PHOENIX (AP) – Officials say taxpayers shelled out around $3 million to prosecute and defend convicted murderer Jodi Arias at a series of trials that have finally concluded with jurors deadlocked on whether she should be executed or sent to prison for life for killing her lover.
Thursday’s impasse at the sentencing retrial ensures that Arias will get a life sentence, possibly with the chance at parole.
Some criticized prosecutors’ decision to hold a second sentencing trial after a 2013 jury deadlocked on Arias’ punishment, arguing the drawn-out trial achieved little beyond rehashing the crime’s gruesome and sometimes tawdry details.
The mistrial marked a disappointment for prosecutors leading the nearly seven-year legal battle. But Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said he had no qualms about pursuing the death penalty again. “Regret is a place in the past I can’t afford to live in,” Montgomery said, adding that arbitrary limits can’t be set on the costs of trials.
Arias was convicted in 2013 of killing her lover, Travis Alexander, but that jury also deadlocked on her punishment, prompting the sentencing retrial that began in October. She faces an April 13 hearing at which a judge will decide whether to sentence her to life in prison or to life with the possibility of release after 25 years.