Jurors in murder trial against Pedro Hernandez in Etan Patz disappearance case fail to finish their 16th day of deliberation without reaching verdict, making deliberation one of longest in past three decades in New York City.
A mistrial has been declared in the case of the six-year-old boy who went missing in 1979.
Defendant Pedro Hernandez confessed in 2012 to killing Etan Patz.
But Pedro Hernandez’s lawyers say the confession was false and claim he is mentally ill.
Pedro Hernandez will remain in jail as prosecutors set a new trial date.
Etan Patz vanished while walking to a school bus stop, in a prominent case that baffled authorities for decades.
The boy’s father, Stanley Patz, expressed his frustration over the jury’s inability to decide but added: “I think we have closure already.”
Etan Patz’s disappearance was one of most prominent missing person cases of the 1980s. He was the first missing child to appear on milk cartons.
In 2012, Pedro Hernandez admitted choking the boy in the basement of the shop where he worked, putting the body in a bag, putting the bag in a banana box and eventually dumping the body about two blocks away from the store.
Etan Patz’s body was never found, and no physical evidence was uncovered to link Pedro Hernandez to the crime.
Defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein said during closing arguments: “Pedro Hernandez is the only witness against himself. The stories he told over the years, including in 2012, and since, are the only evidence. Yet he is inconsistent and unreliable.”
Pedro Hernandez’s lawyers pointed to another suspect Jose Ramos.
According to a former prison informant with whom lawyers were working, Jose Ramos claimed he was with Etan Patz the day the boy vanished and admitted molesting the child.
During 18 days of deliberations, the jury was deadlocked three times before the judge declared the mistrial.
Bill Zervakos, the jury foreman in the Jodi Arias murder trial, spoke out yesterday, saying that while he believed Jodi was mentally abused by Travis Alexander, it was no excuse to brutally murder him.
Just one day after the judge declared a mistrial when the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on whether or not she should be executed, Bill Zervakos spoke of the difficulties they faced during the five-month-long trial.
“When I walked into that court room for the first time and looked at the defendant – it is hard to put it into perspective, looking at that young woman and thinking about the brutality of the crime. It doesn’t wash,” Bill Zervakos said.
“It is difficult to separate yourself from the emotions and personal side of it.”
Speaking to Good Morning America, Bill Zervakos admitted he did not think Jodi Arias did herself any favors when she took the stand for 18 days because she had so many contradictory stories.
The hardest part, Bill Zervakos said, was having to sit six feet away from Travis Alexander’s family while listening to all the horrific things that happened to him.
Bill Zervakos, the jury foreman in the Jodi Arias murder trial, says he believed she was mentally abused by Travis Alexander
“Until you are face to face with someone who is going through that, you cannot put it into words,” he said.
“If you cannot feel that then you have no emotion, no soul.
“But we couldn’t allow ourselves to be emotional and for that I am very proud of my jurors, they did a fantastic job of holding it together – though it was a different story when we got into the jury room.”
Speaking about Travis Alexander, Bill Zervakos said: “I am very sure in my own mind that Jodi was mentally and verbally abused by him. Is that an excuse? Of course not. Did it factor into the decision we made? It has to.”
The next step in the lengthy trial will now come on July 18, when an entirely new jury panel is determined and tasked with delivering the final verdict in the case.
The scene in the Phoenix, Arizona, courtroom on Thursday afternoon – when the jury came back to the judge with their inability to agree – was not one of relief.
Jodi Arias herself looked upset and began crying, though not necessarily tears of joy.
Travis Alexander’s siblings, who have been a constant presence throughout and have all uprooted their lives in California to focus on the trial, were all crying as well.
One female juror was at least sympathetic to them, and she was seen mouthing the word “sorry” toward the Alexanders.
Judge Sherry Stephens, who showed some tough love to the jury on Wednesday, was very complimentary to them.
“This was not your typical trial. You were asked to perform some very difficult duties,” she said.
The jury began deliberating Tuesday, and on Wednesday afternoon they told the Judge that they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
Judge Sherry Stephens ordered the jurors to go back and talk more until they came to a decision, but that was still not enough time as they came back later yesterday afternoon still at an impasse.
The new jury will not have any power to change her guilty conviction, and they will be solely tasked with determining how Jodi Arias, 32, will “pay” for the first degree murder.
The decision follows a trial that has staggered on for five months over the 2008 sl**ing of Travis Alexander, Jodi Arias’ on-again off-again boyfriend who she killed in his home in 2008. She sta**ed him nearly 30 times, s**t his throat, and shot him.
Last night the judge declared a mistrial over the sentencing of Jodi Arias after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict over whether or not she should be executed for murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.
The jury was dismissed from the courtroom after spending five months on the case, and while they did decide that Jodi Arias was guilty of the premeditated murder of Travis Alexander, they could not decide whether she should spend life in prison or be put to death.
The next step in the lengthy trial will now come on July 18, when an entirely new jury panel is determined and tasked with delivering the final verdict in the case.
The scene in the Phoenix, Arizona courtroom on Thursday afternoon – when the jury came back to the judge with their inability to agree – was not one of relief.
Jodi Arias herself looked upset and began crying, though not necessarily tears of joy.
Travis Alexander’s siblings, who have been a constant presence throughout and have all uprooted their lives in California to focus on the trial, were all crying as well.
One female juror was at least sympathetic to them, and she was seen mouthing the word “sorry” toward the Alexanders.
Judge Sherry Stephens, who showed some tough love to the jury yesterday, was very complimentary to them today.
“This was not your typical trial. You were asked to perform some very difficult duties,” she said.
The jury began deliberating Tuesday, and on Wednesday afternoon they told the Judge that they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
Jodi Arias jury cannot decide on death penalty in Travis Alexander murder case and judge declares mistrial
Sherry Stephens ordered the jurors to go back and talk more until they came to a decision, but that was still not enough time as they came back later yesterday afternoon still at an impasse.
The new jury will not have any power to change Jodi Arias’ guilty conviction, and they will be solely tasked with determining how she will “pay” for the first degree murder.
The decision follows a trial that has staggered on for five months over the 2008 sl**ing of Travis Alexander, Jodi Arias’ on-again off-again boyfriend who she killed in his home in 2008. She sta**ed him nearly 30 times, s**t his throat, and shot him.
Even for the most fastidious of court followers who have developed a sense of who Jodi Arias, 32, is over the past five months of the trial, her behavior in the past week has been confusing as she gave conflicting statements about her desire thoughts on a possible death sentence.
Immediately after her guilty verdict was handed down two weeks ago, Jodi Arias granted a local news station an interview where she said that she was “in shock” and that she would rather be given the death penalty as opposed to a life sentence in prison.
Speaking to the local Fox affiliate KSAZ, Jodi Arias said that she would “prefer to die sooner than later”.
“Longevity runs in my family, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place. I’m pretty healthy, I don’t smoke and I’ll probably live for a long time so that’s not something that I am looking forward to.
“I believe death is the ultimate freedom and I’d rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it.”
Those comments prompted courthouse officials to order that Jodi Arias will be placed in a psychological hold and on suicide watch, which inevitably delayed the second portion of the sentencing- where jurors were forced to decide if the murder was especially aggressive.
During the ensuing testimony, called the aggravation portion of the trial, jurors heard from both sides who were able to call witnesses arguing that she should and shouldn’t be forced to die, respectively.
When Jodi Arias addressed the court in her own defense, she pledged, if allowed to live, to donate her hair to cancer patients and start a prison recycling program.
“I have made many public statements that I would prefer the death penalty to life in prison,” Jodi Arias told jurors.
“In each of those cases, I lacked perspective,” she said.
“Until very recently I could not imagine standing before you all and asking for you to give me life,” Jodi Arias said.
“But as I stand here now I cannot in good conscience ask you to sentence me to death.”
Yesterday, Jodi Arias’ defense attorneys filed a motion for mistrial as one of their character witnesses scheduled to testify during the May 20, 2013, penalty phase on Arias’ behalf as backed out due to receiving death threats.
This isn’t the first time someone who has testified for Jodi Arias received public backlash. Her ex-boyfriend Darryl Brewer testified and requested his face to be hidden from the camera.
Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias before his murder on June 4, 2008
Criminal defense attorneys Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott are expected to argue eight, mitigating factors hoping the jury will spare Jodi Arias’ life and give her either life in prison without the possibility of parole, or life in prison with parole after 25 years. One of the mitigating factors is that Jodi Arias was 27-years-old at the time she stabbed her lover Travis Alexander 29 times, slit his throat from ear to ear and shot him in the head. If Jodi Arias were sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, she could be looking at getting out of prison when she is approximately 52 years old.
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