The Jodi Arias trial was made for TV: gore, secrets, religious scandal, sex, and more sex. In addition to numerous pornographic photos of both the victim and defendant, there was the much talked about photo accidentally taken of the corpse with the leg of the killer in the foreground.
Did I mention the sex? By the time the initial trial was over, the sordid details of Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander’s sex lives overshadowed the facts of Alexander’s murder.
One might think this is normal for TV coverage of a murder trial; the talking heads are bound to focus on the elements that make for good TV. Sex sells, and the attorneys on both sides were happy to provide the talking points. A combination of a total lack of charisma or focus and the introduction of sex as a moral barometer changed the face of the trial completely.
One of the things that made the case so interesting was Arias’s consistently changing story. Though friends of Alexander immediately pointed the finger at Arias, she initially insisted she was nowhere near his home in Mesa, Arizona the day he was brutally murdered. As the evidence against her mounted, to include not only her bloody handprint at the scene but the nude photos that proved she was with Alexander the day he died, her story changed again.
The much-watched interrogation videos show Arias reciting a tale of masked, bloodthirsty intruders intent on taking Alexander’s life – but not hers. Letting her go for some mysterious reason that has spurred some of her supporters to concoct conspiracy theories about “blood sacrifices” and the “cult” of the Mormon Church.
By the time Arias had her day in court, her story changed a final time.
Jodi Arias admitted to killing Travis Alexander in self-defense.
The prosecution did not have to prove that Arias killed him. Her defense did not have to prove that she did not. The only thing in question during the trial was: did she kill him in self-defense or jealous rage?
Alexander was shot in the head, stabbed almost thirty times, and had his throat slit so violently he was almost beheaded. The only injury Arias sustained was a cut on her finger consistent with knife slippage which is an injury commonly found on perpetrators of stabbings.
Straightforward as it may have seemed, the trial was anything but.
The prosecution and defense teams immediately seemed over their heads. Evidence of little to no consequence was presented and pored over for what seemed like eternities. At one point, a witness was being aggressively questioned about the “mysterious” line of texts between himself and Arias only for him to point out that they were being read in reverse order. In chronological order they were nothing more than friendly, if not a little flirty, messages between friends. It appeared, not for the first or last time, that the attorneys didn’t even know why they had admitted something into evidence.
At another point, a witness was forced to explain, then re-explain, then qualify and clarify, for nearly fifteen minutes the difference between the Latter Day Saints (LDS) church’s “family” wards and “young single adult” wards (if this is not immediately apparent, adults under thirty who were not married attend church together, at one time, and families at another). The attorney was unable to grasp that sometimes Mormons do stuff together, sanctioned by the church, on days other than Sunday, leading to more banal questioning about a time Arias and Alexander attended a church event together on a Monday night.
From the opening statements the defense and prosecution alike jumped on the sexual aspect of Arias’s relationship with Alexander. The defense painted a picture of Alexander as a powerful man in both business and his church (both questionable stances) who wowed Arias with his acumen and then used her for his “secret” sexual pleasure.
At one point in the opening arguments, the defense took great care in pointing out the fibers found at the crime scene, with no allusion as to why they were important. Finally, they made their big reveal – the fibers were from soft, silky ropes that Alexander had cut in order to tie Arias up for light bondage. The defense points out that the last time they had (consensually) engaged in similar bondage, Arias had complained that the ropes hurt her wrists. They take the strange stance that the act of finding new, softer ropes was the act of an abuser, ignoring the fact that he seemed to take her concerns to heart, or that the kind of bondage they were engaging in was the stuff of a Cosmopolitan magazine sex moves page.
The prosecution wasted no time in bringing in any witness that would talk about their sexual activity with Arias. Examining the man she visited post-murder, they went to great pains to establish the flirtatious nature of their texts and emails and made the witness, Ryan Burns, go into excruciating detail about their make out sessions. It’s important to note that Burns did not have sex with Arias, but the prosecution wanted to make it clear that while they were kissing, his hands went “near her vaginal opening”, and that she had “adjusted” him.
Given the status as a death penalty case, it seems interesting that the prosecution would make a point of talking about Arias’s vagina, but also make a point of not using the word “penis” to describe Burns’ anatomy. Their strategy to dehumanize Arias as much as possible while presenting the men around her as victims of her sexuality was clear.
This would be a theme throughout the case. When faced with a “dick pic” recovered from Alexander’s computer, the prosecutor, who freely admitted a spread shot of Arias’s vulva and anus without context, would again opt for a more modest descriptor of “that part of the human anatomy” instead of naming the big, 8×10, full color penis. When Alexander sends a photo of his penis, he’s just a dude doing dude things; when Arias allows him to take a photo of her vulva, she is a femme fatale.
The prosecutor went as far as berating Burns to establish that while their texts and emails talked about “snuggling,” their encounter was more sexual, at one point yelling at the witness, “Is that what snuggling is?” Throughout the long discussions of her relationships with other men, the level of sexual activity in these relationships, even calling the man she dated prior to Alexander to the stand to talk about their relationship, relevance was never questioned. Remember – the prosecution’s job was to establish that Arias did not fear for her life when she murdered Travis Alexander, nothing more.
Of course the prosecution called witnesses that recalled the dramatic nature of Arias’s relationship with Alexander, the allegations of stalking, the on again/off again sexual encounters – but the defense seemed unwilling to question the relevance of testimony from ex-boyfriends who didn’t know Alexander or the relevance of whether she snuggled or kissed Ryan Burns the day after the murder. The defense didn’t even question the relevance of the numerous nude photos of Arias entered into evidence. Some photos were important to establish Arias’s presence in the home with Alexander the day of the murder; but photos that didn’t show her face, but instead focused on her genitals, were not only admitted, but flashed without warning on the livestream during recess.
The uncomfortable question became: Why is her defense allowing the prosecution to slut shame and humiliate her in a death penalty case? How does any of this prove the murder was not in self defense?
When Arias finally took the stand (and stayed there for nineteen days) the answer became clear. The defense didn’t allow the prosecution to paint their client as a heartless slut simply because they were incompetent – but as an integral piece of their strategy. If the precedent for sex-based character assassination could be used against the defendant, then surely it could be used against the victim.
It’s not unusual for a victim’s sexual history to be put on trial, but Arias’s defense was intent on pioneering new ground – they weren’t using Travis Alexander’s sexual activity and alleged deviancy to prove he wanted to sleep with Arias, but to prove he was worthy of death at her hands.
It took days for the defense to get through Arias’s history of abuse at the hands of parents and ex-lovers to finally land on the nature of her relationship with Alexander. He was forward sexually, but immediately regretted it. He would receive oral sex from her, then immediately send a text talking about how disappointed he was in himself for doing it. He would send her explicit texts, talk dirty on the phone, then talk to her about the Mormon church and attempt to convert her.
This was presented as dishonesty and manipulation, rather than textbook behavior from a man who is faithful to a chastity obsessed religion, but having trouble reigning in his own sexual desires. The defense seemed intent on making Arias’s conversion to the church a footnote, lest she also look like a sex obsessed hypocrite, and instead moved onto serious allegations of abuse, pedophilia, and rape.
A forensic examination of Alexander’s computer recovered the photo of his penis mentioned above, but none of the pictures of “little boys” in their underwear Arias testified she saw him viewing while masturbating. The shipment of boys’ underwear she said Alexander sent her is never questioned. There was no admission of boys’ underwear as evidence. No recorded conversation about them.
The defense did, however, play a long recorded phone sex session between Arias and Alexander so they could focus on one thing Alexander said: “You sound like a twelve year old girl orgasming for the first time. It’s so hot.” While definitely creepy, it’s hardly damning evidence of pedophilia, not even when paired with the relatively common school girl fantasy Arias testified Alexander wanted to play out with her. The defense seemed unaware that instead of showing Alexander as a monster, they were further humiliating their client.
This is interesting because the continued dehumanization and humiliation did actually garner Arias supporters. Many women who had suffered intimate-partner abuse identified with her, and fully believed that Alexander was a terrible man who wanted to have sex with little boys – the jury, however, didn’t seem to entertain such a notion. Nor did the comparatively large number of people following the trial that completely bought into the idea of Arias as a cold-blooded slut.
The defense danced just outside of alleging full-on anal rape on the day of Arias’s baptism. Arias seemed reluctant to play ball with her own attorneys and even downplayed the event, but the defense was keen on juxtaposing it with the religious event earlier in the day. The defense would bring up another event, again coming just short of accusing Alexander of rape.
In a clearly misguided move, the defense went so far as to ask Arias about Alexander’s alleged favorite role play, where he would drive to her house, jerk off on her face, and then immediately leave. Arias seemed aware of how ridiculous this was, at points barely able to keep a straight face. In a particularly confusing moment of her testimony, she says that on one occasion, they played out this fantasy, but Alexander threw something down beside her before leaving. The implication seems to be that he was treating her like a prostitute, but when questioned further she said she looked to see what it was, and discovered it was candy. The defense asked her what type of candy, and Arias nearly laughed as she revealed it was “a Toblerone.”
The defense does not, at any moment in her long testimony, ask Arias to focus on the day she killed Alexander. She asserted that he attacked her in a rage due to a dropped camera, and she had to kill him to survive. Instead of that, they focus on the fact that he allegedly mailed her boy’s underwear “that didn’t fit [her] because [she’s] not a little boy…”
Whether Alexander enjoyed sex despite his religion forbidding it prior to marriage is irrelevant to whether Arias had the right to shoot him, stab him repeatedly, and nearly cut his head off. Even if her unsupported allegation that he was attracted to “five or six year old” boys and minor girls was based in reality, she did not have the right to brutally murder him and leave his body to rot in his bathroom for nearly a week.
His sexual proclivities were irrelevant to the case. Either he attacked her that day in the bathroom, and she had to fight to survive, or she is a murderer.
Likewise, Arias’s enjoyment of sex with Alexander and dating habits should have played no role in whether she was found guilty of murder or sentenced to death.
Maybe Alexander really did use her for sex and call her demeaning names like “three-holed wonder.” Maybe Arias really did enjoy the light bondage and pornographic photo shoots. But neither is relevant to whether either of them deserve to live or die.
The unfocused and at times bizarre trial did serve Arias in one measurable way; she was granted a retrial based on insufficient legal representation. At her second trial, she was not sentenced to death, but to serve the rest of her natural life in prison, without possibility of parole.
