Juan Martinez - So, So Hot and So, So Cold

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The debate about whether Prosecutor Juan Martinez is an Avenging Angel bringing sweet relief to the crying souls of murder victims or a Demon doing the devil's work of browbeating innocent-ish defendants and their sainted legal teams into broken submission has busted out anew with the publication of a new newspaper article.

The article is a long-form piece, so refreshing to find in these days of click-bait Air-Puffed News Crunchies. Arizona Republic reporter Michael Kiefer worked on it for several months, researching and analyzing data on the incidence of allegations of misconduct against prosecutors in Arizona's death penalty cases for roughly the last ten years.

If you are coming to this blog from outside Arizona, and most of you do, Kiefer's work (it's actually a week-long series) will still be relevant to you because it gives insight into American courts in general and also highlights several cases that have captured the nation's attention at various times. Most famously and most recently, the series highlights the case of Jodi Arias. Visitors to this blog tend to be, ahem, very interested in that case.

The third article in Kiefer's series is devoted entirely to allegations of misconduct against Jodi Arias prosecutor Juan Martinez.

Juan Martinez is a polarizing figure. No question about it. He has a unique charisma in the courtroom that attracts adoring fans to his quietly burning fire and bionic-man efficiency or repels others to the core with his lightning strikes of sarcasm and take-no-prisoners advocacy where his five foot four frame seems to loom menacingly huge like a shadow in the most frightening Gothic film.

This summer I was a guest of the Arizona Public Defender Association, on a panel speaking to a ballroom full of lawyers. When the name Juan Marinez came up, the collective growl of 500 defense attorneys was palpable, audible, and almost feral.

In the prosecutorial misconduct article, Michael Kiefer shows us the Gothic version of Martinez, a prosecutor who seems to flit in and out of the halls of justice with the eternal indemnity of a vampire and the same morals.

Michael Kiefer himself has picked up some angry detractors of his own. I count myself one of his friends and fans. He has always been a generous and valued colleague to me.

Kimball and Kiefer

We have often viewed the same event through different lenses and that makes no difference to my respect for him. It's beneficial that we can look at the same elephant with him focusing on the trunk and me fixated on the size.

So here are a couple of my casual observations about his article on the sins of Juan Martinez.

First, a bit about the Jodi Arias section. Michael writes, 'Martinez was frequently insulting. The first question he posed to Arias during cross-examination set the tone, when he displayed a photograph to the courtroom and described it to her as a “picture of you and your dumb sister.”'

To me, that sentence could have been a bit more precisely punctuated. It should have had more quote marks in it. Picking it up in the latter half it should have looked more like this,

...and described it to her as a "picture of you and your 'dumb' sister."

As I recall the courtroom action, Martinez was not in that moment himself insulting defendant Jodi Arias's sister. He was quoting Arias herself, as entered into evidence. He was showing the photo of the two sisters together possibly to underscore the defendant's tendency to arrogance and duplicity by coupling it with Jodi's own remark about the younger Arias.

Media of the world in a pic I snapped leaving the Jodi Arias courthouse

In the section about the Doug Grant case (click here for more on Doug Grant), in which a nutrition king was accused of murdering his wife, every-bit-as-famous-in-his-own-right defense attorney Mel McDonald is quoted as complaining that Martinez had objected to just about every question he had posed to a witness. This is, yes, a very annoying tactic when you are one of the observers in a courtroom. It is hardly, however, the singular sin of prosecutors in general nor of Juan Martinez in particular. Any courtroom observer has seen it done by both sides of the aisle. Some judges keep a tighter rein on it than others. I'm no expert, but I don't think it's defined in the rules of courtroom procedure as a sin, at all. It can't be, for as often as I've seen it done.

The Republic article rightly lists the many pieces of evidence of drowning victim Faylene Grant's bizarre and cheerful obsession with her own death. I think I will use my own space here to also mention  some of the other evidence such as that the origin of her obsession was subject to debate. Did Doug have some kind of Svengali-like hold over her, leading her to write about death for his own sinister purposes? One of Faylene's own kids testified to having been blocked from access to her mother that morning, breaking with the household's normal routine. And the strange idea that natural health expert Doug had of calling a buddy instead of 911 upon finding his wife in mortal distress and that of feeding her excessive doses of powerful drugs against advice.

I shall leave the Doug Grant section with the notation that defense attorney McDonald himself considered the outcome of the case a victory for his client and well he should.

Lastly, the section in the Republic article about prostitute-killer Cory Morris hammers on Martinez's conduct regarding allegations of possible habitual necrophilia by the defendant. Was the evidence for this medical in nature? Apparently not. I did not sit in on this case, as I did the others mentioned, but I trust the reportage and accept it with confidence. But it does make a perfect case of me fixating on the size of the same elephant while someone else is examining its trunk. As I understand it, the corpses of the unfortunate women were recovered in states of advanced decay. It is unlikely it was at all possible to establish this kind of assault via medical evidence, with all the soft and fleshy parts of the bodies no longer coherent in form. But crimes are often proved in court without medical evidence. (Rick Valentini was recently convicted of the murder of Jamie Laiaddee with no medical evidence at all: her body has never been found, nor a crime scene--click here)

From what we know about sexual serial killers, the necrophilia is highly likely and a reasonable assumption especially given other facts of the Cory Morris case. But, most of all, why on earth would medical evidence of abuse of a corpse be crucial to the outcome of this case? Abuse of a corpse is not a capital charge. Victory against Martinez on this charge would lead to...crickets chirping.

It seems the fight for whether Morris actually murdered five women or not has been abandoned. Let's say appeal attorneys do win this battle. Cory Morris no longer can be considered guilty of necrophilia. He was never convicted of Abuse of a Corpse anyway. Morris is currently waiting on Death Row for five executions for five murders. The end. No sentences for any other crime. Just murder.

My guess is the appeals team hopes it can taint the verdict by saying the jurors were unfairly influenced by the improper "disgust" factor. If so, I may have more faith in jurors than do Morris's lawyers. If we could send people to Death Row for disgusting conduct, epic child molester Jerry Sandusky from Penn State would be there right now.  I believe jurors know that.

I also believe the strangling of five human beings is monstrous enough and so does the law.

Or perhaps their arguments have to do with the enhancements required to be found by a jury before a murder conviction can be considered for the death penalty. But committing 5 murders will get you over that hump so, again, crickets. And for more about how the law regards crimes against a dead person as opposed to a live one, see this post on Trent Benson.

So those are some of my top of mind reactions to the prosecutorial misconduct article in the Republic. Your mileage may vary.

The paper's series, by the way, opens with a highlight on retired prosecutor Noel Levy. He handled the Debra Milke case (click here for that case). I'll be doing more about it in the future. More details on Levy are available in my book, WHAT SHE ALWAYS WANTED about Marjorie Orbin.

Please join the debate on the Republic's Gothic Juan Martinez in the comment section below.  I would love to hear from you, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Jury Foreman for Jodi Arias - Crime Writer Inside the Courtroom

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--Friday, May 24, 2013

The courtroom for the Jodi Arias trial is a large one, almost cavernous, with an extra pair of tables behind the attorneys making the "well" area extra grand. This has the effect of putting those of us sitting in the rows of the gallery at a gaping distance from the players. Viewers on TV often have a better view of Juan Martinez, Kirk Nurmi, and of Jodi Arias herself than we do. 

But one thing the TV viewers never could see was the jury.  

That is, until this morning. When I went to bed last night after a long day, ending with an appearance with Jordan Rose and Mark Victor on KPNX at the top of the 10:00 news, I knew the faces and demeanor of the Jodi Arias jurors well but not their names. 

When I got up this morning, large as life there was William Zervakos outed by ABC and telling Good Morning America's (and former Phoenix reporter) Elizabeth Vargas what he, as jury foreman, thought of Jodi Ann Arias.

Zervakos said he felt Travis Alexander had "mentally and verbally abused" Jodi. He was "sure in his mind," he said firmly.  

Although I didn't know his name until this morning, Zervakos was quite familiar to me. In that walloping open plain of a courtroom well he sat in one of the closest seats to us every day. Picture the courtroom you have seen on TV. The judge's bench backs onto the east wall. We in the gallery are stacked up on the west wall. The jury box is on the north wall. Juror number one, a woman, sat in the front row of the jury box at the east end, a short skip from the witness box. Juror number eighteen, who turns out to be William Zervakos, sat in the back row at the west end of the jury box and therefore near us in the gallery. 

The day of the 1st deadlock note, southeast corner of the Jodi Arias courthouse

I had often watched Zervakos during the trial. It was natural, since I could see him clearly unlike so many of the other actors in the drama. He is a very solidly built guy who usually wore golf shirts. Sometimes at lunch time I would see him in the courthouse's small cafeteria dining room. He always had a book with him and kept to himself. Whenever I spotted him there, I had a kneejerk reaction of instantly reviewing in my mind any conversation I'd had in the last 30 minutes or double checking the positioning of my laptop screen for visibility to others. 

Like most of his fellow jurors, Zervakos resembled a statue most of the time during testimony. But one day I tweeted to my followers that I saw a juror nodding in agreement with a witness. I can now disclose that the juror I watched nod his head positively in concurrence with a witness was number 18, William Zervakis. It came when one of the trial's psychologists was saying that what happens to us as children, especially abuse, shapes who we become as adults. 

He did it in a most definite way, not just one vague dip of the chin but a clear series of nods to several statements from the stand. My twittles were instantly panicked, engaging with my tweet, feeling it meant he "bought" the defense theory that Travis was abusive to Jodi. 

After spending several hours searching my old tweets, I discover twitter won't let me go back further than April 17 so I am unable to access those tweets to post them here. If there are any twitter wranglers out there who know how to access the full archive, please contact me.

To those panicked twittles on that day, I responded that the juror nodding his head to this testimony didn't necessarily mean what they feared it meant. Maybe he just recognized the phenomenon, maybe it resonated with his own life.

Now that William Zervakos has spoken out, we know that I was in the wrong and the instincts of my twittles were right on target. He believes, "sure" in his mind, that Travis was "mentally and verbally abusive" to Jodi.


In his first interview, Zervakos also told how Jodi "didn't look like a murderer." In this statement, Zervakos clearly revealed a gender bias. If the facts of the case had been the same but the deceased was the woman and the defendant was the man, few can reasonably doubt that an Arizona jury would send him anywhere but death row. In fact, one day while waiting for the Jodi Arias trial day to begin I watched Judge Sherry Stephens wrap up the case of Dzevad Selimovic. My twittles rapidly became interested in the case, so I wrote about it and you can click here<< to find it and his pic. Selimovic viciously killed his ex-girlfriend. From What Zervakos has said, Selimovic would "look like a killer" to him. Selimovic didn't want to face a jury full of William Zervakoses. He pled out and got life. 

But the facts of the two cases have many parallels. A breakup of lovers, jealousy, an inability to let go, a long trip, and a horrific and fatal head wound with the victim left to die in their own home. It's even eerily true that both murders began in the bathroom, with the injured victim trying to escape to the hall. Selimovic, like Jodi, depicted his victim as previously abusive to him. In Selimovic's case, his allegation involved finances but also matters of the heart. Two similar sets of facts, but nobody is much interested in the brawny man's excuses for doing what he did to another human being. Interestingly, Selimovic actually inflicted fewer wounds than did the slender girl with the soft voice. 

Speaking of that soft voice, in one of the many TV interviews I did on the day of the deadlock mistrial, I told ABC15 reporter Amy Murphy that I found it to be the scariest thing about Jodi Arias. With someone like Selimovic, if he randomly met him on the street a William Zervakos would keep his guard up. Even with convicted dismemberment killer Marjorie Orbin, whom I have interviewed personally in a small cell, not knowing what she did Zervakos would keep his guard up at least as much as one does with any strong adult personality.

Photogs aimed at courthouse doors as I step out, the day of the mistrial, but jurors  were elusive

But what is the impact of Jodi's stinginess with the decibels? The whisper-soft tones cause the other person to lean in. And to come close is to become vulnerable. It was reported to me that one of the reporters who went to interview Jodi Arias remarked that, far from being creeped out by Jodi's presence, felt like "giving her a hug" afterward. I did not take this to mean the reporter became a fan of the convicted first degree murderer, but that the reporter acknowledged the insidious nature of Jodi's personality. To me, this is exactly what the jury foreman fell prey to, Jodi's well-polished technique of getting people to lower their guard, to pull them in close, to make them more vulnerable than she is. 

This external softness, sadly, had a lot to do with how Travis let his guard down and leaned in too close to Jodi Arias. Did Travis have angry words for Jodi at times? Certainly he did. They are memorialized in electronic messages. But prosecution psychologist Dr. Janeen DeMarte testified Travis burst out in angry language when he had a reason to and reasonable people could relate to the reasons she listed, as memorialized in these tweets of mine from inside the courthouse as she was speaking:

Dr D explaining Travis's angry language occurred when he "felt lied to, betrayed--" SIDEBAR #JodiArias
— Camille Kimball (@CamilleKimball) April 18, 2013

The pattern Dr D saw was that he reacted that way when he felt his privacy invaded, etc. No indication of it outside these. #JodiArias
— Camille Kimball (@CamilleKimball) April 18, 2013

Arizona Republic reporter Michael Kiefer captured part of this testimony in this tweet:

DeMarte says Alexander used bad names "very rarely." Willmott: define rare, then cuts DeMarte off when she implies it was deserved.
— Michael Kiefer (@michaelbkiefer) April 18, 2013

What were some of the ways in which Jodi lied to, betrayed, or invaded the privacy of Travis to make him so angry?  Jodi did all of the following things to Travis:

• stole an engagement ring he had purchased for a girlfriend before he ever met Jodi
• slashed his tires, more than once
• snuck into his home repeatedly, even hiding behind the Christmas tree
• manipulated his social media accounts with his stolen passwords
• sent harassing anonymous emails to his romantic interests
• lied to his best friends about him
• disrupted his relationships with other women and with his friends

Who wouldn't have angry words burning on the tongue after such incidents?  By discounting Dr. DeMarte's testimony that Travis's anger was not an abnormal response to the provocation of betrayal and deception, and instead characterizing Travis as "abusive" to Jodi, the jury foreman is telling us that men don't have a right to be angry with women. Or, rather, they don't have a right to be angry with young, slim women with long hair and full lips. And soft voices.

When the final deadlock came, I personally observed three women on the jury crying, jurors #3, #6, and #16. That tells me that these women were less susceptible to the poor little waif persona spun by the defendant. She even tried it on ABC reporter Ryan Owens whom she called "a hater" when he did nothing more than speak plainly to her. Poor little Jodi, all beat up by the abuser from ABC.

The Zervakos comments contrasted with the crying women in the jury box remind me of an interview I once saw with actress Megan Fox, who was preparing to play a villainess in a horror film. Fox talked about choosing to use a soft and appealing voice for the character, a voice she said some little girls first learn to use on their fathers to get out of trouble. The actress felt it was the perfect touch, she said, to make her villain truly terrifying. As Fox pointed out, some things create a sense of protectiveness in men but do not fool other women.

Which isn't to say that they fool all or even most men. If we are to believe the 8-4 split reported, several men on the jury wanted to put Jodi Arias on Death Row. Here I must state that it is not a given that execution is the assumed proper sentence and anything else is a failure. But we are not discussing the death penalty itself right now. What I am focusing on are the statements from the jury foreman that he was "sure" in his mind that Travis "abused" Jodi and that this must be "taken into account" during the sentencing deliberations. 

Zervakos discounted more of the testimony of Dr. DeMarte, captured again by Michael Kiefer:

And now Willmott goes on to insulting emails from Alexander. Willmott asks if that's OK. "No, that's not OK," DeMarte says, but not abuse.
— Michael Kiefer (@michaelbkiefer) April 18, 2013

Dr. DeMarte did not characterize Travis's angry outbursts in response to provocation as abuse but Zervakos did. Since Jodi was in no way dependent on Travis financially or legally or for shelter and did not share a child with him, she could have "escaped" this alleged abuse at any time without suffering the slightest consequence. Yet time and again, she did everything in her power to get closer to Travis, even moving to Arizona after their official breakup.

Travis continued to have a sexual relationship with Jodi and kept it private. One could equally say Jodi continued a sexual relationship with Travis and kept it private. Was Elvis abusing the ladies who threw their panties on stage at him? What about the gals lining up for Evel Knievel, Wilt Chamberlain, and Magic Johnson? Groupies may find respect elusive, but where does their own personal responsibility end? If you don't want Andrew Dice Clay coming to your hotel room, don't throw your room key at him. 

All women know this. All. All women. Know. This.

Travis told Jodi he would not marry her. He told her their couple-hood had come to an end. What consenting adults choose to do with their libidos after such full disclosure of intent is their own business and hardly exploitative let alone abusive. 

Speaking to Vargas on GMA, Zervakos told us that it was his job as a juror to "divest himself from the personal and emotional" but in the same breath he told us the defendant's looks "just didn't wash" in relation to the crime. 

The Jodi Arias jurors had a hard job to do, I do not question that. Even if you are comfortable with the death penalty, it doesn't mean you have to give it out for any given crime or even for this particular crime, the brutalization of a young man at his most vulnerable. Twelve people had to figure out what was the right sentence and it would be respectable if they had all agreed to something. There is even dignity in working long hours but finding no agreement.

I just wish Mr. Zervakos had based his mistrial-inducing decision on something better than Jodi's well practiced posturing herself into the small and helpless. We know she's not helpless. We know her wispy bangs crown a cunning mind. We know her pretty eyes mask violent anger. I know that Mr. Zervakos carefully considered the testimony and evidence presented to him, I know he wanted to do the right thing. But his comments to Elizabeth Vargas will live forever.

And I know I won't be the only one wishing he had thought less about how Jodi looked and focused more on how Travis looked after she was done with him.


For more on Zervakos, click on the Zervakos label. See new post May 26, 2013

PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE

Blogger is having technical trouble keeping up with all your great discussion. Rather than have it continue to hide your comments, I have disabled comments on this post only. Please click through to this post -->> http://camillekimball.blogspot.com/2013/05/foremanhood-and-fatherhood-jodi-arias.html   to leave your thoughts on the Jodi Arias jury foreman. The comment function there is still working fine. THANK YOU!!! 

Pounce on This!

No reporter truly works alone. Some young puppies think they have to puff up their chests and pretend they can find all information all by themselves. These are the reporters you learn not to trust, because they make so many mistakes. A really good reporter knows that information is INFINITE. One simply cannot find or digest ALL of it.  The really good reporter has learned to cross check himself by testing his info and comprehension with other trusted sources, even if they are competitors.



An even better reporter, because he has both confidence and humility, is the one who will extend a helping hand first.  I happily announce that Michael Kiefer, currently on staff with the Arizona Republic (he has had some other gigs, often very cool ones), is such a one.   We met during the Phoenix Serial Shooter trial. He was generous with his professional expertise and his personal friendship. I couldn't wait to thank him in my book's acknowledgements.  We conspired on more than one occasion to further each other's goals and I hope I held up my end of the social contract. 


Something I got to do during breaks in that trial (and others that came along later) was read samples of Michael's manuscripts. He is, as Paul Rubin of the Phoenix New Times calls him, a "wordsmith."  Newspaper writing style is very restrictive, but he has successfully unleashed some of his finesse even there, writing compelling leads and working in the poignant scenes that are hard to get past barbarous editors.


Michael has now decided to give you the chance to do what only the privileged few, such as myself, used to do in courthouse hallways and offices. Now you can not only meet him, but hear him read from  one of his own novels. 


Tonight (Monday, May 21, 2012) at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Michael is reading from The Lion Hunter.  Action fans, there's real lions in there. And real women. 


Based on Michael's many years of living--and reporting--in the Southwest, you will be drawn out of your city life into the complex yet spare territory that surrounds America's fifth largest city.  

Lanny Klegg is on the trail of a poacher who hunts mountain lions. Trouble is, Lanny has sympathy for the ranchers who hire the lion killer. Ratcheting up the tension are the women that stand between Lanny's heart, soul, and his job. The Lion Hunter is Michael Kiefer's beautifully woven story of 21st century cowboyin'--shades of morality as subtle as the cougar's tawny coat and as dangerously opposed as the big cat's bloodthirsty fangs.  

Interested in more about Michael Kiefer? Here is a post that mentions an important story that he did that ended up coming up in the Casey Anthony trial.  And this one has a photo of him.


ADD: I had a link error up there which should now be fixed. Clicking on the words "important story" above should take you to a post about the Ring case and Casey Anthony.


When: 7pm
Where: Changing Hands Bookstore
Address: 6429 South McClintock Drive  (Tempe, Arizona)
Date: May 21, 2012 (Monday)

(click on a title below to buy)

Camille Kimball's books:

**What She Always Wanted** as seen on TV!

                 **A Sudden Shot** as seen on TV!

        The Mammoth Book of Tough Guys

Coming soon: Masters of True Crime-Chilling Stories of Murder and the Macabre

Thoughts on this or any article at this site? To the next person whose comment I use for a post I will send a free signed book!  (If you post as "anonymous" for convenience, try to include an identifying website or name in your remark so no one else can claim your prize!)  For an example, please click here.

Trent Benson Case

This morning I sat in on opening arguments for the kidnapping-rape-homicide trial of Trent Benson. I sat next to Michael Kiefer of the Arizona Republic, who talked me into going in the first place. A special draw was watching defense attorney Tim Agan work. Agan was one of the defense attorneys for serial killer Dale Hausner, who is the subject of my book, A SUDDEN SHOT. I thought he had some tough work cut out for him when he got assigned Hausner. But along comes Benson. Now that one's a doozy to defend.

Tim Agan, left, during the trial of Dale Hausner (center)
Copyright Camille Kimball

Upon his arrest for the ligature strangulation deaths, sexual assaults and kidnappings of several women (some survived), Benson told police he had, in fact, done most of the crimes. The way he explained himself was in the rather matter of fact vein that the murders and assaults basically couldn't be avoided considering the circumstances. These circumstances usually had to do with frustration during allegedly consensual sex. Oh, but one of the crimes, involving one woman that escaped during the middle of the assault, he insisted he did not commit at all.

Benson paved the way for the prosecutor by his immediate and detailed confessions, but where his confessions failed, he kept up his loyalty to Team Prosecution by leaving some DNA evidence on all of the women. And the composite police sketch produced by descriptions from one of the survivors looks exactly like Trent in the most remarkable sketch-to-suspect match I personally have ever seen.

After hearing the prosecutor lay out her case in her opening, I wondered what was left for Tim Agan to work with.

Well, with his daughter watching from the gallery (as she had done from time to time in the Hausner trial), Agan showed that he is a veteran. He broke down each crime into its components and found the weak link, such as it might be. For instance, as distasteful as this may sound, he pointed out it may not be possible to determine if certain acts were committed against the women while they were unconscious (sexual assault) or if they had already died while Benson was acting out his vicious little what shall I call it, ritual? Agan's point was you cannot "assault" a corpse. Benson is not charged with abusing a corpse, he's charged with sexual assault. I had to grudgingly admire the inventiveness of Agan's strategy. If forensic evidence is hazy on this point, he might just win a few rounds.

But he won't win all of them. Benson's crimes are despicable and disgusting and locked in with too much evidence, both forensic and eyewitness, and taped confessions. Just to put a more chilling twist to the whole tragic saga, Benson went home after one or more of these incidents to get his little kid tucked into bed (he had sole custody).

Benson has a remarkable back story. Adopted as a young child from South Korea, he was raised in a tiny town in Minnesota by parents who, by all accounts including his own, are wonderful. So wonderful, they are standing by him even through this. I sat behind them while they stoically listened to the most graphic and ugly personal details about their son, who apparently began patronizing prostitutes in his college years in Minneapolis and began killing them in his 30s in Phoenix.

I can't imagine how painful and repugnant the details of the crimes were to the senior Bensons, people whose compassion and tenderness were great enough to reach all the way to the opposite side of the world where they saw a little boy who needed them. These details were way too painful and repugnant for me, a professional crime writer and veteran journalist. We all have a place where we draw the line and this is where I draw mine. I won't be going back into this courtroom. That isn't to say it isn't a compelling case and it's important to keep our justice system out in the open. It's just I won't be the one on the hard bench for this one. I'll leave this one to Michael Kiefer. If you have an interest in this case, I recommend following Kiefer's byline at the Arizona Republic.

Wish I had a better picture of Michael. Here he is caught in the background at the A SUDDEN SHOT viewing party for the airing of Wicked Attraction (Shoot to Thrill).

Reporter Michael Kiefer (background). Serial Killer survivor Paul Patrick and his rescuer, Saul Guerrero (foreground)

Copyright Camille Kimball

Camille Kimball's books are:

What She Always Wanted

A Sudden Shot

The Mammoth Book of Tough Guys

Casey Anthony Filing About Death Penalty

Lawyers for Casey Anthony have just asked the judge to save her from the death penalty by invoking an Arizona case. Have you heard Vinnie Politan from InSession talking about the Ring case in Arizona?

Well, it's a very famous case in Arizona. An armored car carrying cash--you know, the regular business run for commerce--was robbed and the couriers murdered. Timothy Ring was convicted, but claimed he was framed by the co-conspirators.

Here's the case right here.  (click at left) The story is done by our fine AZ reporter Michael Kiefer, who also covered the Serial Shooter trial

And here's Timothy Ring himself:



It will be very interesting to see how the Ring case affects the Casey Anthony case.

ADD: For even more about Michael Kiefer, click on this word.

Please visit the Bookstore tab above to browse  
Pssst! Going to jail, buying documents, and everything else it takes to get this kind of info for the blog takes time and money! Every time you make a purchase here, it helps me be able to do more for you!