the other aspects that needs to be re-evaluated is Jodi’s memory of the phone calls from Travis while she is on the road to Ryan’s. As I said before, Jodi can’t prove what was said since calls aren’t backed up like texts. However, she can absolutely put the reason for her being in his home squarely on him WANTING her there!

    Carol- That’s very interesting! I know there is precedent for that although I don’t know if changing states is an option. I looked up the distance and it’s almost 1000 miles and a 15 hour plus drive. That would be a nice gesture if it was granted.

  15. Here’s an interesting ruling by the CoA that might help Jodi: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2018/05/25/arizona-appeals-court-rules-ok-use-term-alleged-victim-during-trial/643110002/

    Kiefer’s story doesn’t say that the CoA opinion requires (rather than allows) use of the term ‘alleged victim’ instead of ‘victim’ in similar circumstances, but the reasoning quoted implies that. Apparently the lower court held squarely that using the term ‘victim’ in this case violated the defendant’s due-process rights. Surely the same reasoning applies to Jodi’s case, and it’s one of the arguments I earlier suggested to her appellate lawyers.

    • The court’s reasoning applies, in its words, to any case “where the core issue in dispute is whether any crime occurred.” Surely that covers Jodi’s case, since if she successfully argued self-defense, no homicide crime would have occurred, and no non-homicide crime was even charged.

      Interesting that this opinion is written by the very judge, Cattani, who was slammed by Jodi’s lawyers, and thereafter recused from her appeal, for stating in a blog that there was never any doubt about her guilt. Did he learn a lesson, I wonder, or just get the law right independently? (The opinion seems obviously correct on federal constitutional grounds. The only issue I can see is whether the prosecution, too, must use ‘alleged victim’ to avoid violating defendant’s due-process rights.)

      • I was always appalled during the first trial that the judge continuously allowed Travis to be referred to as “the victim”. I thought in a self-defense case, that that was the object of the trial, to discover who the victim really was. Just because Travis came out the dead one doesn’t make him automatically innocent and yet the term “victim”, used over and over again implies just that. And the automatic follow-up to that term, implanted in the minds of simpletons, is that the defendant must be guilty.

        • Exactly. It seems like a huge issue to me, with federal dimensions since it’s about basic due process. We’ll have to see whether Jodi’s lawyers agree.

          • I have two questions regarding the court’s reasoning as it pertains to our claims. Does the fact that Jodi publicly was willing at one point to plead to manslaughter and Nurmi’s trial arguments stating the same in his close as worse case. Also, Alan says that no “non-homicide” crime was ever charged. Does that affect our stance in any way as one of the central arguments of Jodi’s self defense argument is that she shot him with his own gun. The fact that the gun was never found and Jodi argued that she handled the gun by firing it. If Jodi was never charged with burglary for the missing gun for which she would obviously get time served, does that fact complicate this ruling at all?

            • No, I don’t think so. What happened before trial is irrelevant, as is whatever Nurmi did in closing, after all the “victim” references had already happened. The issue is about what she was on trial for, which was only homicide, or second-degree burglary at a stretch because of the felony-murder option — these are what prosecutor and state witnesses were calling him the victim of — and her self-defense story denied that either criminal homicide or burglary occurred, so denied that he was a victim of them. Anyway, I don’t see how Travis could be the victim of a gun theft when he was already dead.

              • Thanks Alan. I don’t believe I had ever known what she was actually charged with originally.
                Regarding your last statement, I guess a dead man can’t be defined as a victim of anything other than being dead.

        • Here’s an interesting response (on a different network) to my comment above:

          “Claiming self-defense and having it be thought of as a true self-defense case are not the same thing. It was a murder trial. One murderer, one victim. Period.”

          So much for “innocent until proven guilty” during a trial. Apparently if it’s a murder trial then the defendant is, by definition, a murderer. Period.

          SMH

          • So true. I read comments like this all the time. As you say, these people don’t get that everyone, including guilty people, has due-process rights during trial and afterward too.

            Actually, the term ‘murderer’ nicely illustrates the point about ‘victim’. I doubt any court would allow the prosecutor and state witnesses to refer to the defendant as ‘the murderer’ throughout the trial, since that is precisely what is to be shown. Likewise, no court should allow ‘victim’ after a self-defense plea either, since, as Justus and Lance say, whether the decedent was a victim or an aggressor is precisely what is to be shown. And either error seems even worse when the burden of disproving self-defense is on the prosecution, as in Arizona.

        • Robin Brooke Motley has a clear and accurate legal analysis on the Super Dupes site.

    • I can possibly see using the term ‘victim’ in a murder trial where the decedent is known to have been murdered (as opposed to suicide or an accident – or as a result of his own bad behavior) because the decedent in that case would indeed be the victim of someone; we just wouldn’t know, until the verdict, if it was at the hand of the defendant. We already knew Jodi killed him, the main question to be answered was why. But as the prosecution repeatedly labeled Travis “the victim”, any possibility of his death being due to his own violent behavior was mentally and emotionally taken off the table. Travis was “the victim” in a murder trial. Jodi killed “the victim”. Ergo, Jodi is “the murderer”. End of story.

      Language is important, especially when used to manipulate the minds of jurors.

  16. Hey Alan,

    This is a very interesting ruling! It just occurred to me that in our system of justice, we don’t refer to an attacker(robber, killer, assaulter etc.) as a victim if they are killed in the process of committing their crime. They are always referred to as the “attacker”. This is a fascinating spin on language. This absolutely covers Jodi’s case and her attorneys should ride this ruling like ZORRO. Jodi was always only considered a victim when it came to emotional and sexual abuse. Travis’s squeaky clean “outer image” prevented anybody other than us from calling him physically abusive and it showed obviously in both trials.

  17. So here’s the environment in which we are all now living:

    1. Bullying and the admiration of bullies

    Juan Martinez bullied, harangued and harassed witnesses unmercifully. I’ve been watching criminal trails for 25 years and I had never seen any witness treated that way. Respect seemed viewed as some old fashion concept, a little too P.C., and some portion of the population just ate it all up, loving their “Mr. Jaunderful” and the way he would attack and beat up on anyone. They loved it! “Go Juan!”

    2. Confirmation bias

    “Only that which confirms what I already believe is valid information; all else is a lie or fake.”

    In Jodi’s case she was deemed guilty before the trial even started (even by the media and especially by social media) and thus the State was never required, either by the jury or the court of public opinion, to prove anything other than that she lied for two years before confessing. That doesn’t prove that her version could not have happened the way she said it did during the 18 days of *unwavering* testimony under oath all while being savagely attacked by a bully. In the State of Arizona the prosecutor in a self-defense case is required to prove it could not have been self-defense. There was absolutely no proof except in the minds of a lot of people who found ways to consistently confirm their own bias.

    3. Misogyny and double standards

    Jodi was held to a standard that was not applied to Travis. Although Travis berated Jodi constantly, called her names and tried to control her, he was seen as the victim of a vicious shrew. Although he lied consistently to his friends, those were set aside as unimportant, whereas the slightest misstep on Jodi’s part, at any point in her life, was seen as proof that she was a lying bitch and a vicious killer. Although Travis in text messages was often plying any number of women for sex (sometimes several at the same time), that was dismissed as “boys being boys” in favor of the unproven concept that Jodi, the shrew, had seduced poor vulnerable and pious Travis in order to weaken him (you know, the way women always do). Although Travis confessed, in writing, that he had a sexual attraction to little boys, the letter was dismissed as fake (with no proof that it was) but the fact that Jodi confided in her diary that she wished she could “kill my love for Travis”, that was presented and seen as proof of a vile woman with murder on her mind.

    4. Labeling

    Jodi was incessantly labeled a pathological liar and after it was said often enough, no one needed any proof – it was just considered true. But the definition of pathological liar is someone who lies for no good reason – lying seems to be just part of their nature (and we all probably know at least one such person). Jodi had multiple reasons to lie: she had killed the man she loved, she didn’t want to expose him or what had gone on in their relationship, she was ashamed and she was frightened by the prospect of prison and possibly death row. Who dares call that “no good reason”??? But if you call someone a liar often enough it makes it possible that everything they say is also automatically, and without proof, labeled a lie and a lazy prosecutor doesn’t have to prove anything else.

    • Justus,

      This is a fantastic summary of what Jodi is facing! I have thought that Jodi’s “bad judgment” was held against her far more than the fact that she has told the truth all the way up to and through her trial without hesitation. Juries seem to hold defendant behavior to an very high standard level in murder trials. The behavior after she left the scene all the way up to 2010 was magnified as guilt and her reasoning of shame and embarrassment over the pictures was never given the proper respect as an option.
      I do believe Jodi won one part of the trial.. Travis was finally seen as a sex-starved playboy who was not the “highly successful businessman” all of the tabloid shows were touting. He was borrowing from anybody he could con into lending it and attacked Jodi BEHIND CLOSED DOORS when she didn’t have it. The Deanna text thread helped show this but it didn’t help with his temper. I do think the lapsed time before a public defender was able to get to Jodi caused a lot of problems as well… Jodi knew the truth and wanted to tell it. The problem is she told the wrong people FIRST.

      As I said before, How do we or Jodi’s attorneys emphasize Travis’s temper not just verbally which would be really easy but also his two assaults on her for money which would allow us to then move to June 4th’s attack for dropping the camera?

  18. “As Time Goes By”. My, my, my… I will be hanging out next to the rainbow for a spell. Things are getting warmed up and the lot of us will correct the injustice created by a couple of pompous, washed up, and mean “prosecutors” along with a couple of ignorant Governors. I will always be standing right in the hater’s way giggling like “The Nancy”.

  19. Here’s some of what the Delaware Supreme Court had to say (in the case cited in the Arizona CoA opinion) about prosecutors’ references to a “victim” in “a case where the commission of a crime is in dispute.” This defendant’s appeal did not succeed on that issue, but that seems to be mainly because no objection was raised during trial. In Jodi’s case, the objection was properly raised in 2011 by a motion in limine, which the court denied.

    “The Court’s criticism was directed to a prosecutor’s repeated use of the term in a case where consent was the sole defense, and the principal issue one of credibility, to suggest to the jury, that a crime necessarily had been committed. In this case, if the defense of consent were accepted by the jury, no crime would have been proven and the complaining witness would not be deemed a victim. In such cases it is incompatible with the presumption of innocence for the prosecutor to refer to the complaining witness as the “victim,” just as it is to refer to the defendant as a “criminal.” Commonwealth v. Johnson, 516 Pa. 527, 533 A.2d 994 (1987). In each instance, the use of a particular term assumes the commission of a crime. If there is no dispute that a crime has, in fact, occurred, there is no harm in referring to the existence of a victim. In a narrow range of cases, such as this, such use is clearly unwarranted. It is improper for a prosecutor to assume as a given, or to suggest to the jury, the existence of that which is in dispute. It is a practice to be avoided, but, as the opinion emphasizes, in the absence of an objection it does not constitute plain error. The motion for rehearing en banc is DENIED.”

  20. Also, the Arizona Victims’ Bill of Rights applies to a “victim of crime,” and defines ‘victim’ as “person against whom the criminal offense has been committed.” See https://www.azag.gov/victim-services for the text of the “Bill of Rights.”

    So, no crime, no victim — perfectly clear.

  21. Apparently, we have another former cellmate, albeit for five months, who has decided to come out and trash Jodi. Her name is Tracy Brown. Once again, we have a cellmate talking about a confession. The article is below from Inside Edition.

    jodi-arias-former-cellmate-reveals-tattoos-given-her-arizona-killer-43700

  22. I saw that too and wondered just how stupid some people can be to believe this garbage, and even more idiotic to even air such trash is unreal : to think that it would make sense that Jodi wanted to kill some “girlfriend” of Travis , she would have to know that this girl was there , that Travis may or may not be there and she would plan to come there to harm this girl and Travis would just let her and not report it …dumb and dumber ..(a new series) stay tune coming soon to an asshole network near you …lol..

    • I had pointed out that this was one of the reasons I thought that her attorneys should have spotlighted the phone call conversations between the two while she was on the road. As we all know, phone calls aren’t backed like texts.. just the proof that the call occurred. I do think it would help to prove that Travis initiated the calls although she would have to testify to the conversations.
      I am curious how much Edition paid her to say it… you know she didn’t do it for free!!!

    • There is a small ray of light:

      “The judicial panel did grant Arias until next Tuesday to detail parts of her opening brief that might be sealed for privacy or confidentiality reasons.”

  23. Well, I can’t wait to read what issues Jodi’s lawyers have come up with. I sent them my own list of 8. My top two were (1) the state’s lies in Martinez’s closing about porn traces on Travis’s computer and (2) the ‘victim ‘ issue. I surely hope Robin is right that there are many issues better than (2) and that Jodi’s lawyers will have raised them.

  24. Hey Alan,

    Hopefully, the state does get smacked for the destruction of the laptop porn evidence. I know people would have got fired where I am. I sure hope that Robin is correct that there are better issues than the “victim” issue. I guess we will find out on Tuesday.

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