site stats

prosecutorial misconduct - Page 10

Jodi’s Attorney’s file Motion to Dismiss (10/1)

Published on

.
In the midst of the current jury selection debacle, Jodi’s attorney’s (yesterday) filed a motion to dismiss the DP based on misconduct by Juan Martinez, Esteban Flores and wife (Corrina Flores)… together with additional documented issues relating to witness intimidation, verbal abuse & harassment of witnesses & defense counsel, Brady violations, evidence withholding & tampering, social media tweets relating to sealed hearings, video postings, questionable activities from MCSO’s deputies & detention officers — and a whole lot more to boot.

*** Click here for the latest video update from the AZ Cartoon Network ***

Click here (or click the pic below) to launch the 50 page motion (PDF document) in a new window.

Jodi Arias - Motion to Dismiss - October 1st 2014
Jodi Arias – Motion to Dismiss – October 1st 2014

The detailed motion is covered from pages 1 thru 23. The exhibits & docs referred to in the motion are listed from page 24 onwards.

It makes interesting reading for sure.

Jodi Arias - 2014

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

Remember…

WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI.

Never question it.

Never doubt it.

Leave your thoughts & comments below…

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations via Justice4Jodi.com go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Justice4Jodi.com is 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 – as are their intentions – and they should be actively avoided. If you are aware of any such sites, please help Jodi by clicking here and reporting them. Thank you for your ongoing support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious!

.

Misrepresentation and Deceit in the Jodi Arias Trial — [Spotlight on Law]

Published on

.
Check out the excellent & insightful post below from the Spotlight On Law blog…

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

Misrepresentation and Deceit in the Arias Trial: Crystal Blue Persuasion
(Fact Based Reporting by Rob Roman and Amanda Chen)

“Somebody lied to you about important facts in this case.” – Juan Martinez

“If you believe what the defendant is telling you, then all the arguments begin to make sense.” – Juan Martinez

According to Juan Martinez:

If it is written down, it’s the truth. If it’s not, it’s a lie. A white lie is just as bad as a regular lie. Not telling the full and complete truth at all times is a lie. Omitting details is lying. Anything that anyone says happened that is not in their diary is a lie.

If you are attacked or beaten by your partner and you don’t document it, tell someone or call 911, it never happened and you are a liar.

You are a liar if, after you do something unspeakable, you do not tell every person you meet what you can remember about what you have done.

Somebody did lie about important facts in this case, and we’re not talking about Jodi Arias. We have broken these lies down into five categories. The headings in bold type are assertions made by Juan Martinez in his closing argument .

These are the categories of lies:

White Lie: Typically a white lie is a harmless lie that is often done to be polite. Here, it’s a lie that plays into Martinez’ themes and theories, but it’s immaterial to the murder charge. These white lies are far from harmless.

Exaggeration: Something from the facts or testimony is taken out of context and magnified. It’s a fish story where a mountain is made out of a molehill.

Misrepresentation: This includes presenting mere speculation as fact, and changing the meanings of facts. It’s a deliberate effort to skew a fact to align it with other facts in the case.

Mirror: It’s a manipulation of the jury. Juan Martinez is projecting his own feelings, motives and ideas, or those of others, onto the defendant.
(see more about the this in the previous article, Lies and Juanipulation: The Mirror Crack’d)

Whopper: It’s an obvious untruth in light of the facts. It’s deceitful and a breach of integrity.

Let’s examine more of the territory covered in the prosecutor’s all-important closing arguments:

The Manifesto and Salt Lake City:

“She has signed a Manifesto just in case she becomes famous” – Juan Martinez

This is another thing Martinez dug up in Alyce LaViolette’s notes. The prosecution had no witnesses attesting to any “Manifesto” and it was never entered into evidence, even though Martinez wants the jury to believe that Arias made copies and autographed the copies in jail in Yreka.

Even if she did, it’s just the same “intruder story” again, and Arias has already claimed she invented the story as a stalling tactic. Reporters have requested proof of the Manifesto from the prosecutor’s office, and they’re still waiting:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/jodi-arias-manifesto-day-42_n_3041141.html

“This woman who claims she never went to Salt Lake City” – Juan Martinez

Martinez tells the jury Jodi testified that she was never in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was in West Jordan, on the far outskirts of Salt Lake City. This honest answer is a lie and a manipulation, according to Martinez, because a gas receipt near West Jordan states “Salt Lake City”.

This is simply a trick of semantics.

“Staging The Scene”:

Arias believes “she will not be convicted, after she has staged the scene for you”.  – Juan Martinez

It’s The Mirror. The most important question here is why does Martinez feel he needs to add all the ornamentation you see throughout the trial? This is yet another behavior that El Espejo, the mirror, attributes to Jodi Arias.

Juan tells the jury that “in the light of truth you can see who she really is.” “This is an individual who is manipulative.” “This is an individual who will stop at nothing and will continue to be manipulative and will lie at every turn and at every occasion that she has.”

This from the man who peppered the trial with lengthy inquiries and discussions about Bobby Juarez, high school era windows and doors, happenings from Arias’ life when she was 5 and 8 years old, the backspace button, the criminal, the stupid sister, the gopher, the dog, the chameleon, the wildebeest, that thing, Snow White, the Shack, the Christmas tree, the Ring and The Fog…

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS POST IN FULL IN THE “SPOTLIGHT ON LAW” BLOG

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

Remember: WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!

Leave your thoughts and comments below…

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Thank you for your support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious!

.

Can the system curb prosecutorial abuses? (Part 4/4)

Published on

.
After highlighting countless instances of prosecutorial misconduct in AZ over the past 11 years, here’s the final part of Michael Keifer’s series. Today he takes a detailed look at what can be done to curb future prosecutorial abuses.

You can keep up with all Michael’s tweets right here in his Twitter page.

The previous 3 parts in the series can be access by clicking the links below:

Prosecutorial misconduct alleged in half of capital cases (Part 1/4)
Prosecutors under scrutiny are seldom disciplined (Part 2/4)
Objections raised to Juan Martinez’s conduct in Jodi Arias trial (Part 3/4)

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

Can the system curb prosecutorial abuses? (Part 4/4)
by Michael Kiefer:

“For three days, The Arizona Republic has examined prosecutor conduct and misconduct, citing cases in which prosecutors stepped over the line without suffering consequences to themselves or the convictions they win.

The question remains: What can be done about it?

Options already are in place.

When a prosecutor steps over the line, it’s up to the defense attorney to call it to the court’s attention, and it’s up to the judge to decide whether an offense has been committed and whether it affects the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Yet, neither likes to do so.

Prosecutors are arguably the most powerful people in the courtroom: They file the charges and offer the plea agreements. They determine whether to seek the death penalty, and, given mandatory sentencing, predetermine the consequence of a guilty verdict.

Defense attorneys worry that if they cross a prosecutor, future clients could be treated more harshly the next time they face that prosecutor in court. Judges worry about prosecutors who use court rules to bypass those judges who rein them in. Both know that prosecutors are rarely sanctioned by the court or investigated by the State Bar of Arizona for ethical misconduct.

So overly aggressive prosecutors continue to have their way in the courtroom – as long as they win cases, experts say.

“It comes from this ‘end-justifies-the-means mentality,’’’ said Jon Sands, the federal public defender for Arizona. “We’ll do anything we can to bring someone to justice.

Part of the problem of reining in prosecutorial misconduct is defining it.

When a defense attorney does something wrong while defending a criminal client, it’s called “ineffective assistance of counsel.”

When a judge does something wrong, it’s called “judicial error.”

But when it’s the prosecutor who is under scrutiny, it’s called “prosecutorial misconduct.” It’s a fuzzy concept rooted more in constitutional law than in rules of professional conduct: A “term of art,” according to the American Bar Association.

“The vast, vast majority of prosecutorial misconduct claims go to inadvertent slip-ups rather than calculated interference with the wheels of justice,” said Judge Peter Swann of the Arizona Court of Appeals…….”

>>> CLICK HERE TO READ PART 4 IN FULL AT AZCENTRAL.COM <<<

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

Remember…

WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!

Leave your thoughts & comments below.

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Thank you for your support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious!

.

Objections raised to Juan Martinez’s conduct in Jodi Arias trial (Part 3/4)

Published on

.
Here’s part 3 of Michael Kiefer’s new series, which highlights & fully details countless instances of prosecutorial misconduct in AZ over the past 11 years… where winning is invariably far more important than the truth.

As I said yesterday — Kudos to Michael Keifer for his highlighting of this issue too. He’s already taking flak on his Twitter account from delusional pedo-huggers & people with a necrophilia fetish… and long may it continue. After all, everyone else’s fuck-ups get highlighted. Why should prosecutors fuck-ups be treated any different?

You can keep up with all Michael’s tweets right here in his Twitter page.

Today, the well documented prosecutorial misconduct, lies & deception of Juan Martinez is highlighted in great detail.

Here’s the latest installment:

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

Objections raised to Juan Martinez’s conduct in Jodi Arias trial (Part 3/4)
by Michael Kiefer:

“Juan Martinez was Arizona Prosecutor of the Year in 1999, more than a decade before he became a media darling with his performance in the Jodi Arias murder trial.

This year, Martinez convinced a jury to find Arias guilty of first-degree murder, but the jurors could not reach consensus on whether to sentence her to death or life, and Arias likely faces a new trial to make that decision.

Martinez helped send seven other killers to death row since he was hired at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in 1988.

He was accused by defense attorneys of prosecutorial misconduct in all but one of those cases; the Arizona Supreme Court characterized his actions as constituting misconduct in one of them, and cited numerous instances of “improper” behavior in another, but neither rose to the level where the justices felt they needed to overturn the cases. Allegations of misconduct by Martinez in the second case and at least two others are pending in state and federal courts.

It is not uncommon for defense attorneys to allege misconduct against prosecutors. A study by The Arizona Republic determined that it was alleged in about half of all death-penalty cases since 2002, and validated in nearly one-quarter of them.

But it is rare for Supreme Court justices to call out a prosecutor’s conduct in open court.

One day in mid-2010, the Arizona Supreme Court was on the bench as lawyers presented arguments during the direct appeal of a first-degree murder conviction and death sentence for a man named Mike Gallardo, who killed a teenager during a Phoenix burglary in 2005.

Transcripts show Justice Andrew Hurwitz turned to the attorney representing the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the prosecutorial agency that handles death-penalty appeals.

“Can I ask you a question about something that nobody’s discussed so far?” he asked. “The conduct of the trial prosecutor. It seems to me that at least on several occasions, and by and large the objections were sustained, that the trial prosecutor either ignored rulings by the trial judge or asked questions that the trial judges once ruled improper and then rephrased the question in another improper way. … Short of reversing a conviction, how is it that we can… stop inappropriate conduct?”

The assistant attorney general struggled to answer.

Justice Michael Ryan then stepped into the discussion.

“Well, this prosecutor I recollect from several cases,” Ryan said. “This same prosecutor has been accused of fairly serious misconduct, but ultimately we decided it did not rise to the level of requiring a reversal,” Ryan said. “There’s something about this prosecutor, Mr. Martinez.”

There had been multiple allegations of prosecutorial misconduct against Martinez in Gallardo’s appeal. Ultimately, in its written opinion, the court determined that Martinez had repeatedly made improper statements about the defendant. During the oral argument before the Supreme Court, the justices fixed on a question that Martinez asked three times, even though the trial judge in the case had sustained a defense attorney’s objections to the question.

But in the end, the justices ruled that Martinez’s behavior still did not “suggest pervasive prosecutorial misconduct that deprived (the defendant) of a fair trial.”

And, as the justices noted, it was not the first time that Martinez had walked away unscathed…….”

“Arias admitted that she killed Alexander and claimed that she shot him after he attacked her. For four years, police and prosecution maintained that Arias first shot Alexander and then stabbed him and slit his throat. But days before jury selection, Martinez changed the facts of the case, saying that Arias had shot Alexander last instead of first; Arias’ attorneys, Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott, protested that the rationale for seeking the death penalty had been based on the first theory.

They filed a motion for mistrial alleging prosecutorial misconduct when Martinez appeared on television, signing autographs and posing for photos with fans.

Martinez verbally attacked Arias and her witnessess. He painted Arias as a sexual predator. He asked compound questions and then accused witnesses of being non-responsive when they would not answer yes or no.

“I would not have let the cross-examinations go on for that long,” said Fields, the retired judge. “It was just badgering and bullying the witnesses in an attempt to ruin their credibility. It crossed the line.”

As video and transcripts later showed, many of the trial’s most contentious moments took place in the judge’s chambers or at the bench, out of earshot of the rest of the courtroom and the cameras. Etiquette is a given during court proceedings. Martinez was frequently insulting.

The first question he posed to Arias during cross-examination set the tone, when he displayed a photograph to the courtroom and described it to her as a “picture of you and your dumb sister.”

One day at the bench, as the attorneys debated whether to admit a statement about whether Alexander wanted to kill himself, transcripts show Martinez said, “But the thing is that if Ms. Willmott and I were married, I certainly would say, ‘I fucking want to kill myself.’”

Willmott objected, and two days later at another bench conference, Martinez said to Willmott, “Well, then, maybe you ought to go back to law school.”

Nurmi asked Judge Sherry Stephens to step in, but she did not.

“In my view, that would have been a fine,” Fields said. “I probably would have reported him to the Bar. It shows his bias. It’s just inappropriate.”

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

Remember…

WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!

Leave your thoughts & comments below.

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Thank you for your support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious!

.

Prosecutors under scrutiny are seldom disciplined (Part 2/4)

Published on

.
Here’s part 2 of Michael Keifer’s new series, which highlights & fully details countless instances of prosecutorial misconduct in AZ over the past 11 years… where winning is invariably far more important than the truth.

Kudos to Michael Keifer for his highlighting of this issue too. He’s already taking flak on his Twitter account from delusional pedo-huggers & people with a necrophilia fetish… and long may it continue. After all, everyone else’s fuck-ups get highlighted. Why should prosecutors fuck-ups be treated any different?

You can keep up with all Michael’s tweets right here in his Twitter page.

Kermit’s antics will be featured in Part 3, tomorrow. Should be interesting.

Here’s the latest installment:

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

Prosecutors under scrutiny are seldom disciplined (Part 2/4)
by Michael Kiefer:

[hdplay id=247 width=500 height=300]

“Richard Wintory was Arizona Prosecutor of the Year in 2007. Wintory had spent 20 years as an assistant district attorney in Oklahoma, another seven in the Pima County Attorney’s Office, and by 2010 had moved on to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, where he continued to try criminal cases, especially death-penalty cases.

Now he is chief deputy in the Pinal County Attorney’s Office.

He is also the focus of an investigation by the State Bar of Arizona because a Pima County Superior Court judge referred him to the State Bar of Arizona for improper contact with a member of a murder suspect’s defense team.

Prosecutors are frequently accused of misconduct during criminal cases, and even if a trial judge or a court of appeals agrees that they acted badly, it rarely affects the conviction or sentence of the trial defendants.

Wintory calls himself an “impassioned” attorney; others might say he pushes the envelope.

“In the 30 years I’ve been a prosecutor, I’ve had many people file complaints and lawsuits against me, but I’ve never been disciplined,” he said.

In Arizona, prosecutor misconduct is alleged in half of all capital cases that end in death sentences.

Half the time, the Arizona Supreme Court agrees that misconduct occurred in those instances, but it rarely throws out a conviction or sentence because of it.

The Arizona Republic reviewed all of the Arizona Supreme Court opinions on death sentences going back to 2002.

Of 82 cases statewide, prosecutorial misconduct was alleged on appeal by defense attorneys in 42 and the court found improprieties or outright misconduct in 18 instances. But only two of those death sentences were reversed because of the improprieties, and only two prosecutors were disciplined.

The offenses varied in seriousness from excessive sarcasm and vouching for the sincerity of witnesses to introducing false testimony and failing to disclose evidence that might have helped the defendant.

But overwhelmingly, even when misconduct was found, the high court determined that it was “harmless error.”

The most serious examples did not appear in those cases because the misconduct caused a mistrial or the prosecution offered a favorable plea agreement to avoid mistrial, as in Wintory’s case.

It is rare for prosecutors to be referred to the Bar for misconduct, let alone be disciplined by the Bar or sanctioned by trial judges. And whether Wintory will be disciplined remains to be seen…….”

>>> CLICK HERE TO READ PART 2 IN FULL AT AZCENTRAL.COM <<<

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

Remember…

WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!

Leave your thoughts & comments below.

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Thank you for your support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious!

.

Prosecutorial misconduct alleged in half of capital cases (Part 1/4)

Published on

.
As we all know, we witnessed enough prosecutorial misconduct during Jodi’s trial to sink several ships.

Following on from that, check out part 1 of 4 in Michael Kiefer’s new series, which highlights & fully details countless instances of prosecutorial misconduct in AZ over the past 11 years… where winning is invariably far more important than the truth.

Sound familiar?

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

Prosecutorial misconduct alleged in half of capital cases (Part 1/4)
by Michael Kiefer:

[hdplay id=247 width=500 height=300]

“Noel Levy was Arizona Prosecutor of the Year in 1990 when he convinced a jury to convict Debra Milke of first-degree murder for allegedly helping to plan the murder of her 4-year-old son.

A year later, he convinced a judge to send her to death row.

It was a scandalous case: Prosecutors charged that in December 1989, Milke asked her roommate and erstwhile suitor to kill the child.

The roommate and a friend told the boy he was going to the mall to see Santa Claus. Instead, they took him to the desert in northwest Phoenix and shot him in the head.

But neither man would agree to testify against Milke, and the state’s case depended on a supposed confession Milke made to a Phoenix police detective.

Milke denied confessing.

The detective had not recorded the interview, and there were no witnesses to the confession.

When Milke’s defense attorneys tried to obtain the detective’s personnel record to show that he was an unreliable witness with what a federal court called a “history of misconduct, court orders and disciplinary action,” the state got the judge to quash the subpoena.

“I really thought the detective was a straight shooter, and I had no idea about all the stuff that allegedly came out,” Levy recently told The Arizona Republic.

But in March of this year, after Milke, now 49, had spent nearly 24 years in custody, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out her conviction and sentence because of the state’s failure to turn over the detective’s personnel record so that Milke’s defense team could challenge the questionable confession.

The 9th Circuit put the onus on the prosecution.

“(T)he Constitution requires a fair trial,” the ruling said, “and one essential element of fairness is the prosecution’s obligation to turn over exculpatory evidence.”

The 9th Circuit judges ordered that Milke be retried within 90 days or be released.

The chief circuit judge referred the case to the U.S. Attorney General’s Office to investigate civil-rights infringements. Under the 9th Circuit order, prosecutors must allow the detective’s personnel record into evidence if they use the contested confession.

Prosecutors are responsible for the testimony of the law-enforcement officers investigating their cases. Cops and prosecutors are the good guys. They put criminals in prison, sometimes on death row. Juries tend to believe them when they say someone is guilty. They don’t expect them to exaggerate or withhold evidence. They don’t expect their witnesses to present false testimony.

Yet The Arizona Republic found that, when the stakes are highest — when a trial involves a possible death sentence — that’s exactly what can happen.

In half of all capital cases in Arizona since 2002, prosecutorial misconduct was alleged by appellate attorneys. Those allegations ranged in seriousness from being over emotional to encouraging perjury.

Nearly half those allegations were validated by the Arizona Supreme Court.

Only two death sentences were thrown out — one for a prosecutor’s tactics that were considered overreaching but not actual misconduct because a judge had allowed him to do it.

Two prosecutors were punished, one with disbarment, the other with a short suspension…….”

>>> CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1 IN FULL AT AZCENTRAL.COM <<<

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

Remember…

WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!

Leave your thoughts & comments below.

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Thank you for your support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious! .

1 … 8 9 10