Juan Martinez: A Prosecutor's Success

by Women In Crime Ink

As the jury determines in the next few days whether convicted killer Jodi Arias should serve life in prison or get the death penalty, we thought we'd take a look back at this sensational case and voice our opinions on what went right.

If you've followed the case, you know that after a four-month trial, 32-year-old Arias was convicted of killing ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in his Phoenix townhouse. It was a particularly grizzly murder, with Arias stabbing Alexander 29 times, most of which were in the back, slitting his throat, and shooting him once in the head. Alexander, 30, didn't stand a chance.

While the final phase of the trial -- the sentencing -- winds down, this seems like the perfect time to take a look back and ask this question:

During the trial, what did Deputy District Attorney Juan Martinez do best to win a guilty verdict?

Here's what some of our WCI bloggers had to say:

Donna Pendergast: The facts in the Jodi Arias case speak for themselves. In terms of a prosecution case, it doesn't get much better than this. Her story of self defense was negated by the physical evidence, her false statements and her manipulative testimony, which came across as very calculated.

Jurors are not stupid and they don't like to be played like they are. Although we have seen a few high-profile cases in the news where the verdict seemingly was inconsistent with the evidence, in most circumstances jurors try to do the right thing. They saw right through Jodi Arias and delivered a verdict consistent with the overwhelming evidence. As a prosecutor, I think that Juan Martinez overdid the histrionics, but I can't quarrel with success.

Gina Simmons: Jurors had a chance to witness Jodi Arias lie frequently and with incredible detail over a long period of time. Psychopaths can create detailed pictures with their lies. These self-serving pictures can appear so convincing that jurors might find it hard to believe that they were completely created from imagination. Jurors got a close-up view of a pathological liar. Psychologically, this close-up view might make it difficult for some jurors to give her the death penalty. 

Robin Sax: If this case shows anything at all it's that the public (even post-OJ) has an insatiable appetite for a good crime story. This had it all: Sex, lies, photos, and a frighteningly smart narcissistic defendant. While Juan Martinez was certainly passionate, he did not make the same mistakes many high-profile prosecutors have made in the past, and that is he didn't drink his own Kool Aid. He spent the time proving each element, painting a picture, and presenting a strong case. Of course, Jodi helped with unbelievable lies, horrific evidence and narcissism that spoke volumes.

Katherine Scardino: As a defense attorney, I agree that this was a dream case for the prosecution. I would have handled her defense in a much more realistic manner. First of all, she would never have spent a minute on the stand much less 19 days. Bad lawyering for her. But seems like Guilty verdict is the right one.

Cathy Scott: The interesting thing in this case was how Martinez brought the pieces of the puzzle together for the jury in his closing. Some things he brought out didn't make sense during the trial, at least to me, until he laid it all out in the end. It was brilliant, and it worked.

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Polygamy Revisited

by Kathryn Casey

“It’s not like being born in the U.S. It’s like being born in another country,” says Joseph, who more than a decade ago fled a polygamous town in Utah. “I think of my life like being caught up in the Holocaust.”

The recent raid in Eldorado, Texas, of the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints) compound, in which more than 400 children were removed from their homes and taken into CPS custody, brought back strange memories. Eighteen years ago, Ladies’ Home Journal sent me to the side-by-side polygamous enclaves of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona. The reason: to report on a sensational adoption battle over the six children – four girls and two boys – of Brenda Thornton, a woman who died of breast cancer. On one side were the children's biological aunts, Thornton’s two sisters, and on the other polygamist Vaughn Fischer and his first wife, Sharane.

For those of you unfamiliar with the way polygamy works, a man legally marries a first wife and then joins with subsequent women into “spiritual marriages.” Six weeks before her death, Brenda Thornton had entered into such a “spiritual marriage” with Vaughn Fischer, becoming his third wife. Before dying, she signed papers to allow him to adopt her children from a previous marriage. Although Thornton’s sisters fought hard, they were outmatched monetarily by the Fischers, whose battle was financed by their church. In the end, Vaughn and Sharane were given the right to adopt Brenda Thornton’s children by the Utah Supreme Court.

I’ve never forgotten my days in Hildale and Colorado City. They were desolate, windblown and unfriendly places. There were no restaurants or hotels, because the folks there didn’t want strangers visiting. Some men had more than a dozen wives. In a main house, they lived with their first, second, perhaps even a third wife, and their combined children, while around the perimeters of their properties other wives and children lived in small cottages. In the Fischer household, a schedule posted on the refrigerator tracked which nights Vaughn slept with which wife.

There’s so much I remember, but especially the children. It was summer, and in the more than ninety-degree heat, boys played basketball in long pants and long-sleeved shirts and the girls were dressed in handmade, cotton, pioneer-looking dresses, despite the heat wearing slacks underneath to ensure modesty. And the children were everywhere, swarms of them on swings and in playgrounds, laughing and smiling. But they scattered whenever I approached like tumbleweed in a dust storm. I was an outsider, and they’d been taught from birth to stay away from outsiders. Outsiders wouldn’t understand their lifestyle, their culture. Outsiders were the enemy.

Recently, watching the news coverage of Eldorado, I thought about the children of polygamy yet again. Much attention has been given, as it should be, to the abuse of the young girls, married off at tender ages to men decades older, at times their biological relatives. I wondered, too, about a subject that has gotten less press: what it's like for the boys. To find out, I made a few telephone calls. Eventually, I connected with a man in his thirties who grew up in polygamous households until the age of nineteen. He agreed to talk. For our purposes, I’ll call him Joseph.

KC: When you look back on your life, what do you most remember?

Joseph: The way we were all indoctrinated, brainwashed. The mind control used on us. When I went to the Holocaust museum in Washington a few years ago, I realized they were many of the techniques used by the Nazis--sleep and food deprivation, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse.

KC: Was this type of abuse prevalent in the community?

Joseph: I can only speak to the house I grew up in. The father was in complete control, and there was abuse at every level. We had no one to go to, no one to complain to.

KC: What did they use to control you?

Joseph: He distorted our sense of reality. We suffered horrible punishment if we didn’t do what we were told. The father was a brutal dictator. From early ages, we were told that if we didn’t do what he wanted, including the incestuous behavior, we would never get to heaven.

KC: What happened when you began coming of age?

Joseph: From the time we’re kids on, boys and girls are told that we’re not to have normal relationships. Talking to a girl is a no-no. God doesn’t like boys to talk to girls. It’s not allowed.

KC: What made you decide to leave?

Joseph: For polygamy, they want to keep the girls. By the time we’re teenagers, the leaders have decided which of the boys they’ll keep and which they’ll get rid of. They keep the ones who do what they’re told. Boys who aren’t chosen are forced out.

KC: How?

Joseph: They put a lot of pressure on, a lot of abuse.

KC: What we’re talking about is that there aren’t normally five or ten women to every man. To get the percentage of women to men high enough for polygamy, the leaders have to drive out some of the boys?

Joseph: Yes. They begin harassing the boys they don’t want at a young age, so eventually the boys just give up and leave, even though it’s the only home they’ve ever known. They have to leave their parents, brothers and sisters behind. I dropped out of school young, because they made it so hard for me.

KC: Do you hear from your siblings?

Joseph: No. I’m the only one who left. But when you’re born into it, you don’t know any better. Our mom was a child bride, married off at sixteen.

KC: What do you think about what’s going on in Eldorado, Texas?

Joseph: I’m behind Texas, because of the abuse I’ve suffered. I’m glad they’re doing what they’re doing there.

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