Jodi Arias Swaps Skirts for Prison Stripes
Ariz. judge delays trial to determine whether Jodi Arias will be executed
June 20, 2013— -- Jodi Arias appeared in court today and instead of the blouses and skirts she wore before her murder conviction arrived at court in a striped prison jumpsuit and shackles.
Three of the jurors who helped convict Arias on May 8 were in attendence at today's hearing.
Arias was in court with her lawyers to settle several issues, but Judge Sherry Stephens did not set a date for a new trial on whether Arias should get the death penalty.
A tentative trial date was set for July 18, but Arias' defense attorneys filed a motion last week in Superior Court in Maricopa County asking the judge to delay the proceedings until January 2014, saying they needed to find witnesses to testify on Arias' behalf and had scheduling conflicts.
Prosecutor Juan Martinez was hoping to start picking a new jury this summer.
Arias, convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2007, appeared in a prison jumpsuit with wide gray striped and was manacled. She didn't say a word during her brief appearance, but smiled while talking with her attorneys after the hearing.
Arias' mother was in the courtroom.
Arias, 32, was convicted on May 8 of first-degree murder for brutally killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander. Minutes after she was convicted, Arias said she wanted the death penalty. But her final plea to the jury sounded a lot different.
"I thought I'd rather die. But as I stand here now I can't in good conscious ask you to sentence me to death because of them," Arias said pointing to her family shortly before the jury began to deliberate her fate.
Diane Schwartz was in the majority of the jury and thought Arias deserved the ultimate punishment. She's one of the jurors who said she feels compelled to be at this morning's hearing.
"As the trial progressed, you became so invested in it. Not having the capabilities to finish, in my mind, what we had started... I want to see it through to the end," she said.
In the retrial of the penalty phase, a new jury will be selected. The jury will decide whether Arias should be sentenced to death or spend her remaining days in a women's prison. If that jury cannot come to an agreement, Arias will automatically get life in prison.
The judge would decide whether Arias gets life without parole or life with the eligibility of parole after 25 years.
Arias remains in Maricopa County jail while she awaits her sentence.
Meanwhile, the movie depicting Arias' crime, "Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Liar," will premiere on the Lifetime network June 22, at 8 p.m. The film shows Arias' relationship with Alexander and the aftermath of the murder, which occurred in June 2008.
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