It's 1:30 p.m., and Monday's lunch recess has just ended. Jodi Arias has re-taken the witness stand and casts a mellow gaze toward the defense side of the courtroom as she waits for the jury to file in.
The afternoon session begins with a long attorney sidebar at the bench.
2 p.m. -- Long sidebar over, now back on subject of flowers sent by Jodi Arias to Alexander's grandmother, who raised him.
Martinez prepares to play excerpts from Arias' 2008 interviews with 48 Hours. The tape plays: We see how five years ago, Arias looks into the cameras and says she'll eventually know what happened.
"If it were my brother, I'd want to know what his last minutes were like," she says, in saying how Alexander's family deserve to know what happened.
She explains in the tape how she sent 20 white irises to Norma Sarvey and sent a "short and simple" letter.
Martinez asks her if the letter wasn't, in fact, 18 pages long. She agrees. And Martinez explains how the letter contains the bogus story about the two intruders.
"Did they deserve that lie?" he asks.
See Also: Jodi Arias Trial: Prosecutor Juan Martinez's "Meltdown" With Murder Suspect; Plus, KY or Baby Oil?
See Also: - Jodi Arias Live Blog: Arias Grilled Under Cross-Examination by Prosecutor Juan Martinez; UPDATES - Jodi Arias Live Blog: Goes Home After Killing Alexander, Wanting to "Deny Reality" - Jodi Arias Live Blog: Arias Describes How She Killed Travis Alexander in 2008; She Recalls Shooting Him, But Not Stabbing Him or Slashing His Throat
"I guess not," she says.
Martinez asks her whether she's sure.
"I felt the alternative was worse," she says, prompting Martinez to ask whether she had to send them a letter.
Arias says she was "encouraged" to send the letter, but Martinez gets her to admit that being encouraged to write the letter doesn't justify the lies in it.
Martinez talks about how Arias claimed in early March of 2008, after telling Alexander she was moving to California, he hit her in the "neck area."
He hit you in the car while you were arguing? Martinez asks. "That's a lie, isn't it?"
"No," she says.
Martinez refers to one of Arias' journal entries, hands it to her to read. Jodi's reading it.
The entry says, "Friday 3-2-08 Well, I didn't get back to writing last night. Let's see, Friday, I went over to T-dogg's [Alexander's] for a while to clean. Shortly thereafter he went out to go rock climbing w/Mimi Hall, their 3rd date, or 2 1/2, really... He said it went really well. I accidentally fell asleep so I was there when he returned. I was supposed to go four-wheeling but missed out because I was exhausted and fell asleep."
Arias says she fell asleep on his "love sack," outside of his bedroom. Then she talks about the next morning, when he picked her up to take her to a tax seminar. The entry says they didn't go to the seminar, and she told him she planned to move back to Yreka.
She wrote this will "help us move on and close the gap." What did she mean?
"Meaning to close the physical relationship," she says.
The entry goes on, "Travis and I talked some more in his car..."
This is the car ride during the alleged hit that Alexander inflicted on her. Asked why she didn't write about being hit by Alexander, she says "of course" she wouldn't write that, leading to more arguments by Martinez about whether she did or didn't have "free will" to write down the truth in her own journal.
Martinez's combative style leads defense attorney Kirk Numri to call another sidebar.
Arias' journal entry continues that the talk in the car was "the beginning of a bitter sweet closure. He is my best friend in the whole world."
"And you're saying that about an individual who just hit you, right?"
"Yes."
Martinez reads more from the journal entry. She wrote that it would be "unimaginable" to live without Alexander, "but it has to be this way."
The prosecutor asks her if it's "okay" for them to have phone sex while they're apart. Arias says it wouldn't be "okay" for her religion.
Martinez uses this as a segue to describe how little she knows about the "FHE" Mormon event he discussed last week.
"You don't know what happens at Family Home meetings, right?" Martinez hammers.
Arias says something about Martinez's tone, drawing an objection from Martinez and quick rebuke to Arias by Judge Stephens.
More from the journal entry: Description of a kiss. "I love his kiss."
Martinez notes for the millionth time that she didn't write something about the backhand Alexander supposedly gave her.
"Of course not," she says again, spurring more seeming frustration from Martinez.
Perhaps Martinez wants Arias to toy with him like this, and wants to seem frustrated before the jury.
Jury members, by the way, are still looking very wide awake. Can't see them all, but every one we see is looking at Arias and Martinez. One guy has his spectacles balanced on his forehead and a hand on his chin, looking interested.
The journal entry ends, "I love him," followed by his signature.
Martinez asks if the journal entry corroborates her story of him hitting her.
"No -- that's the goal," she answers.
Martinez asks her if he asked if that was the goal, and she answers no.
Arias mentions that her "injuries" are also evidence.
Martinez says he wants to see the photographs, if there are injuries. He goes over the fact that there are no photos, medical reports or any other kind of evidence to corroborate her story of a physical fight in the car.
2:45 p.m. Now we see a text message from March 1, 2008, the day of the alleged fight in the car, from 9:28 p.m. The text says, "Hi, Sweetie, I hope ur enjoying ur party. May I please drive the BWM to church tomorrow? I only need it for that day and I'll bring it back b4 the day is over."
Martinez asks why Arias wants to drive the BWM, since she just said he would use her car that day, and that her car was "better."
Was she trying to impress someone?
She claims her car didn't "fit everyone," and she wanted to drive some missionaries around. He asks what time the services started the next day.
Alexander responded to her request: "Of course." To which she responds, "Thanks baby! You're the best!"
She says she wrote that to make him feel good. Martinez says that implies she was lying about him being the "best."
"The best at what?" she says coyly.
This line of questioning is a merry-go-round.
Arias denies that, as Martinez says, it "doesn't make sense" for her to write he was the "best" after he so recently hit her. She says it does make sense, because they'd apologized and made up for the fight.
We see the same close-up on the overhead screen of Arias' allegedly finger as we saw last week. Arias claims the picture shows that her finger is injured. Yet the picture shows no apparent problem with her finger.
Martinez finally scores one -- gets her to admit bluntly that she previously admitted her finger was hurt on June 4, 2008, the date of the murder, instead of in another fight she claims she had with Alexander in January. This was always proven by the evidence, but Arias had been cagey about the matter in last week's testimony.
Martinez leading her through last week's testimony, in which she told the court that when Alexander was allegedly chasing her through the house on June 4, 2008, before she killed him, he had a flashback to a fight they'd had in August of 2007. Yet, as Martinez makes her recall, that fight ended with a hug and an apology.
"So he's angry when he grabs your wrist, right?" Martinez questions.
"I don't know," she answers, and Martinez asks her to explain further.
The June 4 fight supposedly started downstairs, Martinez recalls.
"You weren't afraid at that point, were you?" he asks.
When she remarks, "a little bit," Martinez queries about her state of mind while downstairs. Arias, curiously, distinguishes between her "state of mind" and her "conclusions."
The rabbit hole goes deeper...
Arias says Alexander hit his palm on the wall, which scared her. But she's still downstairs at this point.
"You didn't pick up the phone and call 911, did you?"
"No."
Martinez asks if he damaged the door.
"Which door?" she retorts. Not a great answer.
Arias admits, in response to a question, that she and Martinez are "having problems communicating."
Arias is "alarmed and stunned," by Alexander's behavior, and hearing thumps upstairs. So she goes upstairs.
"And he's not any danger to you up there, is he?" ... "Did you perceive any danger?"
"Not immediately," she answers.
"Till you get there, right?" Martinez answers for her.
3:05 p.m. The prosecutor describes how Alexander was allegedly banging his head on a closet door.
Arias says she can't remember if the closet door had a lock. (This is interesting, since she claims she remembered he kept a gun in his closet while he was chasing her through it.)
Martinez asks if, in fact, she was the one chasing him.
"You're the one going up there," Martinez reminds her.
Judge Stephens calls the mid-afternoon recess, says we'll be back at 3:25.
Now 3:28 p.m. -- testimony resumes.
Arias describes banging his head, and then she called his name.
"He spun and faced me. He had the eyes of a madman. He screamed really loud."
Martinez notes that she previously talked about the "eyes of a madman."
Let's get back to August of 2008, Martinez says -- he's confused himself now -- he means 2007. But now suddenly he's back to June 4, 2008, talking about how Alexander grabbed her by the wrist.
"I was not looking at him," she says. "He yanked me toward him, and put his arms around me and squeezed... It was a firm squeeze, but it wasn't very hard."
The physical confrontation is over then, right? Martinez asks.
"Yes."
And this is the event that's going through your head when you're running down the hallway in June of 2008? Martinez leads her.
"No," she says. But, in fact, that is what she testified last week.
"You know nothing's going to happen, because nothing happened before, right?" Martinez asks.
"He didn't hurt me at all in August," she admits.
So the expectation is that he wouldn't hurt you? Martinez says -- Arias says no, that she was expecting more because of the event in April of 2008 in which "he choked me to unconsciousness."
Martinez asks her about the choking claim, and how there is no medical report, police report or any other evidence, such as her telling anyone.
"So all we have to go on is your word, right?" Martinez says.
That's a good point for Martinez to make often, since Arias' credibility has been destroyed by her admitted lies. But the point is weakened by a sudden technical difficulty with the court recording system. Judge Stephens calls for a pause in the proceedings.
Problem solved. Martinez gets back to business.
To the alleged April fight: Arias says she told Matt McCartney, her ex-boyfriend, about it.
Martinez points out that, when interviewed, McCartney said he knew nothing about any such incident. He reminds her that if she did tell McCartney about the supposed injuries from a fight with Alexander, he wouldn't be able to see them because they were on the telephone.
Now Arias says there was no telephone call two or three days after Alexander allegedly bruised her, as she seemed to have said. She admits she got confused.
She says the "choking" occurred on a Tuesday, and she left Arizona to move home to Yreka, California, a couple of days later. Martinez asks her if this was the trip that ended with her coming back to Arizona. She can't quite recall. But she remembers getting to California in the late afternoon, where she met Gus Searcy, a Pre-Paid Legal employee she knew.
This story is getting confused -- Arias remembers sleeping in the truck she used to move home. Martinez grills her on the timeline. Arias can't quite remember when she sleeps, when she gets up, when she left or when she arrived.
Arias says she had make-up on her neck and arms, covering up her bruises. McCartney noticed the bruises, not Searcy, she says.
Martinez plays a segment of the "48 Hours" interview, and notes that McCartney was the first, or one of the first, people she called after the June 4 slaying.
"So when push comes to shove, he's not going to betray you, right?" Martinez says. "He's somebody that, if you need a favor, he'd help you out, right?"
She won't fully agree to this. But does agree McCartney's an "ally" and friend.
According to reports from over the weekend, last week's testimony about codes sent to McCartney in magazines Arias had possessed in jail are connected to forged letters that seem to support Arias' contention that Alexander liked little boys.
4:08 p.m. -- Martinez plays an excerpt of an Arias TV interview in which she explains why she's smiling in her mug shot after being arrested. She says she smiled because Alexander would smile, it would be all over the Internet so "why not," and because there was "no reasons to be upset over this" because she knows she didn't hurt Alexander.
Martinez asks her what that was all about, since we know Arias changed her story and knew she actually did hurt Alexander. The prosecutor asks if she didn't just make up all that stuff to make herself feel better.
Thrown in her face: Her statements to TV reporters that she wouldn't be convicted because she would have committed suicide.
More "48 Hours:" Arias describes how she moved to Mesa for Alexander, and how he "convinced" her to come. That implies she didn't really want to do it, Martinez says.
"What you're saying is, it wasn't your fault," in terms of moving to Arizona, Martinez says.
Martinez says she broke up with him previously, and had the will to do whatever she wanted. He continues on this tack for a bit longer.
"You have the ability who is a person who can make whatever decisions are necessary for yourself, right?" Martinez says, driving the point home.
They're playing the mis-memory game again, as Martinez asks her about a restaurant she worked at in high school, back in 1997, that she mentioned under direct examination. He brings her through her testimony about meeting a guy with a "dog-eared" bible who told her the end of the world was coming, and how she spoke to a friend about it afterward.
4:35 p.m. -- This is about to end for the day.
Martinez is going on about a time when Arias was grounded for three months, many years ago. This "last straw" made her move out of her parents' home.
Martinez exclaims that she "never seems to take responsibility," which incurs a sustained objection.
Now it's over for the day - to resume at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow.
Watch live testimony at one of these links: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/special-live-1-14476486 http://www.kpho.com/category/224303/cbs-5-local-live-streaming http://www.mediaite.com/online/live-stream-jodi-arias-takes-the-stand-for-cross-examination-in-her-murder-trial-day-2-2/
From earlier today:
10:30 a.m.
Juan Martinez begins the day by asking Jodi Arias if she lies to her benefit. Seems like as good a way as any to start.
Martinez tries to play an excerpt from Arias' police interview, when she was still sticking to the story that two masked intruders came in and attacked her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.
Kirk Numri, Arias' attorney, raises an objection and both attorneys approach the bench.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens tells the jury to disregard what they just saw on the screen.
But Martinez is still allowed to play a portion of the police interview tape, and that begins.
"I will help you in any way I can," Arias told the detective in July of 2008.
Martinez blasts her, because she wasn't there to tell the truth, as Arias today admits.
"I was there against my will," she says.
"You didn't have to talk to him, did you?" Martinez asks.
She admits she could have chosen not to talk to Mesa police Detective Esteban Flores.
Arias says the "inevitable" had occurred -- she was arrested. But she didn't tell the truth because she was "ashamed."
What could she possibly have been ashamed of besides killing Alexander, Martinez asks? She says that was the main reason, but there were others, which Martinez asks her to explain.
He's trying to find out when she decides to lie, and find out where her memory lapses begin and end. Arias claims she can't understand Martinez's question about whether Flores did something that "caused her to lie."
Arias is reminded that she was thinking of her family when she decided to lie about the circumstances of Alexander's death. So, Martinez says, aren't you implying that because you were worried about your family, you felt that was a good reason to lie? Arias hedges on that line of question.
10:46 am (15 minutes in)
Martinez asks her if she had been hoping that Flores would believe her lie, so that she could "walk out of that jail."
Arias says, no, she was just worried that by admitting what she'd did, her family would see the tape. But Martinez wants to know what's different now -- after all, she's supposedly telling the truth now, despite the fact that her family would hear.
Arias keeps up her tactic of turning her head slightly toward the jury when she answers most questions. Jury, about half men and women, are very attentive right now.
"Anything having to do with responsibility in this crime was a lie, right?" Martinez asks.
"Yes," she admits.
But she didn't lie because she wanted to get away with the crime, she insists. Yet Martinez probes whether lying "changed anything."
"Tell me what it changed on that date," he says.
"It probably changed my whole future," she says softly.
Martinez asks her if she lied to make people feel sorry for her, and whether the fact that wasn't savvy in terms of law enforcement gave her the right to lie. She dances around these questions.
Arias has a "great memory" when it comes to Alexander's sexual exploits, but not in other areas, Martinez hammers.
The prosecutor brings up the "drastic" story change -- in which she went from denying she was ever in Arizona for the June 4, 2008, murder, to the one about the two masked intruders who supposedly attacked Alexander. She changed the story a third time, later, to the one she's using now -- that she killed Alexander in self-defense.
Martinez hopes to get her to say she was lying because she was concerned about the legal consequences.
"Was your goal to go to prison?"
"Not a physical prison on Earth," she says -- yet another smartass answer.
He points out that she'd testified that being nicked with a knife "stung." Then Martinez invites her to imagination how bad it hurt Alexander when she "stuck that knife in his back."
Whoa.
11:08 a.m.
Martinez takes her quickly through her story of the moments of the attack, though we're still in the context of the intruder story.
"You were able at some point according to you, to get out of there ... and that's what you told the detectives, right?" he says.
She denies the reason she told police the lie about the intruders was because she was trying to escape charges. But Martinez feigns confusion -- why did she tell the bogus story, then?
Arias has no good answer for that. She admits she was ashamed of killing him, and that people would find out.
So... "that was an excuse -- a good excuse -- for your lie, right?" Martinez persists.
So the feeling of being ashamed was stronger than her feeling to tell the truth? She admits that one. And also admits that wasn't a good excuse.
Arias claims she wasn't thinking of "benefits" to lying. What other factors did she consider in lying? The question isn't really answered.
Talking about Arias' trip to go to Utah. She denies she went to see Ryan Burns on June 5 simply because he was a romantic interest.
"So he's an afterthought... an alibi?"
Arias trips a little -- says, "yeah," but then corrects herself -- not an alibi.
Martinez reminds her that she wanted to see if she and Burns had a "spark," which is why she went to Utah. Arias now claiming that wasn't the reason she saw him on June 5, the day after the slaying.
Arias admits she lied about getting "lost" on her way to Utah, which was part of her original story of not being in Arizona. Seems like Martinez is doing a good job confusing this part for Arias.
In the desert, after killing Alexander, she was "there" enough to make several phone calls, including to Ryan Burns, the guy she saw in Utah, and Alexander.
When she washed up, she knew the blood was from Alexander, right?
"I think I did," she says quietly.
Martinez hammers her -- what does she mean "think?" Where did she think the blood came from? Arias says that she had cuts.
She says she cut herself on a glass in the morning of June 4, 2008, before the murder.
Arias says she's more of a left-handed person. Then Martinez asks about using her cell phone to call Ryan Burns. Skipping around the timelines quite a bit now.
"My mind wasn't right" after she drove to the desert following the slaying, she says. Martinez wants to know about her demeanor with Ryan Burns in Utah.
"You wanted to pretend that you were happy, right?"
"Yes."
"You wanted to see if there was any spark with Mr. Burns, right?"
"That was the furthest thing from my mind at that point," she answers.
Martinez asks her about going with Burns to his business meeting, then back to his place in the afternoon.
"You began to kiss him, right?"
"Ummm, yes."
"And that's because you wanted to put up a facade, right?"
Judge Stephens makes him re-state the question after an objection from Numri.
"I guess so," she says, in reluctant response to the question of how she was kissing Burns when she knew Alexander was dead.
She says it's difficult to answer her feelings about whether she knew Burns was dead "because I hadn't killed anyone before."
Arias again hedges on the answer of whether she knew for sure that Alexander was dead when she made out with Burns.
No doubt, the question of what was on Arias' mind when she was kissing Burns is one of the most interesting of the whole case.
Martinez mentions the told Leslie Udy that maybe her kids and the kids of Arias and Alexander could play together someday.
Martinez asks her how she could hold the hope of kids with Alexander even when she thought he was dead. She gives a clumsy answer -- she admits it was an unrealistic hope.
Arias just admitted she had hoped to have kids with Alexander someday -- even though she killed him. The jury must be perplexed.
11:38 a.m. Now back to the cuts on her hands, which her friends saw in Utah.
She explains how she had Band-Aids on her right hand, but not on her left.
"Why would you say now that it's possible you may have had cuts on your left hand?" Martinez wonders. Arias is getting confused -- she's not sure why she even brought up cuts on her left hand.
Talking about the make-out session with Ryan Burns, and whether Arias got on top of Burns and "grinded" on him. Martinez suggests he doesn't want to get too much into it, but this has something to do with how Mormons might make out.
Martinez insists he wants to know whether Arias got on top of Burns and had her clothed genitalia touching his.
"You are saying you were on top of his stomach with your legs spread?"
Arias says she thinks she "might have been."
Exploring their "romantic kissing" and making out, and how Burns might have put his hand between her legs.
She denies it, saying he might be full of "crap."
"When he said he got near my vaginal area, absolutely," (he was full of crap.)
Martinez says she's already admitted she's full of crap, and now she's trying to say Burns is full of crap. Then, the jury indoctrinated at that point, Martinez moves on to Arias driving back to California, then meeting with police.
Martinez talks about how she was calling a friend, Bishop Leighton, "as the grieving ex-girlfriend."
"You just wanted to get information about the death so you could use it later to lie about it?" Martinez asks.
She says he wanted to know what he knew. She says a "big memory block" was bothering her, in answering why she was trying to probe her friend for information.
Arias now arguing about the meaning of Martinez's questions. This soft-spoken combativeness can't be going over well with the jury.
Now talking about how Arias sent a message to Norma Sarvey after the slaying. Alexander was raised by Sarvey, his grandmother. The message was that she was sorry. Martinez wants to know why she sent the message -- to whose benefit was that?
Arias admits she knew the grandmother was very close to Alexander, and Martinez reminds her that "you, as her killer," sent her items including the note and flowers.
12 noon -- lunch recess called. Back at 1:25.
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