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• PHOENIX (AP) -- As she awaits a decision by prosecutors on the future of her murder case, Jodi Arias and her attorneys are returning to court Tuesday to ask the judge to throw out the jury's finding that made her eligible for the death penalty.
• Arias was convicted of first-degree murder May 8 in the stabbing and shooting death of Travis Alexander in his suburban Phoenix home. About two weeks later, the same jury failed to reach a unanimous decision on whether to sentence Arias to life in prison or death.
• Her case is now in limbo as prosecutors decide whether to put on another penalty phase with a new jury in pursuit of the death penalty -- or simply take the death penalty off the table, a move that would either see Arias spend the rest of her life behind bars or be eligible for release after 25 years. That decision would be up to the judge.
• The oral arguments Tuesday focus on a determination by the Arias jury that she killed her one-time lover in an "especially cruel" manner. The determination meant that Arias was eligible for the death penalty.
• Arias' attorneys argue that the definition of "especially cruel" is too vague for jurors with no legal experience to determine what makes one killing more cruel or heinous than another. Their June motion appears to challenge a landmark 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found a defendant has the right to have a jury, rather than a judge, decide on the existence of an aggravating factor that makes the defendant eligible for capital punishment.
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