POLL: Did Jodi Arias take the stand because she wanted to?

Why did Jodi Arias take the stand in her defense

  • She demanded it.

    Votes: 349 70.9%
  • Her lawyer asked her to do it.

    Votes: 17 3.5%
  • A combination of both.

    Votes: 126 25.6%

  • Total voters
    492
Boy I hope her attorney didn't encourage it. Murder Defense 101, never let your client get on the stand.

I think she insisted because this psychopathic [unusual person] just knows that if she gets a chance to explain how very victimized she has been her entire life the jury will totally understand why, despite the bloody crime scene and scads of evidence to the contrary, she had no choice but to kill Travis.

:sick:
 
I believe she loves to talk and be center of attention
 
Perhaps one of our certified criminal attorneys or paralegals can answer this: minus other eyewitnesses or circumstantial evidence, isn't it very difficult to prove "self-defense" if the defendant does NOT take the stand?

I suppose exceptions might be cases where the killer was a victim of long-term abuse witnessed by others. But in cases like this, where there is so little evidence that JA had any reason to fear for her life, how does she prove her case without testifying?

(Just to remind us all: as I understand it, "self-defense" is an an affirmative defense. The burden of proof shifts to the defendant to prove she was in imminent fear for her life. In theory, she can't just have her lawyer say it and then demand the prosecution prove otherwise.)

You can try, with Exhibits (photopgraphic, recordings, docs) but in most cases testimony has more impact. As for the Standard JI on the 5th, yeah, jurors really abide by the admonition....
 
Considering the fact that she is saying that he attacked her first then she had to in a way as she was the only witness to that ... having said that, and after watching some of the highlights today (and not really following the case properly) I must say she did appear to 'enjoy' it somewhat - I think she's pretty convinced of her own ability to charm people into seeing her as she wishes them to view her.

Chilling.
 
Boy I hope her attorney didn't encourage it. Murder Defense 101, never let your client get on the stand.

I think she insisted because this psychopathic [unusual person] just knows that if she gets a chance to explain how very victimized she has been her entire life the jury will totally understand why, despite the bloody crime scene and scads of evidence to the contrary, she had no choice but to kill Travis.

:sick:

I am kind of getting a freudian slip vibe off that part of her 'defence' like it just makes me wonder if Travis deciding he'd had enough of her 'games' was a sort of 'straw that broke the camels back' moment for Jodi, and she just thought 'to he!! with you, I'm not taking this carp off anyone anymore and you're the idiot that's going to pay.'

Not that I fully believe all of her victimhood stories anyway, I mean someone hand me a tissue .. oh actually I don't need it, I'm just not feelin' ya Jodi.
 
A combination of both. She demanded it and the DT felt they were losing the jury - - the prosecutor is really, really good. Wow. Anyway, JA's Tale of Woe is a Hail Mary, because their case-in-chief has blown up in their face thus far and the best they can hope for now is a sympathetic juror or two.

IMO, IMO, IMO.
 
Jodi Arias is on the stand. Did she take the stand because she wanted to? Or did her attorney want her to? Or was it a combination?

She demanded it.

I talked to two of my lawyer friends today and they said no way in hell would her DT want her to be cross examined by a seasoned prosecutor.

They said putting a cold blooded murderer on the stand who is also a pathological liar is like committing judicial suicide.

IMO
 
And the good thing is that her Defense team of attorneys can not be blamed completely by JA when the announcement of the DP is handed.

JA will have to take the full rap of putting her own head on a silver platter. She won't be able to blame anyone else!

Yay! :great:
 
Well I've tried to stay away from posting on this trial because I am a recovering Casey Anthony forum addict and this chick has way too many similarities.

I find it next to impossible to listen to her droning testimony - and like the other inveterate liar, FCA, she is absolutely entranced by her own ability to regurgitate an impossible level of detail. Didn't she also want to represent herself at some point? Her evident satisfaction at delivering the most excruciating minutiae makes me think she would have begged to testify regardless of whether it was necessary to support her otherwise uncorroborated character assassination of Travis. She is getting off on having a captive audience, imo. And, like FCA, she seems to think that an abundance of detail is a substitute for actual evidence, a false confidence many liars have that also smacks of little regard for the intelligence of their audience.

Her "suicide" excuse for that video saying she would never be convicted doesn't fly either. Her choice of phrasing was "Mark my words (no jury will ever convict me)". Mark my words sounds an awful lot like a veiled threat, and a condescending one at that, spoken by someone with contempt for others that is absolutely sure they are right and beyond contradiction, not the sort of phrasing a depressed or truly suicidal person would use.

This whole scenario to me says the killing itself was simply the revenge of a woman scorned - there is nothing in her words or her previous actions toward men that would indicate she is a victim and probably more to indicate she is the aggressor and a stalking abuser in a passive-aggressive way until she went absolutely nuclear and killed him so brutally - far more brutally than a simple self-defense case would warrant - and her verbose testimony to a jury and the world is her relishing in killing him a second time by attempting to murder his character.

Like many of you, I'm just waiting to see the pros unravel the idiotic webs of inconsistencies and lies on cross. She may be enjoying her time in the limelight but I will be happy to see it end. This chick needs to have the spotlight turned off.
 
She demanded it.

I talked to two of my lawyer friends today and they said no way in hell would her DT want her to be cross examined by a seasoned prosecutor.

They said putting a cold blooded murderer on the stand who is also a pathological liar is like committing judicial suicide.

IMO

I agree she demanded it.

Amen to the 'judicial suicide'!
 
A combination of both. She demanded it and the DT felt they were losing the jury - - the prosecutor is really, really good. Wow. Anyway, JA's Tale of Woe is a Hail Mary, because their case-in-chief has blown up in their face thus far and the best they can hope for now is a sympathetic juror or two.

IMO, IMO, IMO.

Unfortunately that is a good possibility. They could have someone on the jury like the jury foreman in the FCA jury. She is somewhat young, attractive, softspoken...and they bond with her from her being on the stand all those days.
 
Well I've tried to stay away from posting on this trial because I am a recovering Casey Anthony forum addict and this chick has way too many similarities.

I find it next to impossible to listen to her droning testimony - and like the other inveterate liar, FCA, she is absolutely entranced by her own ability to regurgitate an impossible level of detail. Didn't she also want to represent herself at some point? Her evident satisfaction at delivering the most excruciating minutiae makes me think she would have begged to testify regardless of whether it was necessary to support her otherwise uncorroborated character assassination of Travis. She is getting off on having a captive audience, imo. And, like FCA, she seems to think that an abundance of detail is a substitute for actual evidence, a false confidence many liars have that also smacks of little regard for the intelligence of their audience.

Her "suicide" excuse for that video saying she would never be convicted doesn't fly either. Her choice of phrasing was "Mark my words (no jury will ever convict me)". Mark my words sounds an awful lot like a veiled threat, and a condescending one at that, spoken by someone with contempt for others that is absolutely sure they are right and beyond contradiction, not the sort of phrasing a depressed or truly suicidal person would use.

This whole scenario to me says the killing itself was simply the revenge of a woman scorned - there is nothing in her words or her previous actions toward men that would indicate she is a victim and probably more to indicate she is the aggressor and a stalking abuser in a passive-aggressive way until she went absolutely nuclear and killed him so brutally - far more brutally than a simple self-defense case would warrant - and her verbose testimony to a jury and the world is her relishing in killing him a second time by attempting to murder his character.

Like many of you, I'm just waiting to see the pros unravel the idiotic webs of inconsistencies and lies on cross. She may be enjoying her time in the limelight but I will be happy to see it end. This chick needs to have the spotlight turned off.

I'm another recovering KC trial addict. Thanks for this brilliant post!
 
This is the last time anyone will care what JA says. She's milking it for all it's worth. Her tells of smiling, being flirty and "shy"... no way she would or could stay off the stand. I think her D-team is willing and planned it because they knew she was toast anyway.
 
I think the more important question is IS SHE EVER GONNA GET OFF THE STAND???
 
I think she demanded to testify. She's just that manipulative and narcissistic IMO. I can't stand the way she speaks to the jury as though she was a seasoned professional hired to give their expert testimony. Plus 'no jury will ever convict her' so why listen to your attorney. I've lost all faith since Casey walked,but I'm hoping and praying this jury doesn't fall for this crock of dung.
 
I voted she demanded it. I'm home sick and have been taping/watching daily. I don't think any defense attorney in their right mind would put her on the stand. JA said she killed Travis with no emotion whatsoever. Wouldn't the mere throught of it bring someone to tears if they had done that to really protect themself?
 
Absolutely she insisted upon taking the stand. She believed she was superior to anyone else and could think fast enough to outsmart anything the prosecutor said.
 
She insisted. Her ego demands it. She thinks she can sway anyone to get them to believe her story. No one could tell it better than her.
 
With Self defense she really doesn't have a choice. But I know she wanted to talk. She can not be silent. Watching her over the last few days. She has to be heard or it just aches inside her. She needs to be the biggest personality in the room.

She could not have been silent.
 

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