Jodi Arias prosecutor, defense attorney retry case in the bookstore
Very little about the Jodi Arias murder case was in good taste.
Her 2013 and 2015 trials both ended with juries unable to reach unanimous decisions over whether to send her to death row. They were filled with sex and deceit, all consumed by a voyeuristic public that tried via the Internet and social media to influence news coverage and the jury decisions.
Her case is now in front of the Arizona Court of Appeals, which has not deterred her prosecutor and one of her defense attorneys from writing tell-all books about the case.
Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars, written by Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Juan Martinez, will be published by a midtown Manhattan publisher in January. Trapped With Ms. Arias, by her former defense attorney Kirk Nurmi, was self-published this week on Amazon.com. Both promise behind-the-scenes looks at the case.
Nurmi no longer represents Arias, who now has public defenders who specialize in appeals. The prosecution in the case is now in the hands of the Arizona Attorney General's Office.
Nonetheless, lawyers on both sides of the aisle are supposed to respect attorney-client privilege and confidentiality, and they are supposed to eschew "extrajudicial" statements while communicating with the press or the public.
In April 2013, Arias was convicted in Maricopa County Superior Court of the murder of her secret lover, Travis Alexander, who was found dead in the shower of his Mesa home in 2008. But her first jury hung on whether to sentence her to death or to life in prison. She went back to trial in late 2014, and in March 2015, the second jury also reached an impasse, forcing the judge in the case to sentence Arias to life in prison with no chance of release.
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The case went viral on TV and in social media. Witnesses and attorneys — even a juror — were threatened and bullied by an over-involved public.
Dozens of books were published about the case, many by people who never set foot in the courtroom.
But two of them were lawyers involved in the case.
Prosecutors in the highly publicized O.J. Simpson and Charles Manson murders wrote bestselling books about those cases, but they had already resigned from their offices when they did so.
"I can't think of a case where a sitting prosecutor wrote a book," said Beth Karas, a former New York City assistant district attorney. Karas covered the first Arias trial for the HLN TV network, and the second trial as a freelancer.
Martinez's former boss, Rick Romley, does not approve.
"This thing's on appeal. Until there's finality in the case, you should never write a book," Romley said. "As long as they were working for me, they would not be able to do that."
Nurmi and Martinez did not respond to requests for comment.
Jerry Cobb, a spokesman for Martinez's current boss, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, said, "Employees don’t need permission to engage in constitutionally protected activities such as the exercise of their First Amendment rights. We received appropriate assurances that Juan Martinez’s off-duty activities will not violate state statutes or restrictions on attorney conduct as found in the ethical rules for attorneys adopted by the Arizona Supreme Court."
The blurb for Martinez's book on Amazon.com promises that "prosecutor Juan Martinez will unearth new details from the investigation that were never revealed at trial, exploring key facts from the case and the pieces of evidence he chose to keep close to the vest ..."
"Going beyond the news reports, Martinez will explore the truth behind the multiple facades of Jodi Arias," the blurb continues.
"With new stories from behind the scenes of the trial and Martinez’s own take on his defendant," it says, "the book takes you inside the mind of Jodi Arias like never before."
There is a court protective order against revealing any sealed information on the case. Arias' appellate attorneys asked the Arizona Court of Appeals to enforce that order and demanded a copy of Martinez's book, expressing concern it could poison their case.
The court denied the motion.
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Nurmi, whose numerous motions to be released from the Arias case were denied, writes in his blurb that his book details "... what happened before the case began, what happened before the cameras were on. I detail the things that you do not know, things that will describe my reality, the reality that I was 'Trapped with Ms. Arias.' "
Lynda Shely, a lawyer who specializes in attorney ethics, said, "If there is a chance the case could be remanded, it is a problem."
And when she points to the rules of profession conduct that demand confidentiality, she says, "A lawyer's self-promotion or a lawyer's marketing or a lawyer's gossiping are not listed exceptions."
Paul Bender, a professor at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law, expressed disbelief that Martinez was allowed by his office to write and promote a book about a recent case.
"It is really gross misbehavior on the part of the prosecutor to be arguing the case in public while the case is still being litigated," he said.
In September, a Superior Court judge granted Martinez a two-month delay in a new murder case he is assigned to prosecute so that he can go on a promotional tour when his book comes out. The same judge had previously denied a motion by defense attorneys to continue the case.
"Asking for a continuance for a book tour?" said Shely, the legal ethics expert. "I'm not sure how that dispenses justice in a prompt manner."
Cobb responded, "As far as Mr. Martinez’s time off, the County Attorney does not approve or oversee individual attorney trial calendars or leave requests. Additionally, employee leave requests are not evaluated on the basis of the specific purpose of the leave unless it involves FMLA (the Family Medical Leave Act). The court also specifically reviewed and approved the validity of the continuance and the defense did not object."
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