Jodi Arias sentenced to natural life in prison
PHOENIX — Jodi Arias, who was convicted in 2013 for the 2008 murder of her lover, Travis Alexander, was sentenced Monday to natural life in prison after two juries could not reach an unanimous decision on whether to sentence her to death.
Monday's ruling ended one of the more dramatic and notorious murder trials in recent Arizona history.
After Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens announced the sentence, the victim's sister, Tanisha Sorenson, shouted, "Burn in hell!"
Stephens had the option of giving Arias natural life or life in prison with the possibility of release after 25 years.
In Arias' final plea to the judge, she acknowledged what she had done and the pain it had caused.
"I wish there was something I could do to take it back," she said.
Arias' mother made a plea for a lighter sentence.
"I know that she is not the monster she is made out to be," Sandy Arias said.
And Arias' attorney, Jennifer Willmott, asked that the judge "not base this on what a mob on social media says."
Willmott said Arias is "repulsed by what she did, she really is.
"If she cries, people call them fake tears, if she doesn't cry they say she's evil," the defense attorney added.
Alexander's family spoke earlier in the hearing. Sorenson said to Arias: "Stop murdering my brother again and again by smearing his name."
Another of his sisters, Hillary Wilcox, reminded the courtroom of what Alexander and his family lost.
"He wanted to get married, he wanted a family," she said. "I am married. I have a family, a family he will never get to meet."
Stephens listened intently to both sides, then sentenced Arias to the harsher penalty.
The crime "was especially cruel," the judge said. "It involved substantial planning and preparation. ... The defendant destroyed evidence ... and went to great lengths to conceal her involvement."
She said she saw no reason for leniency.
Arias probably will appeal her conviction, as her attorneys made a detailed record of their allegations of misconduct against prosecutor Juan Martinez over the course of two trials. And the criminal defense community, meanwhile, is assembling a dossier on Martinez with the intent of filing a complaint to the State Bar of Arizona regarding his conduct in the Arias case and others.
Alexander, 30, was found dead in the shower of his Mesa, Ariz., home in June 2008. He had been shot in the head and stabbed nearly 30 times, and his throat had been slit.
Alexander's friends immediately pointed to Arias as a likely suspect. And explicit photos recovered from a digital camera found in Alexander's washing machine showed that the murder occurred after a tryst between Arias and Alexander.
They had photographed each other naked in bed, and Arias had photographed Alexander in the shower where he was found. One photo even showed his bloody body lying on the floor.
After a salacious trial that was live-streamed through cyberspace and regaled in social and mainstream media alike, Arias was found guilty of first-degree murder. But the jury that convicted her was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether to sentence her to death or to life in prison.
A second jury was seated in October 2014 to again consider the life-or-death sentence. Although Stephens did not allow the retrial to be broadcast in any fashion, it still generated strong emotion on social media outlets.
The retrial took almost as long as the first trial — nearly five months — and that jury ended in a deadlock as well, with a single holdout against the death penalty. Under state law, Arias cannot be tried again and must be sentenced to life in prison.
The holdout juror — Juror 17 — was subsequently outed on social media and harassed to the point of needing police protection. The jurors who voted for the death penalty accused Juror 17 of having an agenda.
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office is reportedly "reviewing" the juror's background and the circumstances of how her identity was revealed moments after the mistrial was declared.
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