Jodi Arias trial testimony pushed back another week

PHOENIX — Jurors in the Jodi Arias sentencing retrial in Maricopa County Superior Court were given another week off after a status conference Monday that played out mostly at the judge's bench, out of earshot of the press and public.

Arias' lead defense attorney, Kirk Nurmi, reiterated to Judge Sherry Stephens that he had three witnesses who refuse to testify in public and that he would like to wait until he can take an appeals court order forbidding secret testimony to the Arizona Supreme Court.

And apparently other witnesses are unavailable because of scheduling conflicts.

Stephens ordered the jury to return on Dec. 15. Meanwhile, there will be an evidentiary hearing Thursday that does not include the jury.

Arias, 34, was convicted in May 2013 for the 2008 murder of her lover, Travis Alexander, in his Mesa home. The first jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict as to whether Arias should be sentenced to death or to life in prison. A second jury was convened and the sentencing retrial began in October.

But at the end of that month, when the defense seated the first of its "mitigation" witnesses, who are supposed to present evidence as to why Arias should not be sentenced to death, Stephens ordered the press and the public to leave the courtroom, saying that the witnesses would not testify otherwise.

The Arizona Republic, KPNX-TV and other media outlets successfully sued, and the Arizona Court of Appeals ordered that the witness, reportedly Arias herself, could not testify behind closed doors. The court has not yet issued its formal opinion, however, so it is unknown whether the order refers only to Arias or to other potential witnesses as well.

Arias will be back in court Thursday, even if the jury is not, for a third evidentiary hearing. The hearings will determine whether the prosecution's intent to seek the death penalty should be thrown out because of defense allegations that police and the prosecutor lied about pornography on Alexander's computer and tried to delete it.

If Stephens lifted the death notice, the trial would end. But even if she doesn't, the jurors will likely hear testimony about the pornography in the next few weeks. Arias claimed that Alexander viewed porn, that his computer had viruses and that Alexander masturbated to photos of young boys. When Mesa police testified that there was no porn on the computer, prosecutor Juan Martinez denounced Arias as a liar.

A defense computer expert subsequently found that thousands of porn sites had been accessed and that the computer was infected with multiple viruses that come from viewing porn.