William Zervakos, jury fore­man for the Jodi Arias tri­al, recent­ly shared the chal­lenges of being a part of a cap­i­tal jury. Zervakos described jury delib­er­a­tions in Arias’s case as a ​“bru­tal no-win sit­u­a­tion” that was ​“unfair.” He said that the delib­er­a­tions were full of tears as each juror con­sid­ered whether they should sen­tence Jodi Arias to death or life in prison. He said, ​“We’re not lawyers. We can’t inter­pret the law. We’re mere mor­tals. And I will tell you I’ve nev­er felt more mere as a mor­tal than I felt for the last five months.” On May 8, the jury con­vict­ed Arias of first-degree mur­der but they could not reach a deci­sion on her sen­tence after 13 hours of delib­er­a­tions. The judge was forced to declare a mis­tri­al of the penal­ty phase and dis­missed the jury. If the pros­e­cu­tors decide to seek the death penal­ty again, jury selec­tion could take sev­er­al months giv­en the dif­fi­cul­ty of find­ing jurors who would be impar­tial in a case that has gar­nered sig­nif­i­cant media atten­tion. A retri­al date has been ten­ta­tive­ly set for July 18.

(“Arias tri­al jury fore­man says death deci­sion unfair for 12 aver­age peo­ple who aren’t lawyers,” Associated Press, May 25, 2013). See Sentencing.

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