Discussions on Formal Sentencing Hearing - Jodi Arias #6

Bravo said:

Enjoy TexMex. Looks delish!

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MeeBee said:

The foreman used an interesting word in his presser when referring to this juror not deliberating. Pride. He said in the end it seemed to become more about pride than a genuine belief for her. That tells me she'd state a belief then when questioned to explain herself further she'd feel "attacked" and stop trying.

I think we've all known people who don't like being confronted about their opinions. My mom is very bad about this. She can say something but the second you try and have a debate or disagree or question her about it she runs off and blocks you out and plays the victim. It's worse when the person is confronted with strong evidence that they are wrong because they do not want to admit to themselves or anyone else that they may be wrong.

She would list a mitigator that was important to her and when questioned further she'd withdraw. She would not explain. They'd get frustrated, she'd feel attacked. It's that they are wrong for trying to pressure me to agree with them and I don't have to explain myself or my reasons all while deep down knowing the reasons she won't explain herself is because there is no explanation for it and she knows whatever she says it will be pointed out to her how wrong she is. The more they tried to reason with her the more withdrawn she'd become. They tried to show her autopsy pictures and again the pride rears its head. She doesn't want to see them because she hates that they are trying to convince her of something she doesn't want to see. How dare they.

That's how deliberations go, I've heard. They are intense and heated and there can be yelling and swearing. The deliberations in the guilt phase were said to be heated. They're not trying to pick a restaurant, they are making a heavy decision that will affect a lot of people. You want to get that right. Think how frustrating it must be to go into a room and have someone see something so completely differently from you when it is so clear to you. I mean look how at each other's throats we are on this board and we're not even in the same room. Same thing.

As far as the foreman pushing 17 to see what the rest of the jury saw, what's wrong with that? That's what he's supposed to do, right? That's what the judge sent them back for right? To try harder? I don't see what was wrong with using the autopsy photos. That's exactly what they're there for. I remember reading they did they exact same thing in the Scott Peterson deliberations with a picture of the dead fetus and it convinced someone to vote for death.

It could have been a communication breakdown. What the foreman saw as a good faith effort to see the other juror's side of things, she might have seen as harassment and an attempt to force her to look at them out of spite and make her feel bad and attack her. Again, how frustrating would it be if you were trying to show someone something to help them see your side and they just refused out of pride?

You would have to be pretty naive to go into a deliberating room to think that people would just accept what you have to say without challenging it or trying to change your mind. I think they'd respect her opinion more if she explained her position better or didn't feel she had an agenda.

That foreman seems pretty astute. He picked up on things I never even thought of. He just didn't seem to be the kind given to emotion based on his trial diaries interview. He looked at evidence and saw it as it was and was pretty fair to both sides. I think he really tried with her. For the whole jury to feel this way about one person says a lot to me. I don't think we should just ignore them.

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RR0004 said:

I'm listening to the Oct. 6th hearing. Can't begin to tell you how good it is to see JA in big black stripes. Is the whole beginning of this video about forged letters supposedly written by Travis? Are these THE letters??

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katiecoolady said:

Excellent post and let's just call it what it is. That PREMEDITATED first degree brutal slaughter laid up against factors like 27 years old being "too young to be held accountable". It's absurd.

The defense threw out there a vague "let's see if we can push a button in you that thinks this victim deserved what he got" and hoped it would land on just ONE person who would refuse to look at and weigh logic and be influenced by that absolutely heinous line of reasoning.

I just have a hinky feeling that something else was at work motivating her beyond that though. Some other kind of internal or external pressure to allow her to bear down and live with the heavy burden of being the ONLY one not seeing the obvious, the ONLY one wasting everyone's time, the ONLY one to bear the brunt of this outcome. That was a serious commitment on her part and something was driving it and now I'm back to beating my little dead horse. :deadhorse:

Anyway, excellent post. I guess we all love a mystery right? And this one is pretty major imo.

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katiecoolady said:

link please?

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MeeBee said:

The foreman used an interesting word in his presser when referring to this juror not deliberating. Pride. He said in the end it seemed to become more about pride than a genuine belief for her. That tells me she'd state a belief then when questioned to explain herself further she'd feel "attacked" and stop trying.

Click to expand...

MeeBee said:

The foreman used an interesting word in his presser when referring to this juror not deliberating. Pride. He said in the end it seemed to become more about pride than a genuine belief for her. That tells me she'd state a belief then when questioned to explain herself further she'd feel "attacked" and stop trying.

I think we've all known people who don't like being confronted about their opinions. My mom is very bad about this. She can say something but the second you try and have a debate or disagree or question her about it she runs off and blocks you out and plays the victim. It's worse when the person is confronted with strong evidence that they are wrong because they do not want to admit to themselves or anyone else that they may be wrong.

She would list a mitigator that was important to her and when questioned further she'd withdraw. She would not explain. They'd get frustrated, she'd feel attacked. It's that they are wrong for trying to pressure me to agree with them and I don't have to explain myself or my reasons all while deep down knowing the reasons she won't explain herself is because there is no explanation for it and she knows whatever she says it will be pointed out to her how wrong she is. The more they tried to reason with her the more withdrawn she'd become. They tried to show her autopsy pictures and again the pride rears its head. She doesn't want to see them because she hates that they are trying to convince her of something she doesn't want to see. How dare they.

That's how deliberations go, I've heard. They are intense and heated and there can be yelling and swearing. The deliberations in the guilt phase were said to be heated. They're not trying to pick a restaurant, they are making a heavy decision that will affect a lot of people. You want to get that right. Think how frustrating it must be to go into a room and have someone see something so completely differently from you when it is so clear to you. I mean look how at each other's throats we are on this board and we're not even in the same room. Same thing.

As far as the foreman pushing 17 to see what the rest of the jury saw, what's wrong with that? That's what he's supposed to do, right? That's what the judge sent them back for right? To try harder? I don't see what was wrong with using the autopsy photos. That's exactly what they're there for. I remember reading they did they exact same thing in the Scott Peterson deliberations with a picture of the dead fetus and it convinced someone to vote for death.

It could have been a communication breakdown. What the foreman saw as a good faith effort to see the other juror's side of things, she might have seen as harassment and an attempt to force her to look at them out of spite and make her feel bad and attack her. Again, how frustrating would it be if you were trying to show someone something to help them see your side and they just refused out of pride?

You would have to be pretty naive to go into a deliberating room to think that people would just accept what you have to say without challenging it or trying to change your mind. I think they'd respect her opinion more if she explained her position better or didn't feel she had an agenda.

That foreman seems pretty astute. He picked up on things I never even thought of. He just didn't seem to be the kind given to emotion based on his trial diaries interview. He looked at evidence and saw it as it was and was pretty fair to both sides. I think he really tried with her. For the whole jury to feel this way about one person says a lot to me. I don't think we should just ignore them.

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RR0004 said:

MeeBee said:

The foreman used an interesting word in his presser when referring to this juror not deliberating. Pride. He said in the end it seemed to become more about pride than a genuine belief for her. That tells me she'd state a belief then when questioned to explain herself further she'd feel "attacked" and stop trying.

Snipped for brevity and BBM

You noted the word "pride" and I noted the word "belief". It always bothered me that the word belief entered into the mix. The informed decision for or against death should have been based on facts- mitigating and aggravating facts! A juror should never be sitting on a DP qualified jury if their beliefs were so strong that they couldn't separate themselves from their "beliefs" to consider a penalty of death. Pride should never have entered in the mix either.

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It is all about belief. Do you believe the mitigators outweigh the aggravators? Are there any mitigators not listed that you believe apply in this case? If so, why do you believe it. Do you believe this person deserves death? His point was she didn't seem to genuinely believe what she was saying but saying it out of pride. That is what he was talking about.

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RR0004 said:

I'm listening to the Oct. 6th hearing. Can't begin to tell you how good it is to see JA in big black stripes. Is the whole beginning of this video about forged letters supposedly written by Travis? Are these THE letters??

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Boytwnmom said:

just like a case with circumstantial evidence. We often criticize juries who can't put the pieces together. Same thing here with #17. You can't isolate one part. Like, well, after the judge talked to her she did deliberate. Why would anyone believe she did? I don't because it's one piece of the puzzle.

You start from the beginning. She lied, misled and deceived the court regarding her history with the prosecutor, with felons, with criminal activity by romantic partners etc. Why did she do it? Well, in this context it can only be because she wanted on the jury and knew if she disclosed too much of the truth she would be dismissed.

Why did she want to be on the jury? Should we believe it was because she had such a strong desire to fulfill her civic duty? No, because if duty were relevant she wouldn't have lied as she also had an overriding duty to be truthful and withhold nothing that might impact her fitness for service. So, she had some other reason she wanted to be on the jury and she lied to make it happen as there was no other reason to lie. So, none of this leads to a logical conclusion that she merely wanted to deliberate just like the other jurors did.

And, lo and behold, all the other jurors and the alternates evaluated the evidence differently than her. OK, that could happen without malfeasance. But, all the jurors in the room felt from the beginning she had her mind made up, that she refused to discuss the evidence, aggravating factors, how the mitigating weighed against the aggravating. She separated herself from the group, refused to explain her reasoning. Again, this could happen without wrongdoing. But, when you put the whole picture together and not each element in isolation, I feel pretty much hit upside the head with the conclusion she had an agenda from the time she was called for jury service or at least from the time she knew it was for the JA trial.

IMO, to conclude that this was all completely kosher and this poor juror just came to a different, but equally valid conclusion from the other 11 + the alternates, requires me to suspend the kind of disbelief I only suspend for fiction. And this was all too real. And after following this 7 year extravaganza of manipulation I am not going to now fall for juror #17's follow up manipulation.

I don't pretend to know the why. Whether it's because she likes Jodi, hates the DP, hates Juan, hates society for sending felons to jail, is manipulated by her current felon husband, is delusional and has visions, I don't know or care. All I know is what the circumstantial evidence tells me. The kind of evidence that is all that is usually available to convict someone and I trust circumstantial evidence in the absence of any contrary evidence.

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katiecoolady said:

And pardon me while I beat the dead horse I've beaten back to life only to beat again to death and now again, but just HOW...HOW did Michael Kiefer know and REPORT the jury foreperson from the first person. The juror who led that jury to a mistrial and betrayed his fellow jurors by having media in his home the very next day while speaking (incorrectly) for all of them and just who happens to work in a media form (radio) and who just happens to share the same opinion and many of the same identical verbage as Michael Kiefer? Who was supposed to report objectively but....you know...we know.

:deadhorse:

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RR0004 said:

For Meebee...sorry too many broken quotes.
I'm talking about the word "belief" as being of her moral leanings...not that she thought the mitigators outweighed the aggravators. Does that make sense? I've also heard lots mentioned about the deliberation of mitigators...but not much about the aggravators (especially in reference to J17). Did she speak of the aggravators during deliberation (other than she thought JA was portrayed more monster-like)?

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krkrjx said:

State wants to be careful to protect the jury system, broken as it is. Also, without something big to point at, they would be accused of "sour grapes" if they dig too deep into an issue involving a juror that upset their case. But you know if the tables were turned, most citizens would feel the defense had a right and an obligation to investigate--defense would be less likely to be accused of sour grapes and more likely to be viewed as doing their job. IMO

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TexMex said:

http://bluesharp1911.wix.com/courtchatter#!jodi-arias-pretrial-hearing-10062014/c1bdz

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