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November 11, 2014

Defense Motion: Deleted Porn Pollutes Jodi Arias Prosecution

PHOENIX—Lawyers for convicted murderer Jodi Arias filed a motion Monday that seeks to have all charges against the 34-year-old dropped because of the alleged deletion by the state of thousands of files containing pornography. The motion further claims that the deleted files supported Arias' claim during the guilt phase proceedings in January 2013 that she had caught Travis Alexander in front of his laptop masturbating to an image of a child, a claim the state successfully argued was a lie. "Alexander, 30, was found dead in the shower of his Mesa home in 2008," reported AZCentral today. "Arias has already been convicted of his murder; a second trial is underway to determine whether she should be sentenced to death." Arias' trial, which was broadcast live on television, was the subject of nationwide interest, with every argument, witness and rumor poured over relentlessly by millions of obsessed viewers in yet another Trial of the Century. Indeed, while the issue of Alexander's porn viewing and claimed sexual interest in children was a part of the trial, the fact that it is now front and center in an attempt by the defense team to either get Aria off completely or get the death penalty taken off the table goes to precisely the argument they are making; that when the porn was deleted, so was her defense. According to the motion, the actual deletion took place over a few hours on one day. "Specifically," they claim, "recent Forensic Analysis has shown that between the times of 13:56:19 and 16:51:34 on June 19, 2009, that thousands of files were deleted from Mr. Alexander's computer. To clarify, evidence produced at the evidentiary hearing will demonstrate that this was not some sort of inadvertent forensic error, but instead that someone went into the computer without a "write blocker" and sought to alter its content, and alter they did, with such a level of success that the State's deceit went uncovered for several years." The motion adds that Detective Flores of the Mesa Police Department had official possession of the computer during that time period. While those are some of the factual allegations being made, the core claim is less about porn per se than alleged prosecutorial misconduct that the defense says profoundly affected the outcome of the case. By wiping clean all evidence of pornography on the Alexander's Compaq Presario computer, the defense is arguing that the state influenced the outcome of the case by "destroying this clearly exculpatory evidence." The motion further adds, "Not only did the purposeful destruction of this prevent Ms. Arias from presenting this evidence but had the evidence at issue not been destroyed Ms. Arias could have used it to effectively cross-examine key prosecution witnesses." The motion is unrelenting (if ungrammatical) in its condemnation of the public official they say did the actual dirty work. "Of course the credibility of the 'key government witness' is at issue is that of Detective Flores, the State's case agent. Who based on the evidence discussed above was willing to purposefully destroy evidence to unlawfully convict and perhaps kill Ms. Arias. This would lead to obvious questions about what else Detective Flores has done to garner a particular outcome in the case; did he destroy text messages before they were disclosed? Did he destroy e-mails before they were disclosed? Did he discard taped interviews that were not favorable to the state? Did he destroy the SIM cards for the cell phones that were seized in order to destroy exculpatory or mitigating evidence? What other evidence could have been destroyed. None of these questions were placed before the jury that convicted Ms. Arias." While the Mesa Police Department has previously testified that there was pornography found on Alexander's computer, a spokesperson for the department responded to the filing of the motion by saying, "Those are issues that will certainly be brought up in the court case, and those are issues that will have to be decided by the judicial system." While Detective Flores was specifically targeted as the alleged destroyer of evidence, if the charges against him are determined to be true the court would deem it misconduct on the part of the prosecution, which is ultimately responsible for all evidence in the government's possession. But it is far from certain that even an outcome that serious would be enough to set Arias free. An editorial in the paper today argues for a middle ground: don't let her out, but don't kill her. But another local publication, Phoenix New Times, takes what is probably a more common position: that the claim is absurd and Mesa police had no incentive to destroy evidence. But they also don't believe anything Arias (and presumably her lawyers) has to say. "Given the number of lies the convicted killer has already told," writes Ray Stern, "the story of deleted files might be essentially made up. On the other hand, even if Mesa police deleted the files, that might not affect whether the jury sees the murder as 'cruel, depraved or heinous.'" And besides, he adds, "the murderer is still a proven, prolific liar." Stay tuned.  A copy of the motion is embedded here. Image: Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander.

 
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