Jodi Arias Legal Question and Answer Thread *no discussion*

[BrownRice]

Is the rebuttal the same as the closing remarks?

 

[gcharlie]

Would there be any benefit to the state to challenge the accuracy of the PowerPoint quotations being used by Dr. Richard Samuels?

Typos aside, it appears that Samuels is deliberately misleading and inaccurate in citing his sources. The PPT slide attributed to Transient Amnesic Syndromes, Bartsch and Butler is from a paper entitled The Syndrome of Transient Epileptic Amnesia by Christopher R. Butler, 2008, for his doctoral dissertation.

"In the former, there is a temporally circumscribed amnesia for a specific and usually emotionally charged event such as a criminal offence. The degree of amnesia is proportional to the violence of the offence, and up to 30% of convicted homicide cases have amnesia claimed at trial (Pyszora et al., 2003)." (page 33).

http://lac-repo-live7.is.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/4160

The last sentence on the slide is not within this article; a web search yielded nothing.

 

[womblek]

Self defense is an "affirmative" defense, which means the defense team has to prove it, right? Below is from wikipedia (I know, I know) and specific to Maryland. I know the DT has worked to set up 1 and 2 with the language they use (she was "terrified", etc). Does Arizona have conditions like #3 and #4?

(1) The accused must have had reasonable grounds to believe himself in apparent imminent or immediate danger of death or serious bodily harm from his assailant or potential assailant;
(2) The accused must have in fact believed himself in this danger;
(3) The accused claiming the right of self defense must not have been the aggressor or provoked the conflict;
(4) The force used must have not been unreasonable and excessive, that is, the force must not have been more force than the exigency demanded.

 

[zoozoo]

Would there be any benefit to the state to challenge the accuracy of the PowerPoint quotations being used by Dr. Richard Samuels?

Typos aside, it appears that Samuels is deliberately misleading and inaccurate in citing his sources. The PPT slide attributed to Transient Amnesic Syndromes, Bartsch and Butler is from a paper entitled The Syndrome of Transient Epileptic Amnesia by Christopher R. Butler, 2008, for his doctoral dissertation.

"In the former, there is a temporally circumscribed amnesia for a specific and usually emotionally charged event such as a criminal offence. The degree of amnesia is proportional to the violence of the offence, and up to 30% of convicted homicide cases have amnesia claimed at trial (Pyszora et al., 2003)." (page 33).

http://lac-repo-live7.is.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/4160

The last sentence on the slide is not within this article; a web search yielded nothing.

Wow! It is a big no-no for an expert to misquote and misrepresent sources this way. I am confident JM and his team will have tracked down the articles by tomorrow and can hopefully discredit this Samuels guy.

 

[runs_with_scissors]

I noticed during his testimony that, when he was going over the DSM symptoms for PTSD, that he mentioned that he had failed to put 2 of the matches into his report. It appeared that at that place in the report, the report as written didn't meet the number of matches to indicate PTSD.

Does that render his report useless, or can he amend the report to match what he is testifying to?

 

[tweezybird]

I don't understand what that was all about, what was he going to testify to .

 

[lil_buddy]

So would a juror be disqualified if he/she were to google transient global amnesia or PTSD, for example?

 

[TartLemon]

Willmott asked the Judge for no "speaking objections". What does that mean? What is the alternative?

 

[AZlawyer]

So would a juror be disqualified if he/she were to google transient global amnesia or PTSD, for example?

Yes. That would not be OK.

 

[alwaysonmymind]

Question for our lawyers-

What's your opinion on the expert witness debacle? By her attorneys allowing this aren't they failing to represent her to the best of their ability?
Will she have grounds for appeal?

TIA


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[AZlawyer]

Willmott asked the Judge for no "speaking objections". What does that mean? What is the alternative?

A speaking objection would be, e.g., "Objection, your honor. She already said she doesn't remember this part of the day," instead of "objection--foundation."

The alternative would be saying "objection" and perhaps a word regarding the legal basis for the objection--e.g., "relevance" or "foundation." Then, if the judge needs more info, counsel would approach the bench to discuss.

 

[MinnesotaMary]

When the judge was listening to defense and prosecution arguments withOUT the jury present (see the end of part 2 of croakerqueen day 32 jodi trial youtube) and then she makes decisions about this psychologist/defense/witness, namely" Had he given Jodi therapy?", why didn't someone - judge, prosecutor, defense - ask to have the witness LEAVE the courtroom?? It did not seem right at all that the witness got to be present for all of those arguments, because, to me, it sure seems it would taint the witness' testimony, because the witness got to hear the prosecution's arguments in advance ?? !! ?? Explain why no one ordered that psychologist out of the courtroom while the attorneys argued.

 

[cosmos]

I have a textbook that states a forensic psychologist as an expert witness can only make a "diagnosis" based on statutes which is different from a clinical setting where a psychiatrist makes a diagnosis to determine a course of treatment. So why was he allowed to read DSM-V to the jury?

 

[AZlawyer]

When the judge was listening to defense and prosecution arguments withOUT the jury present (see the end of part 2 of croakerqueen day 32 jodi trial youtube) and then she makes decisions about this psychologist/defense/witness, namely" Had he given Jodi therapy?", why didn't someone - judge, prosecutor, defense - ask to have the witness LEAVE the courtroom?? It did not seem right at all that the witness got to be present for all of those arguments, because, to me, it sure seems it would taint the witness' testimony, because the witness got to hear the prosecution's arguments in advance ?? !! ?? Explain why no one ordered that psychologist out of the courtroom while the attorneys argued.

If JM didn't make the request, then no one else was obligated to make the request for him. Maybe he didn't think he had any big surprise for the Dr. in that line of questioning.

I have a textbook that states a forensic psychologist as an expert witness can only make a "diagnosis" based on statutes which is different from a clinical setting where a psychiatrist makes a diagnosis to determine a course of treatment. So why was he allowed to read DSM-V to the jury?

It sounds like the statement from your textbook is taken out of context. In this case, the Dr. is not diagnosing any statutory issue (e.g., insanity), because those issues have not been raised. He is also not diagnosing to determine a course of treatment. He is diagnosing to explain behavior/memory issues.

 

[gitana1]

Question for our lawyers-

What's your opinion on the expert witness debacle? By her attorneys allowing this aren't they failing to represent her to the best of their ability?
Will she have grounds for appeal?

TIA


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Not in my opinion. She will appeal and she will use tons of things as grounds, including ineffective assistance of counsel, but she will not succeed on this basis, IMO.

 

[Madilu]

Why didn't the prosecutors put a string of friends/colleagues character witnesses on the stand to testify on Travis' behalf? Especially to refute allegations of pedo, sexual deviant and violent tendancies?

...(and sorry in advance if I have just missed all that. I can't find testimony other than a couple of girlfriends). Thanks.

 

[4Jacy]

I posted this earlier, but can't see where it was answered: Why is there no charge for Abuse of Corpse since Jodi kept stabbing him after he was already dead? tia

 

[minor4th]

I posted this earlier, but can't see where it was answered: Why is there no charge for Abuse of Corpse since Jodi kept stabbing him after he was already dead? tia

Probably because they can't prove that there was any mutilation after he was dead.

 

[minor4th]

Why didn't the prosecutors put a string of friends/colleagues character witnesses on the stand to testify on Travis' behalf? Especially to refute allegations of pedo, sexual deviant and violent tendancies?

...(and sorry in advance if I have just missed all that. I can't find testimony other than a couple of girlfriends). Thanks.

Evidence of "good character" is generally inadmissible.

 

[minor4th]

Question for our lawyers-

What's your opinion on the expert witness debacle? By her attorneys allowing this aren't they failing to represent her to the best of their ability?
Will she have grounds for appeal?

TIA


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Jodi may argue ineffective assistance of counsel, simply because that is one of the arguments often made by death penalty convicts. She will be unsuccessful, however. This was not the fault of the defense attorneys - this was the fault of the defendant lying to her evaluator. It may also be the case that this expert, with his past ethical problems, was the only expert they could find who would render the opinions they were looking for - and despite yesterday's debacle, the expert did get in his opinion about the memory loss and its plausibility.

ETA: I see this question was answered previously by one of the other lawyers. We agree on this issue.