Today, prosecutor Juan Martinez finished up his cross-examination of Jodi Arias in her first-degree murder trial.  He continued badgering her, asking ambiguous or compound questions that allowed him to jump on her, like a rabid ferret, whichever way she answered.

I’m not sure what his strategy was — the technique was crude and blatantly unfair, but perhaps he was hoping to provoke her into a dramatic display of anger or arrogance.  Instead, when he showed her, yet again, photographs of the corpse of Travis Alexander, the man she’s accused of killing, with premeditation, she fell apart weeping.

Then he said, “Were you crying when you were shooting him?  Were you crying when you were stabbing him?  How about when you cut his throat, were you crying then?”

It was a powerful moment, but will it piss off female members of the jury, arousing sympathy for Arias?  There’s no way she will be acquitted, but could female jurors hang the jury — or, more likely, refuse to vote for the death penalty?

We can’t see the jurors in the live feed of the trial — Martinez and his team can.  He seems like a very smart guy, and maybe he knew what he was doing.

We shall see.