Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars (31 page)

Dworkin’s testimony next focused on Arias’ Canon camera, which police had seized during their search of Arias’ grandparents’ house in Yreka.

“You talked about there being a memory card that was as
sociated with this Canon camera. . . . Were you able to pull photos off of that memory card?” Willmott asked, seeking to introduce three photographs that had been found on the memory card. The first was a close-up shot of Arias posing cheek to cheek with her sister, Angela, which was time-stamped May 15, 2008. “Okay, and in this photograph, can you tell us what color Ms. Arias’ hair is?”

“I object, lack of foundation,” I said. “He is not an expert on hair, and the color speaks for itself.”

When the judge overruled my objection, Dworkin offered his response.

“Her hair appears to be brown,” he said.

It was clear that the defense was trying to infer that Arias did not have blond hair when she rented the car at the Budget counter at the airport in Redding, California, on June 2, 2008, although the suggestion was hardly provable by viewing this photograph.

Willmott presented Dworkin with a second photograph and asked, “Can you tell what’s in this photograph?”

“It appears to be a pair of women’s panties, pink color, and a gray T-shirt. The gray T-shirt has ‘Travis Alexander’s’ with a possessive—as a possessive statement, and then we have ‘Travis’ with a possessive statement also on the panties.”

This photograph was shown on the monitors, but after all the gruesome photographs that had already been presented, there was no response, not even from the gallery.

When asked about the date and time stamp on the photograph, Dworkin replied, “We have July 12, and we have a time of 10:25:15. This is when it was taken by the camera and then saved to the memory card.”

It was not lost on me that this photograph, clearly introduced to try and persuade jurors that Travis was possessive of Arias and therefore abusive, was taken more than a month after Travis’ murder—just three days before Arias’ arrest on July 15, 2008. Because I wasn’t sure that Dworkin knew the
date Travis was killed, I couldn’t specifically ask him about how long after Travis’s death these photos had been taken by Arias. But I could highlight the date in my cross-examination, knowing that the jury would understand the time span between the dates and realize that Travis probably had nothing to do with the imprinted words.

When the floor was turned over to me, I was anxious to dispel Willmott’s illusion that she was attempting to impart on the jury that Travis had been viewing porn sites on the morning of the day he was killed.

“Sir, on Thursday, when we left off, we were talking about a number of computers,” I began. “The first one that you talked about was this computer that belonged to Travis Alexander, or you gave the indication that that was Travis Alexander’s, correct?”

“Yes.”

“. . . Somebody is going on YouTube [using that computer], correct?”

“Correct.”

“Right. And what they were looking for was this ‘Daft Bodies—Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,’ right?”

“Correct, that was the title.”

“And Daft Bodies is a rock group, right?”

“That, I don’t know,” Dworkin replied sheepishly.

“Well, don’t you think that you should have gone on, because this sort of seemed a little bit salacious, doesn’t it? It looks like it may be porn, doesn’t it?”

“It potentially may or may not be.”

“Right. But if I told you that Daft Bodies was nothing more than a rock group, would you disagree with me?”

Willmott interjected with an objection, trying to preserve the impression she had attempted to create for the jury over the last two days, saying that my question called for speculation. But Judge Stephens overruled her objection.

“I have no way of agreeing or disagreeing because I have
no knowledge of it,” Dworkin replied, beginning to show that perhaps his testimony had been less than complete.

“And ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,’ do you know that that’s the name of a song that this group has?”

“Again, I have no knowledge of this particular video or group.”

Because I knew that these videos had no sexual content, I made the point through my questions, spelling out for the jury that introducing the titles of the videos was an attempt to mischaracterize what Travis had been watching.

From there, I turned my attention to whether he had made the decision to print the penis photographs from the hard drive.

“Well, you picked certain photographs from the other hard drive . . . didn’t you?”

“No,” Dworkin replied, explaining that he had provided the reports of his analysis, which contained all photographs, to defense counsel, but had played no part in choosing which ones would be shown in court.

“With regard to the photographs that we were talking about Thursday,” I asked, referring to the two pictures of a man’s penis, “did you print those photographs, yes or no?”

“No. I did not print those photographs,” he said.

“With regard to the Canon camera, there were some photographs that were taken and this is one of them, right?” I said, showing Dworkin the photograph of Arias in the monogrammed T-shirt and pink underwear.

“Yes.”

“And this one says, ‘Travis Alexander’s,’ the possessive, on the shirt, correct? And then it says ‘Travis’ on the shorts? . . . It looks a little bit posed, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Dworkin agreed, voicing what probably everyone in the courtroom was thinking.

Addressing the photograph of Arias posing with her sister, Angela, in which Dworkin testified that Arias had brown hair, I asked, “Sir, you’re really not an expert on hair, are you?”

“I have been asked for my opinion in the past on body features including hair, but as an advertised expert on hair, specifically, no,” Dworkin replied in what sounded like a worried tone. Perhaps he was concerned that my next question would be whether he was an expert on penises.

“So . . . when you were asked about hair color . . . were you just giving us the opinion that—the same opinion that anybody in this courtroom would have given us?”

“Yes.”

“So, it’s not that you’re any better or any worse than people here, right?”

“Probably not,” Dworkin conceded.

“In terms of the hair, do you know when this hair color was applied to the defendant?”

“No, I don’t,” Dworkin replied.

When I indicated that I had no more questions for this witness, the judge asked Willmott, “Do you have an extensive redirect, or is it brief?”

“Judge, it may take longer than five minutes . . .” Willmott replied, turning to look at the clock.

“All right,” the judge said. “We’ll take the noon recess at this time.”

When we returned from lunch, Willmott completed her redirect examination of Dworkin.

Defense counsel’s second witness this day was Bryan Neumeister, a self-professed expert in voice identification and photography analysis. Neumeister, dressed in a black dress shirt, black sports coat and a reddish tie, started his testimony by reading from his CV as if he were unfamiliar with his own qualifications. Neumeister then talked about his role in enhancing the audio on the May 10, 2008, conversation between Travis and Arias that Arias had recorded on her Helio cell phone.

Neumeister was able to say that he had compared the male voice on the recording and identified it as Travis’, and he iden
tified the other voice, a female voice, as belonging to Arias, even though he had not done a voice comparison with her voice and was basing it on the other person in the conversation calling the female speaker “Jodi.” To explain the process he followed in his analysis, he went through a number of graphs that were more boring than informative, and as he was quick to point out, basking in self-aggrandizement, “And, again this is just for the record. You may not understand or you could ask questions . . .”

Defense counsel ended Neumeister’s testimony without moving to enter the audio recording into evidence, which would have to wait until Arias herself was on the stand, which as I was about to learn, would be immediately, as she was the next witness they would call.

Defense counsel had not indicated that they would have any other witnesses for that day. But, I was not surprised that Arias was called to the stand without providing me prior notice, because it has become accepted practice for defense counsel to wait until the last minute to inform the prosecution when or if they will call a defendant to testify.

Okay, I thought. Let’s see what she says now about how she killed Travis
.

T
he defense calls Jodi Arias.”

Nurmi’s announcement resulted in a perceptible stillness settling over the courtroom that Monday afternoon. This was the moment everyone had been anticipating, and it came earlier than I had expected. Typically, the defendant is the last witness to take the stand. Being the last to testify carries with it the advantage of knowing what every other witness has already said, affording a defendant the opportunity to address any troublesome issues that require further explanation, so for Arias to testify before the defense had presented the rest of its case was a bit of a surprise.

While I had not been given notice that Arias would be taking the stand until minutes before she was called that afternoon, I had time to voice an objection to her walking from the defense table to the witness stand in view of the jury. As a security measure designed to prevent an escape, all inmates attending trial are fitted with a leg brace that locks at the knee should the person try to run away. The brace is worn underneath the pant leg and is not visible but causes a noticeable limp when the person is walking.

To avoid the jury seeing Arias walking in this fashion and possibly feeling sympathy for her, Judge Stephens granted my request that Arias should already be in the witness box when the jury was brought back into the courtroom.

As she waited in the witness chair for the proceedings to
begin, Arias took a deep breath, pulled the microphone closer, and gazed at the dozens of faces staring back at her.

I thought back to the status conference five years earlier, when I had seen her in the courtroom for the first time, sitting in the jury box looking somewhat out of place dressed in horizontally striped black-and-white jail garb apparently not having any need for glasses back then. Today she would play a different part, the lead role as an abused woman. Her short-sleeve black sweater was appropriately conservative and paired with baggy light-colored slacks several sizes too big for her slight frame; it was an ensemble that had surely been chosen to make her appear smaller and somewhat fragile, with the wispy bangs and thick-framed glasses completing the librarian look.

“Ms. Arias, please stand to be sworn,” Judge Stephens directed when the jury returned to the courtroom just after 2
P.M
.

As we were all about to see, swearing to tell the truth, “so help me God,” meant nothing to Jodi Ann Arias.

I imagined her testimony would immediately focus on the crime itself, because before this point all we had heard from the defense’s witnesses was what a cad Travis had been. But it quickly became clear from Nurmi’s initial questions that his direct examination would take an indirect route.

“Hi, Jodi,” he began in a friendly tone.

Arias managed to eke out a “hi” in a voice so faint she was barely audible.

“How are you feeling right now?” Nurmi asked.

Before Arias could answer the very first question posed, I objected, and the judge sustained my objection, because Arias’ feelings were irrelevant to the truthfulness of her answers.

Nurmi rephrased the question. “I want to ask you—let me ask you this, is this a position you ever thought you would find yourself in?”

“Objection, relevance,” I said again, because the question was along the same vein as the previous one.

And with that, Judge Stephens switched on the white noise, a computer generated sound specifically designed to prevent others in the courtroom from hearing bench conferences between court and counsel. The white noise had already begun to dominate the proceedings as there were countless bench conferences called throughout the trial.

While the judge considered my objection, Arias became the focus of the TV cameras and of everyone in the courtroom. Even under such intense scrutiny, she remained unflappable, looking relaxed and at ease as she sat facing the gallery with her hands folded in her lap.

After a quick discussion, during which the judge sustained my objection, Nurmi returned to the floor to resume his direct examination. “Let me ask you a couple of important questions before we get back and start talking about who you are and why you’re here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Did you kill Travis Alexander on June 4, 2008?”

“Yes, I did,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone and without a trace of emotion.

“Why?”

There was a pregnant pause before Arias delivered what smacked of a rehearsed response. “The simple answer is he attacked me, and I was defending myself.”

“Okay, it was brought up during these proceedings that you gave an interview to
Inside Edition
. Do you remember seeing that tape?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And in that tape, you said that no jury would convict you, something to that effect, do you remember saying that?”

“Yeah, I did say that,” Arias admitted, looking down at her lap.

“Why?” Nurmi posed.

“I made that statement in September 2008, I believe it was, and at that time I had plans to commit suicide. So I was ex
tremely confident that no jury would convict me because I didn’t expect any of you to be here. I didn’t expect to be here, so I could have easily said no jury would acquit me, either,” she said, taking a statement that showed her in a negative light and attempting to turn it into a sympathetic moment.

“I couldn’t say that, though, because there was an officer sitting five feet behind me. Had I told them the reason no jury would convict me at that time, I would have been thrown in a padded cell and stripped down and that would have been my life for a while until I stabilized.

“So I was very confident that no jury would convict me because I planned to be dead. Probably the most bitter words I’ll ever eat,” Arias added in a subdued voice, as if to show regret—not for killing Travis, but for making the seemingly pompous statement on national television.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Nurmi asked, appearing eager to have Arias repeat the statement to emphasize her regret.

“I said, those are probably the most bitter words I’ll ever eat.”

Nurmi’s inquiry moved to questions about Arias’ life, beginning with her immediate family, followed by questions about her childhood in Salinas, California.

“I lived there until I was twelve,” Arias said. I found it ironic that this was the city where she had chosen to buy the third gas can.

“Okay, what was life like in Salinas?”

“The first years of my life, it was really good.”

“When you say that—before you continue, let’s clarify. What do you mean by first years?”

“I would say until about age seven it was a fairly ideal childhood,” she explained, without elaborating.

“Okay, different people have different meanings when they say ideal, so why don’t you describe for us what you mean by ideal childhood?”

“I have predominantly positive memories of my childhood
at that time. My brother and I lived in—when I was about four years old, we moved to a house in a cul-de-sac. We had the center lot, so it was a huge backyard. We had a lot of places to play there. There were trees to climb and there were other kids in the neighborhood . . . that we played with. . . .”

Arias explained that while she and her brother Carl were two years apart in age, they were just a grade apart in school because Arias had been left back in kindergarten.

“And tell us about your parents at that time, to your recollection. Were they both working? Was your mom at home? Tell us about that.”

“Yeah, when I was younger, I remember my mom used to work. I guess she was working as a server with my dad. He owned restaurants my whole life. Then, when I was around eleven or twelve, she became a dental assistant.”

“. . . Jodi, one of the things that you said a couple of questions ago when we were speaking is that your life was pretty ideal up until about age seven. Is something different after age seven, or . . . ?” Nurmi asked, signaling Arias to change topics and begin discussing the alleged physical abuse by her parents.

“It seemed like, well you know, my parents would just, you know, spank us or hit us, discipline. So it seemed like at age seven it started getting a little bit more intense . . .” Arias responded.

“Okay, you said they started spanking you?”

“Well, I was spanked before on occasion. It seemed like the frequency and the intensity of it increased around that age.”

“What do you mean by that, frequency and intensity?” Nurmi pressed. It was becoming clear that defense counsel was working to depict Jodi Arias as a victim of childhood abuse.

“Well, just—there were—I think that’s the first year my dad started using a belt,” Arias said, starting to tear up. “My mom began to carry a wooden spoon in her purse.”

“Objection,” I said. “Relevance.”

“Sustained,” Judge Stephens ruled.

“May we approach?” Nurmi asked the judge.

“You may,” Judge Stephens said, flipping on the white noise once again.

After a brief discussion at the bench, the judge ruled that Nurmi could continue with his line of inquiry.

“You were just now telling us that your mother carried a wooden spoon with her. What did she do with that spoon?” he asked.

“It was a wooden kitchen spoon that she would keep in her purse, and if we were misbehaving, my brother and I, this was before Angela and Joseph were born, although it continued through that point, if we were misbehaving, she would use it on us. Sometimes, she would pull the car over and, you know, like if we were being brats or something . . .”

“What do you mean by use it on you?”

“She would hit us with it.”

“She hit you hard?”

“It felt pretty hard, yes. It left welts.”

Arias’ mother, Sandy, was in the front row of the gallery next to her twin sister, Heather, and appeared to be fighting back tears as she listened to her daughter’s account. Across the aisle were Travis’ sisters Samantha and Tanisha. Samantha, in particular, glared at Jodi Arias, in apparent disgust at what appeared to be an attempt by Arias to blame Travis’ murder on her parents’ discipline.

“It left welts on your body?” Nurmi repeated.

“Yes.”

“When your dad hit you with the belt, did that leave welts on your body?”

“Objection. Lack of foundation. Time. Date,” I said.

“Rephrase,” Judge Stephens advised Nurmi.

“You told us your dad hit you with a belt? . . . After age seven? . . . Did he leave welts?”

“He didn’t leave welts as often as my mom,” Arias replied.

“She also used a belt,” Arias continued. “My dad was very
intimidating, so I don’t think he needed to hit us quite as hard to get the point across. My mom didn’t carry that fear factor with her, so I think she used more force. Her blows felt a lot worse, actually.”

“Physically or emotionally?”

“Both.”

“. . . Can you discern for us how many times a week your mother would beat you with the spoon?” Nurmi asked, substituting Arias’ word “hit” with the word “beat” to describe the punishment.

“I don’t recall how many times, particularly, but it seemed like it could go anywhere from four times a week to once every two weeks. It just depended.”

Arias claimed the “beatings” from her mother and father “increased” in frequency and severity, “I’d say all the way through my teenage years.”

Focusing on the discipline meted out by her parents was an unexpected approach to her self-defense claim. The issue to be resolved by the jury was whether she had premeditated Travis’ murder, not whether she had been mistreated by her parents. Arias ran the risk of alienating the jury by appearing to complain about every single alleged act of abuse, which could make her come across to the jury as less a victim and more a spoiled child.

“Okay . . . you’ve talked about frequency and severity; did the level of the brutality increase?” Nurmi inquired, incorporating an even more severe term in his question.

“Yes. My brother and I would—we didn’t like being hit. . . . I know I didn’t, so we would squirm around a little. The more we squirmed, the harder they would try to whack us.

“So, just, that progressed. Things would increase. You know, at one point, I don’t think she meant to, but my mother broke my brother’s vein in his wrist as he was putting his hand behind his back to block one of her blows. And, you know, as
I became a teenager, my dad would get rougher and rougher,” Arias answered.

“Okay, before we go on to rougher and rougher, let me ask you this, and I’m not simply talking physically: How did you feel? How did you feel when your own mother was beating you?”

“When I was younger, I remember feeling—I didn’t have a word for it then, but I can describe it as betrayed and confused. And as I got a little bit older, it would just really make me mad because I just—I didn’t get why. I don’t know, I understood I was being punished, but I would just be mad at her a lot because it hurt.”

“Because you still loved her?” said Nurmi, apparently providing Arias with the reason for the anger directed at her mother.

“Yeah. I loved my mom.”

“Even though she was still beating you, and you still loved her?”

“Yes. It put a strain on our relationship, but I still loved her, of course.”

“. . . Going back to what you said about your dad and the beatings getting rougher and rougher, could you describe for us what you mean by that?”

“Yeah. He never beat me with his fists or anything, he would just shove me into furniture, sometimes the piano, or things like that, into tables, chairs, desks, whatever was around. He would just push me really hard, and I would go flying into that.

“One time I hit a door post on the side of my head, hit the post, and it knocked me out momentarily. I just remember waking up on the ground. My mom was there. We were all arguing. I was arguing with my mom and he got involved. So I remember waking up, and she was telling him to be careful.”

“. . . Do you remember how old you were when this happened?”

“By then, I was age seventeen, maybe sixteen, but I think I was seventeen.”

As I sat listening, I noticed that Nurmi had avoided asking about visits to the doctor or hospital, times when police or school officials might have initiated an investigation, or discussions among family and friends about any injuries or possible bruising they might have seen. Arias’ testimony on the alleged beatings would remain unconfirmed for the rest of the trial, with no corroborating witnesses or documents to support these allegations.