It took just 19 minutes but Jodie Arias gave her pitch to save her life to a packed Phoenix courtroom:
Sticking to her story that she killed 30-year-old Travis Alexander in self-defense. She told the courtroom. “Before that day, I wouldn’t even want to harm a spider, ” Interesting phraseology as most people use the word fly when referencing that analogy. Jodie then went on to explain: “To this day, I can hardly believe I was capable of such violence.” And that’s exactly the point the jury are dealing with as they are having to deal with the reality that Alexander’s throat was slit, he was shot in the head, and was stabbed 27 times in his suburban Phoenix home in 2007.
No one can still quite believe the violent nature of her crime but Jodie is realizing there is no lying anymore. “I got on TV and lied” after her May 8 conviction. “I lied about what I did and I lied about the nature of my relationship with Travis.” Yes she did but she had an explanation for that as well as her mistake in wanting death rather than life. She said she “lacked perspective” when she said she preferred death to spending the rest of her life behind bars. As I stand here now, I can’t in good conscience ask you to sentence me to death, because of them,” she said, pointing to her tearful family in court. Please don’t do this to them,” she added later.
Jodie was on the verge of tears several times, such as when she said she realized now that she’d never become a mother. “Because of my own terrible choices, I have to lay that dream to rest,” she said. We say thank Goodness for that!
Jurors closely watched Arias as she spoke and turned to a large screen behind her where she had displayed photos of relatives, of a former boyfriend and of drawings she had made of family members as well as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley in a bid to become an artist.
“I’ll never create another oil painting,” she said regretfully. That Jodie is the least of your worries.
Arias was the final witness in the five-month trial because her lawyers refused to present other mitigating testimony.
After Arias spoke, Judge Sherry Stephens told jurors they had the final say on whether she lives or dies.
“Your decision is not a recommendation,” she said.
We say let her live in prison thus proving as a society we have more of a moral understanding of life than this young woman does.
