Jodi Arias Verdict and trial recap from HLN

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• published: 14 Apr 2015
• views: 3079

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, 1863-1952 Does everyone remember the Saturday Night Live skit for “Total Bastard Airlines”? The one where Helen Hunt and David Spade are flight attendants, and as each passenger is getting off the plane, all they can say to each departing person is “Buh-bye!”? That’s kind of how I’m feeling about Jodi Arias right now. The result of the Jodi Arias sentencing hearing – life in prison without the possibility of parole-- was widely expected. In fact, the universal conclusion of experienced lawyers and trial-watchers everywhere was Jodi’s chances of meeting with a parole board after 25 years were somewhere between slim and none, and Slim had already left town. This view must not have been lost on Arias, since when her turn came to address the court and express remorse, instead of begging for forgiveness, she gave the knife a final twist: She used this as another opportunity to further the threadbare narrative that she was a victim, that Travis Alexander was an abuser that attacked her. She even stooped as low as to blame some of her woes on Travis’s grieving family. Buh-Bye. As if all of this wasn’t bad enough (and it was), Jodi even stated on the record, in open court that Travis was conscious when she administered the fatal knife wounds. (But wait, I thought she testified in court that she couldn’t recall this, since she was in a fog…) Buh-bye. And at the end of it all, Judge Sherry Stephens had no anger in her voice, just made her record about how the factors of aggravation outweighed any factors of mitigation, and sentenced Arias to life in prison. Buh-bye. Now I feel a little bit like a Times Square cleaning crew on the morning of January 1st, cleaning up in the quiet aftermath emptiness following a big event. Yes, Jodi’s defense team has said that the appeals process has already begun. This isn’t news; it is standard operating procedure that an appeal be filed following a criminal sentencing after jury trial. And even though experienced trial lawyers are heard to comfort their clients by reminding them that “a conviction is just the first step towards a successful appeal,” on average criminal appeals are reportedly successful in only 4% of the cases. And even when granted, the defendant doesn’t necessarily have the jailhouse doors open. What both sides get is a new trial. The defendant in a criminal case is not entitled to a perfect trial, they are entitled to a fair trial, and when looking at the record in the Arias case, she will be hard-pressed to show that Judge Stephens, for all the criticism she endured, didn’t give Arias a fair trial. Stephens bent over backwards to do so. Yes, it’s true that there will be some lingering legal issues for Arias: the appeal process, and the restitution hearing (where it will undoubtedly be determined that her assets, including some portion of whatever she may earn in prison, will be forfeited to repay Travis’s family for what they’ve lost, as if Arias could ever do such a thing). But now that Arias is en route to an Arizona state prison, where she will spend the next years in solitary confinement with few privileges, we will have no more tweeting through her friends, no more reporters being able to conduct jailhouse interviews, we will all be able to say a loud and resounding “Buh-bye”. For someone as patently narcissistic as Arias, the deafening silence that follows will likely be a (not undeserved) torture. But as much as we all delight in the prospect of the Jodi Arias sideshow leaving Maricopa, and not hearing from her ever again, we must be sure not to forget. The memory of Travis Alexander will not let us forget. For if we do, just as Santayana prophesied, we will be doomed to repeat it. And no one deserves that.