Jodi Arias Swaps Skirts for Prison Stripes
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ABC News(PHOENIX) — Jodi Arias appeared in court Thursday 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 attendance at Thursday’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.
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.
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