Jodi Arias Changes Mind: No Longer Wants To Defend Herself

It seems that Jodi Arias has come to her senses and has asked her attorneys to file a motion relieving her from being her own lawyer in her upcoming penalty phase retrial.

HLNT TV has obtained a three page motion filed today by Arias’ attorneys saying that she no longer wants to represent herself “effective immediately upon filing.”

“I hereby relinquish my pro per status and re-assert my Sixth Amendment right to counsel,” USA Today reports she wrote. “I am also requesting to make a brief record ex parte.”

The “record ex parte” Arias is asking for is a request for the judge to listen to her reasoning without the presence of the prosecutor.

Arias was convicted of murdering her lover, Travis Alexander, in April 2013 in a highly-publicized trial. Ms. Arias, who was reportedly stalking Alexander after he attempted to break ties with her, tried to produce an alibi proving she was not at the scene at the time of the murder, but investigators disproved her story.

She later changed her tale, saying she had shot Travis in self-defense because she was afraid when he charged her. Prosecutors produced evidence disproving that story also, showing that Jody shot Alexander in the head, stabbed him repeatedly, and slit his throat in the bathroom of his Mesa, Arizona home. She spent days on the witness stand defending herself but not making much of an impression on the jury or the public due to her arrogant attitude.

The jury found her guilty of the murder, but was unable to reach a unanimous decision on her sentence – life in prison or the death penalty.
Her penalty retrial was scheduled to start this week, but she managed to get it delayed after she was unable to meet with an expert witness due to a dispute with detention officers in the Maricopa County Jail.

Arias has been at odds with her defense team since the original trial in 2013, and won a motion to defend herself in August, as reported in Inquisitr. Judge Sherry Stevens advised her against the move, but granted the request with the stipulation that if she decided she wanted an attorney, she would not be granted pro per status again.

The request was suspected to be an attempt to get rid of her lead attorney, Kirk Nurmi. Nurmi previously attempted to resign from the case, but the judge would not allow him. He and Jennifer Willmott were ordered to stay on as legal advisors, and if the judge grants Arias’s current motion to obtain defense, Nurmi and Willmott are expected to resume as her counsel for the penalty phase trial.

Jury selection for the retrial is now scheduled to begin September 29, and if the new jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, Arias will be spared the death penalty. It will be up to a judge then to decide if she will be sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison or will be eligible for parole in 25 years.

Photo courtesy of Huffington Post