Defense attorneys for Jodi Arias on Thursday asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens to postpone a potential retrial until January.
On May 8, a jury found Arias guilty of first-degree murder in the 2008 slaying of her lover, Travis Alexander. But two weeks later, that same jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision of whether Arias, 32, should be sentenced to death or to life in prison. Stephens then set a tentative date of July 18 to seat a new jury to reconsider the sentence.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced today that it will not pursue sexual charges against Greg Winslow, a former swimming coach in Arizona.
Winslow, who went on to coach at the University of Utah, was suspected of kissing and fondling a 15-year-old female swimmer at a Tempe swimming club, where he also coached.

One of the more scandalous moments of the Jodi Arias murder trial took place in mid-February when defense attorney Jennifer Willmott played a recording of phone sex between Arias and the lover she killed, Travis Alexander.
On Friday, The Arizona Republic obtained a transcript of the Jan 31 in-chambers hearing that put the steamy recording into evidence.

Much of the Jodi Arias trial took place behind closed doors or at the judge’s bench with conversations drowned out by the whir of a white noise machine.
Midway through the trial, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens began to seal the record of those sidebars and in-chambers discussions.

On May 8, Jodi Arias was convicted of the 2008 murder of her sometime lover, Travis Alexander, but on May 23, the jury reached impasse on whether to sentence her to death or to life in prison. A week later, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said that his office would go forward with the trial to convince a new jury to impose the death penalty, but …
“If they were to make an offer for resolution, I think I have an ethical responsibility to consider that,” he said.

They are two femme fatale murder cases a generation apart. But over the next few months, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery has to make hard decisions about whether to take them both back to court.
Should he retry Debra Milke, whose 23-year-old conviction and death sentence were recently overturned in federal court because of a tainted confession, or let her go free?

The Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday declined an appeal from Jodi Arias’ defense attorneys challenging the prosecution’s basis for seeking the death penalty in the case.Under Arizona law, the jury must find at least one aggravating factor from a list in state statutes before it can deliberate life or death. And whether there is probable cause to go ahead with a particular aggravating factor is determined by the trial judge after a hearing. Which aggravating factors will be considered is determined before the case goes to trial.

After all the hype, after all the strong opinions over whether Jodi Arias deserved life or death for the 2008 murder of Travis Alexander, after all the talk, the big trial ended with a sigh.The press had been camped outside the courthouse since Tuesday. A throng of reporters milled in the hallway outside Courtroom 5C, sending tweets and making phone calls.

It was almost over.A little more than an hour into deliberations on Wednesday, the jurors in the Jodi Arias murder trial told the judge that they had a question: If they couldn’t reach a unanimous decision on whether to sentence Arias to death or to life in prison for the 2008 murder of her lover, Travis Alexander, should they write it on a jury-question form or just tell her?

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On the evening after Jodi Arias’ fate went to the jury, she seemed to hold out hope her life would be spared.

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In a short but tense hearing Monday morning in Maricopa County Superior Court, Jodi Arias’ lead defense attorney played his poker hand.

Defense attorneys for Jodi Arias filed a motion for mistrial Sunday after a witness who was supposed to testify as to Arias’ character withdrew because she was being threatened.
Patricia Womack, a friend of Arias, was supposed to testify Friday in Maricopa County Superior Court, but could not because the defense attorneys and the prosecutor spent the afternoon behind closed doors, ostensibly arguing over the defense case.

For 4 1/2 months, the trial has been about Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander, two attractive young people whose obsessive sexual relationship exploded into murder. One of the lovers is dead, the other may soon be sent to death row.
But on Thursday in Maricopa County Superior Court, it was about the people left behind.

After a short morning of testimony and argument, it took little more than an hour Wednesday for a Maricopa County Superior Court jury to move Jodi Arias one step closer to the death penalty.

Was it murder or self-defense? That is the question the Jodi Arias jury must answer.
Arias claims that Travis Alexander physically, emotionally and sexually abused her over the two years of their relationship, and that she killed him when he became enraged and attacked her because she had dropped his expensive camera while photographing him in the shower.

They have sat stone-faced and silent for four months and a day, listening to lawyers bicker and experts drone. They have seen photographs of unspeakable acts and unmentionable moments, listened to recordings of people in unguarded lust, and watched victims and witnesses and the defendant go through a range of emotions from tears to anger.
In short, they have witnessed the worst of humanity.

A rambling e-mail exchange between Travis Alexander and one of his closest friends paints a picture of Alexander as a womanizer using Jodi Arias to satisfy the physical desires his official girlfriend would not.
The e-mails were submitted by the Arias defense but never made public because the judge ruled they were “hearsay.”

With just one day of testimony left, another juror was dismissed Thursday from the Jodi Arias trial for undisclosed reasons.
Juror No. 8, a man, was the third juror to be released for cause since the murder trial began Jan. 2 in Maricopa County Superior Court. Next week, when the prosecution and defense attorneys finish their closing arguments, three of the remaining 15 jurors will be designated as alternates to be called only if one of the final 12 cannot finish the job.

With just one day of testimony left, another juror was dismissed Thursday from the Jodi Arias trial for undisclosed reasons.
Juror No. 8, a man, was the third juror to be released for cause since the murder trial began Jan. 2 in Maricopa County Superior Court. Next week, when the prosecution and defense attorneys finish their closing arguments, three of the remaining 15 jurors will be designated as alternates to be called only if one of the final 12 cannot finish the job.

Judge Sherry Stephens of Maricopa County Superior Court told the Jodi Arias jury that the guilt-and-innocence phase of the four-month-long murder trial will end a week from Friday and that the jury will begin deliberating then.
Arias, 32, is charged with the June 2008 killing of her secret lover, Travis Alexander, who was found shot and stabbed in his Mesa home. Her trial, which began Jan. 2, has been salacious fodder for TV and Internet audiences. It has spawned an industry of trial coverage and inflamed passions of viewers in several countries.

The jury finally finished with controversial domestic-violence expert Alyce LaViolette on Thursday, but apparently, the judge in the Jodi Arias murder trial is not done with her yet.
Judge Sherry Stephens also ordered a producer for TV’s “In Session” to be in court Monday morning with her attorney for reasons that she did not specify.

For three days this week, a domestic-violence expert witness named Alyce LaViolette held her own against prosecutor Juan Martinez in the Jodi Arias murder trial in Maricopa County Superior Court.
But in cyberspace LaViolette was annihilated.

Who is Juror No. 5, the woman with the multihued hair who was expelled from the Jodi Arias jury on Tuesday?
Her name is Meliha Omanovic, she’s 38 years old, she’s a Bosnian immigrant, and she lives in north Phoenix.

Angry men, including the prosecutor, were the topic of conversation at the Jodi Arias murder trial on Thursday.
So was the fairy tale “Snow White.”

SAN FRANCISCO — What a law says and what it really means should be one and the same.
That was the issue an attorney for Arizona faced Tuesday morning as she tried to persuade a contentious three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift an injunction against an Arizona statute making it a crime to harbor or transport illegal immigrants.