Jodi Arias Ask Jury For Life In Prison

• Report rights infringement
• published: 22 May 2013
• views: 169

As a jury deliberates whether Jodi Arias will spend her entire life behind bars or die for killing her one-time boyfriend, the convicted murderer says asking for the death penalty is like "asking for assisted suicide." Arias told KSAZ reporter Troy Hayden Wednesday she changed her mind about favoring the death penalty over life after a tearful meeting with family members on the day she was convicted of first-degree murder, realizing that her death would only cause them more pain. Following her conviction, she said she preferred the death penalty to spending the rest of her life in jail in her first post-verdict TV interview last week with KSAZ's Hayden. "I felt like by asking for death, it's like asking for assisted suicide and I didn't want to do that to my family," she said. Judge Sherry Stephens allowed Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office to set up media interviews late Tuesday. Within minutes, Arias agreed to talk to several media outlets while in jail, even while the jury deliberates her fate. Arias told The Associated Press she fought from the beginning to keep cameras out of the courtroom to limit the media spectacle, and believes that the jury should have been sequestered. She stated flatly that she did not receive a fair trial. "The prosecutor has accused me of wanting to be famous, which is not true," she told the news agency. However, Arias has sought the spotlight at every turn, providing TV interviews and even using a third-party to Tweet throughout the trial. Arias repeated her claims that she never wanted to go to trial in the first place but instead wanted to reach a deal with prosecutors on a second-degree murder count that would have carried a maximum of 22 years in prison. However, she said, "no deal was offered." A shackled Arias wore makeup for the interviews and showed up in a jail classroom with a comb in hand as she fixed her hair for the cameras. When pressed for details on some of her conflicting stories, she was mostly evasive, citing advice from her attorneys and possible pending appeals. She was also asked about the conflicts she had had with her two court-appointed lawyers, Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott. Arias said she wanted at least three people called as witnesses who could have testified to having seen bruises on her neck "when I was choked out" by Alexander but she said she was rebuffed by her lawyers. The prosecutor insisted her claims of self-defense were exaggerated in attempt to avoid being convicted. She said her lawyers "felt a little betrayed" and blindsided by her post-conviction interview but that they gave their blessings for Tuesday night's interviews, warning her to be cautious. Arias said she sometimes wishes she'd never met Alexander, "just because of how ultimately everything ended and I say that for his sake and mine — not just a selfish thing." She said if the attack never occurred and she never crossed paths with the victim, she would likely now be a happily married 32-year-old with children, good finances and a successful wedding photography business. The jury was set to resume deliberations on Wednesday. Earlier Tuesday, Arias told jurors she planned to use her time in prison to bring about positive changes, including donating her hair to be made into wigs for cancer victims, helping establish prison recycling programs and designing T-shirts to raise money for domestic abuse victims. Arias became emotional as she displayed for jurors photos of her friends, boyfriends and family members, including newborn relatives she has met only from behind bars. She asked jurors to reject the death penalty for the sake of her family. "I'm asking you to please, please don't do that to them. I've already hurt them so badly, along with so many other people," she said. "I want everyone's healing to begin, and I want everyone's pain to stop." Arias stabbed and slashed Alexander nearly 30 times, shot in him in the forehead and slit his throat, nearly decapitating him, before leaving his body in his shower to be found by friends about five days later. "To this day, I can hardly believe I was capable of such violence. But I know that I was," Arias told jurors. "And for that, I'm going to be sorry for the rest of my life." Her speech to jurors came a day after her attorneys asked to be removed from the case, saying the five-month trial had become a witch hunt that prompted death threats against a key witness in the penalty phase. They also argued for a mistrial. The judge denied both requests. Alexander's family showed little emotion as Arias' mother, father and sister looked on from the other side of the gallery and cried. Arias said in her interview that her mother lost her job at the Northern California dental office where she has worked for several years after spending the entire year in Phoenix for the trial.