daveerickson

[daveerickson]

It Was A Fun Ride!

This site began as an outlet for my musings on the trial of Jodi Ann Arias. 

Wow. Never had I seen a spectacle in the legal system quite like this one!

Through what ultimately became, to use well-worn phrase, a “circus,” I connected with many passionate people. Some were certifiably insane, and others were, and are, good people with whom I remain friends.

After the trial ended and Jodi Arias went to her final home at the Arizona Department of Corrections - Perryville, I tried to expand the page to include subjects other than the demented woman who killed her ex-boyfriend, but truth be told, it wasn’t the same.

So we’re closing up shop here, trust me when I say, it was a fun ride!

[daveerickson]

Get A Rope

“The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. It’s actions are insane like its whole constitution.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Somewhere between Simi Valley, California and Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, the United States of America got caught in a time-warping vortex transporting it to the crossroads where medieval days of yore meet the old west, a place where lynch mob mentality outweighs the rules of civilized society.

As I write this, the cause célèbre is Steven Avery and the Netflix documentary Making A Murderer. Mobs of people are lining up with torches ready to exact justice on the case’s prosecutor, Ken Kratz, who they believe railroaded an innocent man into prison… again.

With Kratz, or heck, as they did with the cops in Ferguson and Baltimore for that matter, the mob already has it’s noose firmly in hand.

There’s something unsettling about how society has devolved into a real-life version of 1931’s Frankenstein or the old Pace picante sauce commercial where a cowboy, upon hearing his picante sauce came from New York City, calmly, yet firmly, declares, “get a rope.”

With the Avery case, its another rage-fueled reaction where the fires of emotion are feverishly stoked by a one-sided “documentary” void of ALL the facts of the case. If mobs want to wield the pitchforks then at least base the decision to do so on reality, not a filmmaker’s version of reality.

My own profession doesn’t help. What happened in Ferguson is due in no small part to the work of irresponsible network journalists peddling a predetermined narrative and a ratings-obsessed, reality-TV mindset in which the search for truth isn’t really paramount.

Social media is worse. Twitter? It’s the biggest mob of all. It fuels a ravenous appetite for knee-jerk justice. We don’t need facts. We don’t need order. We’ve heard the accusations and YOU’RE GUILTY. We’re now judges, juries, AND executioners.

You’d think we’d have learned something in the last 2000 years. We haven’t. Sometime around 33 A.D., Jesus Christ saw the mob mentality for what it was, a mindset rooted in narcissism and self-righteousness, then dispatched a group of hypocrites who wanted to stone an adulteress with his now famous words, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”

Not much has changed.

There’s no patience for the process. No waiting for all of the facts, and you can forget calm discourse.

Even the 19th-century novelist George Eliot, a woman by the way, got it. In 1862, in the novel Romola, she wrote, “All things except reason and order are possible with a mob.”

Well come on, why do we need reason and order? We’ve got a bag of rocks, a Twitter account, and… a rope.

[daveerickson]

Thank You Dave

You may have heard, tonight the maverick who changed the landscape of late night television will slide away from the desk for the final time. David Letterman didn't merely open the door for all who followed, he took a Howitzer and obliterated it.

Dave’s influence on comedians, satirists, television, the zeitgeist, and certainly my own irascible observations on the inanity of life really cannot be measured.

David Letterman is a genius. He categorically invented the late night talk show as we know it. Dave took the talk show conventions perfected by the masters Steve Allen and Johnny Carson and turned them inside and out, upside down and backwards. 

Dave’s first late night show hit the scene like a broadcast tsunami. It was cool. I was in college then and Dave’s show embodied the kind of cool we’d been waiting for. It wasn’t my dad’s show. That was Johnny. Finally a daft guy with no patience for showbiz vapidity. Dave was authentic and he abhorred few things as much as the self-aggrandizing perpetrated by insipid Hollywood phonies.

As a college kid, I found myself transfixed. There was nothing like Dave’s show. At parties, there amongst the kegs, the smell of weed and angst, was a television tuned to NBC. Always. If I couldn’t land a girl, I always had Dave. Nine times out of ten, he was more satisfying anyway. Dave was appointment viewing to be sure. Late Night was a revolutionary, subversive, tour de force of comic brilliance-- the first show to articulate the voice of my generation, tired of the pomposity and bullshit.

When I first began pursuing a career in television in the early 90′s, my father arranged for me to meet with a broadcast consultant, who he thought might be able to help. The first question the guy asked was, “What is your goal? What do you want to achieve in television?” My answer, without hesitation, “I want a show like David Letterman’s.” At the time I had an offer to be a news reporter with a local television station, and the consultant said something that haunts me to this day... “If you want a show like David Letterman one day, you need to take the career steps that will lead you there, and you must ask yourself, is taking a job as a local television reporter going to get you to a show like Letterman’s?” Of course, the answer is an unequivocal “no.” But at the time I had a wife and a young daughter, I simply couldn’t toss those responsibilities aside for a vision quest. 

But once Letterman’s brilliance seeps into your subconscious, there’s no escaping its influence. My style as a reporter never was Edward R. Murrow, it was always David Letterman. I never fit in. My snarky quips, interviews tinged with mockery, wisecrack rebuttals when anchors would utter an asinine tag, the aversion that would creep across my face when articulating a vacuous story-- all Dave. I constantly fought the conventions of the business, just like him, but with decidedly less success.

For a while, I was a weatherman, just like Dave once was. While my contemporaries would begin their forecasts with viewer pictures of sunsets, I would use things like a music video of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Couldn’t Stand the Weather.” Once during the Gulf War, I took a weather radar shot showing clear skies over Baghdad and noted on-air, how we had perfect weather for bombing. A viewer once asked where lightning came from... my response? “From God.”

I anchored a Sunday night sports show, and while the other “serious” sports guys would bring professional athletes to the studio as guests, I had professional wrestlers, NBA dancers, and girl groups. My ratings always surpassed theirs.  

Thank you, Dave.

When I turned my attention toward television production, like Dave, I never accepted the rote way things had been done before. I tried to push the bar higher, always endeavored to find the less conventional way to do things, pushed to find the edge, and then once I found it, pushed harder. Dave repelled against his own network, filled with micromanaging, meddling executives, and so did I. The Emmys that adorn my mantle stand as a testament to him.

Then when I added social commentator and satirist to my arsenal of pursuits, I unashamedly emulated Dave in every way. My Twitter feed is often a pinprick to the over-inflated pomposity of celebrity. It reflects the snarky mindset that set Dave apart. In fact, all my social media accounts are immersed in that cynicism. My mother once called me and said, “David, I cannot believe I raised a son who would make fun of Oprah in such a negative way.” I took a breath and sincerely articulated the cold, hard truth... “Mom, I’m simply making jokes about celebrity the way David Letterman would.” (Note: I had to “un-friend” Mom on Facebook.)

Dave’s real beauty lays in his authenticity. He is who he is. You may love him, you may hate him, and ya know what? He’s OK with that. There’s virtue and freedom that comes from being real, and if bursting sated egos and overbearing ridiculousness comes with a cost, so be it. Every time I’ve appeared on an HLN show, I’ve tried to emulate Dave’s authenticity and fearlessness-- to inch that knife into the process and hope the viewer not only gets the joke but the underlining context of the message. Dave taught me that.

At the end of the day, every television success I’ve ever had or ever will have I owe to David Letterman.

Thank you Dave. 

[daveerickson]

A Court $cam and Why I’m As Mad as Hell

“The court may, in its discretion, exclude all spectators except representatives of the press during the testimony of a witness whenever reasonably necessary to prevent embarrassment or emotional disturbance of the witness.” - Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 9.3 

Anyone who has followed the sentencing phase of the Jodi Arias trial knows, on October 30, 2014, Maricopa County Superior Court judge Sherry Stephens disregarded the rule of criminal procedure and removed all representatives of the media from the court and allowed Arias to testify in secret. 

So egregious was this violation that days later the Arizona Court of Appeals overruled the decision and put an effective end to Stephens’ “star chamber.”

Yesterday, the same court that prohibited the media from airing any trial footage until after the verdict, made available its own footage of the trial. The price? A mind-blowing $1710.

Now I’m no lawyer, so let me try to understand this. A court bars the media from videotaping the testimony of a trial witness (Jodi Arias), testimony the public has a constitutionally guaranteed right to witness, then turns around and sells its own footage to the media and public alike?

Movie theaters preventing you from bringing in refreshments so it can sell you an $8 box of Goobers ain't got nothing on these guys.

It is repugnant.

However, the distaste over the prodigious fee has nothing to do with the fact its the Arias trial. The trial was distasteful enough. No, the issue is the vile cash grab that slaps the face of every taxpayer in Maricopa County. They've already ponied up more than three million bucks for this spectacle.

The court is profiteering from a murder trial. Plain and simple.

It has slapped a wantonly greedy price on something that’s part of the public record. The court has choices, and it chose to scalp you like the guy selling Motley Crue tickets for 100 times face value. It could charge a simple administrative fee, say $35, or could pledge to take the $1710 for each copy and put it toward a legal defense fund or a fund to help the families of crime victims, or the victims themselves. That would be respectable. But they’re not, and this isn't.

I’ve seen this sort of civic shakedown before. A couple of years ago, a county sheriff’s office in New Mexico told the media it would no longer make mugshots available for free. They wanted a $25 fee for each one requested. Albuquerque NBC affiliate, KOB-TV, along with ABC affiliate, KOAT-TV, fought it and won. A mugshot is public record, and so is the Arias trial.

You have a right to see it without being gouged.

At least those Albuquerque stations saw the issue and fought. It is bewildering that in Phoenix, Arizona, not a single media outlet, that I’ve seen so far, seems to see a problem here. I have to logically assume they don’t because there hasn’t been a single story on this repulsive assault on your rights. And here I thought one of the cornerstones of journalism is the belief that our duties include holding the government accountable to its citizens.

This sets a dangerous precedent. When a government entity bans a free press from providing something to which you are legally entitled, and then doubles back to charge you an excessive fee for it, it is time to heed the words of the great Howard Beale, “I AM MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE.”

[daveerickson]

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

In Maricopa County, Arizona, a wet, gray, cold chill sweeps across the valley. The sky casts an ominous pale over Phoenix; oddly apropos for what 12 people have to do today. A Superior Court jury of 8 women and 4 men begins its third day with the grim task of working to decide whether convicted murderer, Jodi Arias lives or dies. 

This is no easy enterprise, although to an avid trial watcher, it would seem so. The plethora of evidence, the smoke and mirrors mitigation, the lack of allocution. Open and shut?

Not even close.

There's a vast gulf between the emotion triggered by this case and the reality of checking a box that reads, "Death." A jury has the unenviable task of separating the wheat from the chaff, removing emotion from the equation, pouring over stacks of evidence, to arrive at a place where, based on the rule of law, justice is served.

The public's thirst for an expeditious verdict is understandable. It's been nearly 7 years since Arias murdered Travis Alexander, nearly 2 years since the verdict in the guilt phase of her trial, and nearly 5 months since the sentencing phase began. Jury selection commenced on September 29th of last year. For anyone seeking resolution, its a seemingly mind-numbing exercise in futility.

Imagine what it's like for the jurors.

The sacrifice these people have made and the toll it's no doubt taken on their lives really can't be measured. They were told, disingenuously, they'd be needed for just a couple of months, that the trial would end before Christmas. But here they still are-- putting jobs on hold, family on hold, lives on hold. And can you imagine giving up all forms of social media for 5 months? I mean, if I had to give up Twitter for more than hour, its conceivable I might turn into a Uruguayan rugby player trapped in the Andes turning to cannibalism to survive.

These jurors deserve our respect. 

"We don't need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful." - Taylor Swift 

We need to respect this jury. Its clear they don't take the job lightly. Given the circumstances, they could have rendered a decision rooted in haste and exited stage left. Instead, this jury brought in the ubiquitous crock pot and worked through lunch. They asked Judge Sherry Stephens if they were allowed to study trial notes at home over the weekend. That's telling. They want to make an educated and informed decision. (By the way, jurors are not allowed to takes their notes home.)

These jurors deserve our respect.

Historically, juries in high-profile cases face the vitriol of a thousand trolls. Casey Anthony. Ferguson. OJ Simpson. It's almost always unfounded. A jury's efforts, despite the outcome, whether the decision is diametrically opposed to ours, isn't without sacrifice, study, and a commitment to serving justice, and serving it well. Although Simpson's jury might have been the most half-witted collection of rubes ever assembled in a court of law.

When the Jodi Arias jury does arrive at it's decision, we might consider heeding the words of freelance writer Ashly Lorenzana...

“It's okay to disagree with the thoughts or opinions expressed by other people. That doesn't give you the right to deny any sense they might make. Nor does it give you a right to accuse someone of poorly expressing their beliefs just because you don't like what they are saying.”

So, if the Jodi Arias jury renders a verdict we find distasteful, with which we don't agree, it doesn't change one indisputable truth-- this jury deserves, nay, demands, our respect.

[daveerickson]

Killed By Ego?

25 years in television. Too many court cases to count. Truthfully, I’ve never seen a more egregious case of ego run amok than I did today.

The defense rested its case in the sentencing phase of the Jodi Arias murder trial. After a nearly four-month, victim-bashing siege the likes of which one can only hope never darkens another court of law, Arias was given the opportunity to plead for her life before the jury.

She passed.

Nearly seven years of posturing, narrative-weaving, and legal maneuvering came down to this moment. This one moment. A literal life and death moment to which every single shred of testimony, every story told to police, every media interview would lead.

Jodi Arias passed.

It takes a special kind of arrogance, or a special kind of stupid, to pass up that chance— that chance to face 12 everyday people to try to make a human connection in hopes of avoiding fatal comeuppance for a brutal and tragic crime.

Arias passed on her chance at allocution (allows a defendant to explain why their sentence should be lenient) because Judge Sherry Stephens denied a defense request to keep Arias’ statement “secret.”  Stephens gave in once to such a request, back in October, and it would come to bite her in the ass when the ruling was later overturned by the Arizona Court of Appeals.

So Stephens, exhibiting rare backbone, stuck to her guns. Arias would not be allowed to make a statement in “secret.” Stephens did try to meet Arias halfway. She’d empty the courtroom, dispatching all spectators, including the media, to the 1st-floor overflow room, where they could watch the proceedings on a monitor.

Arias passed.

As I posted on Twitter a short time later…

"Its more important to hide what she says from the media than to beg a jury to spare her life? If you ever doubted #JodiArias is insane…”

I’m not suggesting she’s clinically insane. It’s more like a 3-year old who throws a tantrum. But the difference between a toddler and Arias is a toddler likely won’t be strapped to a gurney and pumped full of midazolam and hydromorphone if their tactic fails.

Petulance thy name is Jodi.

Stephens was clearly dumbfounded, so much so, she addressed Arias a second time. “Are you sure?" She explained to Arias that she wouldn't be under oath, she wouldn’t be cross-examined, and that this was her one and only chance to express remorse to the people charged with deciding her fate. Because as we stand right now, the only thing the jury has heard from Arias, through her defense team, is that Travis Alexander is a pornography-addicted, physically abusive pedophile. Not a whole lot of remorse going on right there. And maybe that’s the real reason Arias declined.

But for Arias, her defiance wasn't so much a lack of remorse as much as it was doing things on her own terms, consequences be damned. She once again told Stephens she’d speak to the jury if, and only if, she could do it in secret.

Arias has made her position quite clear, getting your own way is paramount. If it means death, so be it. Sadly for her, the Maricopa County Superior Court and the laws of jurisprudence aren’t Burger King. You can’t have it your way.

When she was rebuffed again, Arias stood firm on her own seemingly illogical principles.

Even Stephens, (‘Even Stephens,’ see what I did there?) was so incredulous to Arias’ refusal to speak on her own behalf, she asked her if she had taken her meds. 

I can’t speak to what goes through the mind of Jodi Arias. Maybe it’s like that old 1930’s pulp novel, “Only the shadow knows." I can’t speak to whether the death penalty is, or is not, appropriate. I won’t speak to the so-called mitigation factors presented by the defense, none of which had even a single shred of tangible evidence to support them.

Regardless of anyone’s position on the merits of either side of this case, there really are just two irrefutable facts… 1) Travis Alexander is dead, and 2) Jodi Arias was convicted by a jury of killing him.

And if the sentence doesn't go her way, we might add a third… in the spirit of Paddy Chayefsky, this is the story of Jodi Ann Arias: The first known instance of a woman who was sentenced to death because of ego.

[daveerickson]

Stand By Your Man

You’ll have bad times, and he’ll have good times Doin’ things that you don’t understand But if you love him, you’ll forgive him Even though he’s hard to understand - Tammy Wynette

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman, giving all your love to just one man. But for Camille Cosby and Dottie Sandusky, Stand by Your Man isn't a song, it's a marching order... a ticket to the grand ball of delusion. Two women, nary anything in common, but for husbands accused of reprehensible sex crimes, standing by their man, publicly, proudly, and... tragically.

As most of us know, 23 women have publicly accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault. 23. And it's not just a swipe of the hand here, or a brush of the back there. It's coercion, drugging, raping, fondling-- the types of crimes that for less notable men would mean a fast track to San Quentin and a shower date with a tattooed behemoth named, "Soft Hammer."

On Monday, Mrs. Cosby did what so many caught up in scandal do, she blamed the media. “There appears to be no vetting of my husband’s accusers before stories are published or aired," she said. Vet her husband's accusers? This isn't a solitary claim by a second-tier, unknown stylist, not that her claims would be any less valid, these are claims by some very high-profile women... women who'd be risking their careers with a bogus claim-- Janice Dickinson, Beverly Johnson, Michelle Hurd.

Why would they lie?

By all accounts, Camille Cosby is a good woman. And for that matter, so is Dottie Sandusky. Last month, Mrs. Sandusky, the better half of convicted child predator, Jerry Sandusky, wrote a column for Pennsylvania's The Patriot News, in which she declared, "Jerry is not a pedophile and he did not commit the horrible crimes for which he was convicted."

Denial thy name is Dottie.

Jerry Sandusky was imprisoned for sexual crimes against children, 45 counts. Eight brave young men faced this monster in court and testified to Sandusky's heinous, unspeakable acts. Yet, Mrs. Sandusky, for reasons most people truly can't fathom, stands by her man. "I know what is true and I know that, contrary to apparent popular belief, I am not delusional."

God love you, Dottie. God love you, Camille. Many a man dreams of a woman with such unwavering loyalty. But unshakable allegiance is misguided when it's wasted on overwhelming accusations of deviancy.

It's one thing to be supportive, it's entirely another to occupy a world of denial so large it casts a towering shadow over reason and logic. 

But like the song says...

And if you love him, oh be proud of him 'Cause after all he's just a man.

[daveerickson]

It's Not My Fault

Call me “old school.” Call me “out of touch.” But I long for the days when people accepted responsibility for their actions— when, honor, integrity, honesty, and backbone meant something. When, no matter how bad it might make you look, you owned up to the things you did. But these days, from killers to television stars, “integrity” begins and ends with blaming someone else.

Last week, convicted felon and a star of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Teresa Guidice filed a lawsuit which blamed her lawyer for the fact she’s going to prison. No, it wasn't her own criminal acts and poor choices that put her in the pokey. It wasn't her fault, it was HIS! 

Jodi Arias killed a man. Stabbed him more than two dozen times, nearly decapitated him, and then for good measure, popped a .25-caliber cap into his head. It wasn't her fault. It was HIS!

Take the Ferguson, Missouri riots. Just ask the mob of looters, it’s not their fault they're destroyed small businesses, homes, cars, and jobs. It’s the grand jury’s. And Michael Brown? It’s not his fault he’s dead. He’s not to blame for ignoring a police officer’s order to stop walking in the middle of the street and move to the sidewalk. It wasn't his fault, it was the cop’s.

Not long ago, I had to write-up an employee on a television show I was running for violating one of our written policies. Rather than accept responsibility for her actions, she instead took out a verbal flamethrower of blame and torched me, my boss, a co-worker, Human Resources, and the vice president of the company. After a month of dishonest posturing and legal-wrangling, we let her go. If she’d have simply said, "Dave, I messed up. It won’t happen again," she’d have gotten a slap on the wrist. She didn't have the integrity to own up to her actions and her vitriolic diatribes to deflect blame resulted in unemployment. But it wasn't her fault, it was mine!

Cheating husbands frequently justify infidelity by blaming their wives for not giving them what they need. It’s not my fault I’m an unfaithful, philandering miscreant, it’s HERS!

How about Adam? This guy, talk about a blame-shifter. After eating the apple in the Garden of Eden, he had the chutzpah to actually blame both Eve AND God for his behavior. God asked Adam if he ate from the tree from which He’d told him not to eat, and Adam says, “The woman YOU put here with me— she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Just like a dude. It wasn’t my fault, it’s hers and YOURS!

Eve was no bastion of backbone either. “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” It wasn’t her fault, it’s HIS!

To be fair though, Adam and Eve didn't have an iPod loaded with Led Zeppelin. "Nobody’s Fault But Mine" might have changed the course of human history.

Students explain away poor grades with, "It's the teacher's fault." Parents justify their kid's poor manners with, "It's technology's fault." Accountability no longer rests with the accountable. A phrase so rare these days that it's stored in Area 51 next to the identity of the second gunman on the grassy knoll is, "It's my fault. I messed up."

Look, my father would happily tell you that I too attempted to weasel my way out of situations where he had me cold. When I was growing up I never got away with anything. The blame game never worked with him. Dad successfully used Jedi mind tricks to nail me when I played it. When I did come clean, he’d impart “dad wisdom” to teach me that accepting responsibility is always better for you in the end. 

Maybe Teresa, Jodi, the rioters, students, and parents should spend some time with my father.

Oh, by the way Dad… when I wrecked your car, it wasn't my fault.

[daveerickson]

#TrialCon2015

When Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492 he was under the ultimately misguided impression he’d landed in India. Dude had no idea he’d just found a new world. On September 29, 2014 when I landed in Courtroom 5c of the Maricopa County Superior Court, I had no idea I’d just found a new world either, and man, were the natives restless.

What I didn’t know when I showed up to report on the State vs. Jodi Arias was the existence of a deliciously fascinating subculture of curiously passionate people I’ll simply called the Trial Watchers. (alliteration alert!)

From the second I hit “send” on my first Tweet from the court, my follower count exploded, people from around the world… the United States, Venezuela, Dubai, Australia, Canada, England, Netherlands, Germany, Senegal, South Africa, Greece, and… well you get the idea. Scores of people linked together by one common fascination… trial watching. 

The reactions to my first tweets should have been my first clue something was afoot. I’d received several Twitter replies complimenting my reporting. I’m among the first courtroom reporters to add six pints of snark to the otherwise droll reporting found at most trials. On the back end though, I also received more insults, hate-filled replies, and pure unadulterated rage than I’d ever before experienced… if you don’t count that one bipolar television journalist I dated for a month.

I was caught off guard, but the reaction showed unbridled passion. To be sure, its the sort of fanatical devotion rivaled only by the other subcultures that in and of themselves generate an economically impossible-to-ignore zeitgeist.

There’s an increasingly growing culture of people who love My Little Pony called, “Bronies.” By love, I mean, if the pony wasn’t animated, they’d be in serious danger of triggering a jealously-fueled rampage by the famous Mr. Ed. He is a horse, of course.

Every year, thousands of these “Bronies” gather in Baltimore for BronyCon. They spend days talking about, well I don’t know what they talk about. Their inexplicable attraction to a cartoon pony? Their lack of dating lives? Theories on global thermonuclear war, it’s effect on geopolitical relations, and whether Twilight Sparkle could bring about world peace? 

Or take the KISS Army. Around the world, in cities from Oslo to Orlando, rabid fans of the iconic band that won’t go away, make the pilgrimage to a shrine of the unholy, or just really, really bad makeup. Call these conventions what you will… KISS Expo, KISS Fanfest, KISS Konvention, but don’t call them unpopular. 

So zealous are these face-painted fanatics, they’d fork over $80 just to see Gene Simmons’ tongue. $10 for every inch.

But for militant devotion, one can hardly top Star "Trekkies" and the deliriously devoted (alliteration alert!) minions of Star Wars. Rather than list their conventions, we’ll lump them into one super-sized collection of nerddom. They generate billions, and whatever you do, do NOT offend a 47-year-old accountant dressed as a Stormtrooper.

So if people who embrace a common passion can gather together for three days of peace, love, and conversation, then for devoted Trial Watchers, might I suggest a new convention…

TrialCon 2015.

We’ll rent a convention hall. We’ll have booths featuring replica bloody knives, bloody gloves, guns. Enterprising entrepreneurs will sell autographed mugshots… “To My Best Friend, Stan. Love and Kisses. Jodi.” We’ll build jail mockups with life-sized recreations of our favorite convicts. We’ll pay $12.95 for the a cardboard-framed photo.

There will be symposiums covering everything from proper courtroom etiquette to how to effectively insult people who don’t agree with a Tweet.

Nicole will teach on how to engage professionally with whom you disagree and Red will give a three-hour lecture on the most potent methods for hateful trolling.

Don’t delay. Buy your tickets soon. The first 100 purchasers receive a signed copy of "A Guide To 160,000 Porn Sites" by Kirk Nurmi.

So grab the kids, pack the car, book the room, and spread the hashtag, #TrialCon2015 is coming soon!

[daveerickson]

Porngate

I begin "Porngate" with this caveat... I detest the addition of the word "gate" to any scandal. Adding the suffix "-gate" to every scandal isn't witty. It isn't funny. It's nonsensical and dumb.

The one and only time "gate" has a place in scandal is if it happens at an historic hotel on the banks of the Potomac.

Unless you're an operative planning a heist at the DNC headquarters, save the suffix for something else, like, say, an actual gate.

So, it's under duress I refer to the latest twist in the Jodi Arias saga as what others have trivially, and not so creatively, dubbed, "Porngate."

Monday night, news came raining down like thunder from Heaven, or from Down Under, that Arias' chief counsel Kirk Nurmi filed the motion of all motions in this case... drop all charges against his client or take the death penalty off the table. Sidenote: It's not every day I mention "thunder from down under" and Kirk Nurmi in the same sentence. Sorry ladies, bachelorette parties in Vegas won't be the same now. 

Nurmi claims his forensics expert found porn, yes, porn, thousands of files, did I mention they were porn, on Travis Alexander's computer. Actually, they were links to porn sites, but still... ya know, porn.

The motion alleges Mesa cops erased the sex sites, nay, porn, from the computer while it was checked into evidence. The porn.

Whether there is any merit to the claim, who knows? I prefer to wait for the legal process to take it's course. But as with anything to do with this abject case, people on Twitter don't wait for the process to reveal the truth, they already know...

Meanwhile, the journalist who broke the story of "Porngate," a fine, hard-working man named Michael Kiefer from the Arizona Republic, had to fend off attacks as though he was the one who filed the motion. 

To quote one of his later tweets, take a Valium. Journalists like Kiefer, me, and others in the court, we're just the messengers. We work hard to feed an insatiable appetite for relative information. But it can't be satisfied. It's like Homer Simpson at an "all you can eat" buffet complaining when the place runs out of food.

Maybe someone just need a Snickers.

There's passion with this case. Understandable. Some side with prosecutor Juan Martinez. Some with Nurmi. Some support Arias. Others want her dead. I respect any and all opinion as long as it's engaged, informed, and well-articulated. But for those who express opinion with detestable discourse, (alliteration alert!) and defecate on our efforts with repulsive remarks, take a bowl of mulligatawny and be on your way. No respect for you.

It's easy to crack wise while hiding behind the anonymity of a Twitter account.

Court reconvenes Wednesday morning. What does Nurmi have planned? Will Arias escape?

Well, someone did leave the porn gate open.

[daveerickson]

Better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring

Marilyn Monroe didn’t live long enough to see the ridiculousness we know as the Jodi Arias trial, probably a good thing for her, yet in her own delightfully “only Marilyn” way, she predictively articulated the whole darn thing… 

"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." - Marilyn Monroe

This trial is imperfect. It’s madness. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

It’s anything but boring.

My musing on the matter wasn’t nearly as eloquent, nor as clever as Marilyn, yet nevertheless was substantial enough HLN shared it with a national television audience, and I believe I made my point…

There hasn’t been a single shred of testimony presented in a week. The last witness who did testify was a “secret” witness we presume to be Jodi Arias herself. Chief defense counsel, Kirk Nurmi argues he wants his entire case to be presented in secret, and on Tuesday dropped the bomb he has no intention of finishing by the December 18th trial end date given to jurors.

This guy either has the biggest set of brass balls this side of Montana or resides in an alternate universe 53 miles west of Venus.

Nurmi plans a fight with the appeals court which ordered the "star chamber" be reopened to the public. He’s intimated he might not even present a defense if he doesn’t get what he wants, and then has the unmitigated gall to suggest if his case goes south, it’s OUR fault.

"If we have a mistrial by media, so be it." - Kirk Nurmi

It’s piss and vinegar mixed with misdirected blame and childlike petulance.

“Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind.” - C.S Lewis

Exactly.

But ridiculousness doesn’t begin and end with Kirk Nurmi. It doesn’t even begin and end in the courtroom. Take a look at social media, go to Twitter, read the notes received by the those of us covering the Jodi Arias trial and you’ll see madness resides in the laps of fools and reasonable people alike.

I could post a blank tweet with nothing more than the hashtag, #jodiarias, and it would be “favorited” 255 times. I make a joke about missing "Law & Order: SVU" and am inundated with vitriolic diatribes on how the Arias trial lacks both law and order. I make an observation about Arias’ eyes appearing dark, and someone I surmise is living with his mother, in a basement he calls a “command center,” messages me with a threat to slice off my head while I sleep.

I can only hope if that does happen, he’s put on trial and Twitter explodes with people demanding lethal injection while hashtagging everything, #JusticeforDave.

Meantime, can everyone get a grip and heed the words of the wonderfully cerebral and gifted 21st century poet and philosopher, Larry the Cable Guy?…

"It’s nice if people can finally loosen up a little bit and just go out and laugh at silliness. I mean, people take themselves way too seriously sometimes."

Truer words…

The trial process in this case is silly. The reason for the trial, of course, isn’t. But can we talk frankly? Judge Sherry Stephens has lost all semblance of control, and we’re about thisclose to a Stephens version of the “Dancing Itos.”

"Shimmying Sherrys?" I’d watch that. After all, it is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

[daveerickson]

Let's Play Mystery Date!

“He’s here! My Mystery Date!” “Mystery Date, are you ready for your Mystery Date?!”

For any teen girl in the 60's, there was nary a sleepover that didn't include a rousing round of Mystery Date, the iconic game where every spin of the dial brought you closer to the person on the other side of the door.

In 2014, Mystery Date is being played in the hallway outside Courtroom 5C of the Maricopa County Superior Court.

"It's Mystery Date, the thrilling game that's for you, and you, and you, and you!"

Who's on the other side of the door?!

Is it the dowdy brunette with the plain sweater and thick glasses? She's dreamy. 

We're just a spin of the dial away from finding out. And by "spin of the dial" I mean an appellate court order.

As avid trial watchers already know, last Thursday Judge Sherry Stephens capitulated to the demands of a "mystery" witness, booted the public and press from the courtroom, and conducted court in secret.

It was the single most egregious thing I've seen a judge do in the whole of my career... exciting though!

It's not every day you see a sitting Superior Court judge spit on the Constitution of The United States, the Arizona Constitution, and the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure all at the same time.

She won the trifecta and a first-edition, leather-bound copy of Mein Kampf.

The decision was unilateral. No hearing on the matter. No discussion. Nothing. Stephens has evidently empowered herself to make up her own rules now.

Somewhere in the bowels of a North Korean bunker, Kim Jong-un is watching the Jodi Arias case thinking, "well done, Sherry, well done."

Lawyers for the media are fighting this, of course. Open courts and public trials are a cornerstone of the American system of justice. Last I checked, the laws of jurisprudence don't include 15th-century English "star chambers."

If Stephens is going to continue her dictatorial style of courtroom management, she should just swap her pumps for jackboots and change her last name to Mussolini. 

But then again, Mussolini at least had control of things. Even he wouldn't let someone push him around, least of all, someone already convicted of murder. 

Yep, ding ding ding, we hear the mystery date is...

Jodi Arias.

Yes way, Jose.

The same woman who spent nearly three weeks giving testimony to a packed gallery and a global television audience, told a compliant judge she would not testify unless the court was cleared. Just what, pray tell, could Jodi Arias possibly say now that we didn't hear in her other EIGHTEEN days of testimony?

Unless its the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body, I'm not sure anything she has to say would surprise any of us.

We heard the mystery witness felt unsafe testifying before a packed court. Unsafe? Arias? She's in jail. Unless someone from the court busts into the jail, gets past Joe Arpaio's watchmen, and yells "Ima gonna get you sucka!" while holding a shiv, the chance of her being threatened is about a million to one...

Sure, it might be embarrassing telling the same story again. But it's more embarrassing than, oh I don't know, having a 12-foot photo of your vagina blasted onto a big screen in a courtroom full of people?

There's no way of knowing, until the appeals court rules, whether we'll even be allowed in the court on Monday. Justice demands we are. Meantime...

"When you open the door will your Mystery Date be a dream, or a dud?"

Can't wait to see. Fun and surprises, that's Mystery Date!

...and this trial.

[daveerickson]

Sex, Lies, and Audiotape

On Tuesday, with an explosion of lurid sexscapades, the summary-of-facts portion of the Jodi Arias sentencing trial came to a thundering climax.

A vagina, an anus, a penis all projected onto a 12’ screen. Speakers projecting audio-taped moans, sex-act fantasies, and tales of debasement so vile they would offend the sensibilities of most anyone not named Ron Jeremy. 

But for anyone whose proclivity is "jizz," then Tuesday’s testimony hit the G-spot. 

"Jizz" was court’s Word du Jour. I searched for a family-friendly substitute, but even thesaurus.com didn’t want to hear it. When I typed “jizz” into the search box, it asked, "Did you mean ‘jazz?" 

Well, jazz IS an acquired taste, too.

As unseemly the details of Arias’ and Travis Alexander’s sex life, and as disgusted some claim to be by it, the indisputable truth is, that’s exactly why we’re riveted.

It’s a murder case. Happens every day. A woman killed her boyfriend. It’s tragic.

It’s not unique.

On average, 18,000 people are murdered every year in this country. But of those cases, none have the same carnal magnetism. None have the same tales of the erotic. None have the same pure, unadulterated raunch that would make even Caligula blush.

It’s 50 Shades of Grey, Story of O, and Fatal Attraction rolled into one. Why risk the indignity of visiting the arcade at the seedy adult bookstore downtown when all you have to do is dial up Jodi Does Mesa?

Sure, some of us are intoxicated by the lies. The ninjas? Tantalizing. The stealth trip from Yreka? Riveting. The Utah alibis love tryst? Spellbinding.

But we tend toward the voyeuristic, and no court case in the world right now is as deliciously seductive as this one.  

Fact is, no matter how puritanical we fancy ourselves, no matter our revulsion, to reword Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, deep down in places we don’t talk about at parties, we want to hear that tape, we need to hear that tape.

Mitigation starts on Thursday. The gallery will be packed.

No one can resist sex, lies, and audiotape.

[daveerickson]

All The News That's Fit To Tweet

If Judge Sherry Stephens thought she could control the tone of the Jodi Arias sentencing trial coverage by banning TV from the courtroom, she's failed miserably.

We're just about a month into it, and already Stephens' shortsighted, rote, textbook case of over-reaction has created a ten-fold bigger circus than the one before. It's located on three-rings of banality called...

Twitter.

Last month, Stephens threw live TV out of the Arias proceedings like a 25 dollar hooker and in doing so created a whirling dervish of bad reporting, bad information, and boorish commentary.

Sure, Stephens had the well-intentioned, but woefully misguided, illusion she was protecting Arias' rights by keeping the jury untainted by outlandish media coverage, but as Laurie Roberts from the Arizona Republic stated so succinctly, "If the public had influenced the jury. Arias would right now be sitting on death row."

"The damage has already been done. There is more damage that can be done." – Jodi Arias, September 2014 

Sure Jodi, but it's worse than what even a convicted killer can imagine.

What's happening right now on Twitter is an unmitigated war on the senses, and separating the wheat from the chaff, even for the most ardent of Arias' trial followers is no simple task. 

This past week, Courtroom 5C of the Maricopa County Superior Court has seen a jury sworn in, opening statements, graphic evidence photos, and passionate, sometimes combative, questioning of witnesses... riveting courtroom theatrics on the border between Perry Mason and Law & Order.

You can't see it.

What can you see? Head to Twitter and enjoy "reporting" from... 

"Farmer Johns" shoveling manure to the masses, and that's exactly what their Arias information is.

Quasi pseudo legal know-it-alls.

Wannabe standup comedians, and...

Self-proclaimed social media "experts" whose only real credential is they know how to manipulate Twitter to boost their follower count.

Their coverage is almost as dignified as the professional wrestler who jumped from the ring and chased my 4'11", 90 pound grandmother until she hid under a chair. (*true story)

Admittedly, the recipe for my own courtroom reporting on Twitter calls for two heapin' helpins' of sarcasm and a dash of snark. It's a spicy dish with lotsa meat on the bone. 

I do stay true to my training as a seasoned journalist. This is a serious and tragic case, it demands appropriate reporting. But the process itself has devolved into such a farcical sideshow, it too demands the appropriate response... at the intersection of cynicism and mockery.

It's dirty work using Twitter as the tool to report on the Arias trial. Since it began, those of us legitimate journalists live-tweeting have been relentlessly targeted by misguided misanthropes (alliteration alert!) and attacked with vicious rhetoric. Well, it's not so much vicious rhetoric as it is the incoherent ramblings of inarticulate rubes. 

But they are devoted.

Court starts at 9:30 am MST. I'll be there with all the news that's fit to tweet.

[daveerickson]

Just When I Thought I Was Out...

"Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in. " - Michael Corleone, "The Godfather III"

24 hours ago, I was done. I washed my hands of Jodi Arias and her entire sordid story. I would no longer attend court. I would no longer tweet. I would no longer write this blog. I have two television shows starting production soon, who needs this rigmarole? So like Michael, I decided to turn from my life of crime.

I'd thought a lot about the great Panamanian boxer, Roberto Duran. One November night in 1980, after eight rounds toe to toe with Sugar Ray Leonard, the pugilistic pummeling (alliteration alert!) proved too much and Duran had the good sense to throw up his hands and proclaim, “no mas!” 

One could only imagine the sense of relief Duran felt when the beating stopped. I know I did when I wrote this...

"Today, standing in the ring known to most as Courtroom 5C of Maricopa County Superior Court, I’m doing my best Duran, throwing in the towel and saying, “no mas."

Snide comments? No mas. Nasty tweets? No mas. Vitriolic emails? No mas.

I crawled through a river of crap and came out clean on the other side, I was halfway to Zihuatanejo. 

But as Michael said...

By 10:00 this morning my Twitter account was flooded with messages asking where I was, and by 10:30, HLN was asking me to appear on one of it's shows.

For those of us covering it, the Jodi Arias trial is a Cosa Nostra from which no one escapes.

Jodi Arias is in the zeitgeist. I've made a handsome living over the years exploiting pop zeitgeist at the dozen networks and television stations for which I've produced or reported, and now I know, I can't get out.

I'm a made man.

The reason people are so riveted by the #JodiArias case is that it has it all... sex, lies, and photographs.

Salaciousness, rage, sex, violence... it's Scandal, YouPorn, and Real Housewives rolled into one. The only difference between Arias and Tamra is Arias isn't wearing Louboutins... and Eddie wasn't stabbed to death.

Today, opening statements began in round-two of the sentencing part of the Arias trial. The jury deadlocked the first time around and now 18 new people, 12 of them women, will decide whether Arias lives or dies.

"Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment." - Michael Corleone

You hate Jodi Arias?

Ignore her.

You want to punish Jodi Arias?

Walk away.

This woman so desperately craves attention that, for her, the lack of it would likely prove a fate worse than death.

But the odds of any of us walking away are about the same as Michael Corleone taking the family business legit.

I tried.

I failed.

Just when I thought I was out...

See you in court at 9:30.

[daveerickson]

Snarky vs. Snippy

Merriam-Webster defines "Snarky": crotchety, snappish. It defines "Snippy": short-tempered, snappish. I'll be darned if I can tell the difference but confuse the two, and may God help you, you'll feel the wrath of a thousand trolls.

I did.

After a several day hiatus, today is the first day of court activity in the Jodi Arias trial sentencing phase. The jury has presumably already been picked, it'll be sworn next Tuesday, so today's proceedings are pretty rote courtroom stuff. Usually it's boring, but with the Arias case, few things ever are.

As I'm walking into the court building, the first thing I see are a couple of adoring women asking local television anchor Javier Soto to pose for photos with them.

So far the biggest crowd outside #JodiArias court has been around KTVK's @JavierSotoTV, women flocking to get their picture w/ him.#rockstar

Chicks dig this guy. He's happily married, but if I'm at a bar, Javier's the guy I want as my wingman.

I'm only popular with grandmas and women whose role model is Stassi from Vanderpump Rules.

Back upstairs, the lawyers, judge, media, court staff, and observers are waiting for Arias to arrive. One woman made the 300 mile, nearly five hour drive from Las Vegas to witness the spectacle for herself. 

At 10am sharp, the side door opens and Arias walks in. 

#JodiArias just walked into the court wearing black and white striped jail clothes. No glasses.

She's all smiles.

Does Arias truly grasp that the State of Arizona wants to insert an IV into her arm, inject her with midazolam and hydromorphone, and watch her die?

Ignorance is bliss?

The court's business today is to address a couple of defense motions... one to preclude some witnesses from testifying, and another to take the death penalty off the table.

"Defense arguing why State's expert witnesses should be precluded-basically because #JodiArias hasn't been able to interview them." - Monica Lindstrom

I have to say Arias' chief counsel, Kirk Nurmi, is representing his client well today. It's as Lieutenant Kaffee told Lieutenant Weinberg in A Few Good Men, "He's got a real big case he's making. Arguing, he's making an argument." Although Kirk Nurmi looks nothing like Tom Cruise.

"This is unsportsmanlike gamesmanship... Don't know what game prosecution is playing but it's not constitutional." -Nurmi #JodiArias

It's like watching a fight, Chuck Wepner versus Muhammad Ali.

Nurmi is Wepner, bloodied, battered, and still fighting, round after round. Martinez is Ali, doing the rope-a-dope, waiting patiently while Nurmi launches punch after punch, and then when he stops, comes with the right hook...

Martinez: "The defendant's rhetoric is highly inflammatory and revisionist history!" #JodiArias

The motion to preclude witnesses is denied. Round One goes to the State.

Round Two: Motion To Dismiss State’s Notice of Intent To Seek The Death Penalty Due To State’s Continued Misconduct. 

Judge Sherry Stephens feels it appropriate to hold an evidentiary hearing on the matter and schedules it for Monday.

But moments before, I seized a statement she made from the bench, tweeted it, and set off the Twitter version of the Tet Offensive... more like the Troll Offensive. Wait, that's actually redundant. Aren't all trolls, by nature, offensive?

Judge Stephens agrees with Nurmi: "I agree the prosecutors demeanor is snarky." #JodiArias

I misheard what she said. Stephens DISAGREED Martinez was "snarky," but did concede he was "snippy." 

Talk about a fine line of distinction. Diet Coke/TAB. Lisa Ling/Lucy Liu. The two Darrens on Bewitched. What's the difference?!

Eight minutes later, I tweeted a correction...

To clarify judge's earlier comment about Martinez... She's didn't agree he was snarky, but he is snippy. It's all semantics. #chillout

During those eight minutes, I was relentlessly attacked with rhetoric that was decidedly both snarky AND snippy.

My reporting from the court is colorful. It's designed to be factual, illustrative (since there's no television coverage allowed), and, yes, sometimes snarky, and occasionally snippy. You want a dry, straight, by-the-book legal timeline? I'm not your guy.

I accept people like "Unreal Abbie" don't get me. I used to work with a real Abbie and she didn't get me either.

The single given for any satirist, humorist, or commentator on contemporary society, is that not everyone will agree with you. It’s a fact of the profession you either accept or you get out of the game. Those with a thin skin need not apply.

I accept it.

I also accept there are a whole lot more Elizabeths, Sunnys, and Micheles, than there are Abbies.

When I pop humor into my Jodi Arias coverage on Twitter, the target is the process and the circus it's become.

Ya know, I misheard something and reported it as fact. I did correct it, but Otter, the pledge chairman from Animal House, said it best...

Yep. 

But criminy, it was such an immensely insignificant tweet that you'd think I killed nurses, which is apparently what President Obama did last night... at least according to one station

Whoever is responsible for that should happily allow the ghost of Edward R. Murrow to whack them 12 times with a bound copy of the AP Style Guide.

So relatively speaking, my tweet was negligible, and considering why we're in court in the first place, supremely inconsequential.

A man in the prime of life died in the most unimaginably violent way... fighting off a knife-wielding assailant to his very last dying breath. His family is grieving. His friends are grieving. Meanwhile, the young woman who did it is fighting to keep from being killed herself and she too has a grieving family.

Bitching about minor semantics, a misheard word, is hugely irrelevant, don't ya think? And, dare I say, snarky.

...and snippy.

[daveerickson]

Ladies and gents, children of all ages, step right up!

It’s no secret high-profile court cases are often circuses of the absurd, three rings filled with nut jobs, loons, zealots for both sides. A high-profile case like the sentencing phase of the Jodi Arias trial is a silver-lined invitation to a party of the inane. But in this case, the nonsensical aren't outside the court, they’re IN it.

Today we’re a day away from wrapping up the second week of jury selection, although “week” is an overstatement. This process has yet to have a full five days of action inside the courtroom. At this rate, by the time this trial finishes, Arias won’t require lethal injection, she’ll die from old age.

The State could save the taxpayers a whole lot of money if they'd simply change Arias' name to "Katniss," send her out with a bow and arrow, and see if she makes it out alive.

"So let's just skip the circus act, send the bearded lady packing and trust that a judge will administer justice." - Laurie Roberts, The Arizona Republic

Can't argue with that.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez is feisty today. Isn't he always?

Fun morning at #JodiArias jury selection... Jodi tried to speak, Martinez shut her up. So basically it's like the first time.

Arias tried to file a motion, but when she spoke, Martinez interrupted telling Judge Sherry Stephens Arias isn't representing herself. Stephens agreed and dispatched the motion to another judge.

There's nary a time when Martinez doesn't object to something presented by the defense. and today, defense co-counsel Jennifer Willmott could barely get two words out of any sentence before Martinez would yell, "OBJECTION."

Of course, every objection Martinez raises is a "gimme." I have yet to hear Stephens overrule even a single one. By the same token, I have yet to hear Stephens sustain even a single objection raised by the defense.

Today's first group of prospective jurors is being led into the court. They'll be grilled about the answers they gave on the juror questionnaire, and if they thought they'd leave their day of civil service unscathed, they were wrong.

Hopefully they'll be more forthright than this chick who was in the box yesterday...

My fave prospective juror so far claimed yesterday she'd never heard of #JodiArias until now.

WE'VE FOUND AMERICA'S FIRST CAVE DWELLER! Either that, or she's spent the last six years cryogenically frozen next to Walt Disney and Ted Williams' head. 

Arias' lead counsel, Kirk Nurmi is wearing a suit that borders on khaki, he reminds me of Jake from State Farm.

Lawyers from both sides have been relentlessly questioning the jury pool. Some stay. Some go. Some questioned individually. Some in groups.

Eight more prospective #JodiArias jurors enter courtroom. One looks like Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty.

This group consists of eight people including Uncle Si and a couple who believe in "an eye for an eye,"  and a woman who was physically abused by her ex-husband.

She says she believes in death penalty but wishes it was a deterrent to "people killing other people." #JodArias

She made it to the next round.

Uncle Si says the death penalty is the appropriate penalty, and like scores of others these past couple of weeks, believes in "an eye for an eye." Willmott really hammered all of them about the "eye for an eye" thing and whether they could see this case objectively. He's later dismissed. 

I will occasionally catch Travis Alexander's sister glancing over at Arias.

She never looks back.

The questioning of this group goes longer than any other group so far. We're now nearly an hour past the lunch recess and the growling in the courtroom isn't just Juan Martinez, it's our stomachs.

Six from the group are dismissed and two are told to return on October 16th.

After lunch, Martinez picks up where he left off, but with a new group.  

Juan Martinez now grilling a prospective #JodiArias juror as to whether previous media coverage will influence her.

She answers that it's not so much the media coverage but that her friends were always talking about it.

Prospective #JodiArias juror says friend who talked about case with her is "opinionated, abrupt, and abusive."

She's friends with my ex-girlfriend?

Martinez then asks about the influence of the media coverage and hones in on her questionnaire where she mentioned seeing him on television signing an autograph.

He did.

On a cane.

She made it through to the next round.

Nurmi now resumes his questioning. 90 straight minutes. Ya know how the teacher sounds in the Charlie Brown cartoons?

How people in the court look now after hours of #JodiArias jury selection...

The good thing about when Nurmi speaks is that I never get any older, because time stands still.

Nurmi, Martinez, and the judge keep questioning and, yada yada yada, we're done for the day.

But step right up, be enchanted, be amazed, tomorrow the circus is back in town!