Arias trial now turns to whether she lives or dies

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  Jodi Arias looks at her family after being found of guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in their suburban Phoenix home, Wednesday, May 8, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Rob Schumacher, Pool)The Associated Press

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  From left, Kathy Brown, of Paradise Valley, Virginia Aguiar, of Scottsdale, Jane Crook, of Scottsdale, react to a guilty verdict for Jodi Arias, Wednesday, May 8, 2013, outside of Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. Arias was convicted of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend in Arizona after a four-month trial that captured headlines with lurid tales of sex, lies, religion and a salacious relationship that ended in a blood bath. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, David Wallace) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALESThe Associated Press

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  Sandra Arias, center, reacts after her daughter, Jodi Arias, was found of guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in their suburban Phoenix home, Wednesday, May 8, 2013, at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Rob Schumacher, Pool)The Associated Press

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  Judge Sherry Stephens is handed the decision which found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in their suburban Phoenix home, Wednesday, May 8, 2013, at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Rob Schumacher, Pool)The Associated Press

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  David Hall, a friend of Travis Alexander, pumps his fist outside Superior Court in Phoenix, Wednesday, May 8, 2013 to a guilty verdict in the trial of Jodi Arias. Arias was a waitress and aspiring photographer charged with killing her boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in Arizona in 2008. The four month trial included graphic details of their sexual escapades and photos of Alexander just after his death. (AP Photo/Matt York)The Associated Press

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PHOENIX –  Jodi Arias will spend the weekend on suicide watch and return to court next week when jurors are expected to consider whether the death penalty should be an option for the former waitress' sentence.

Minutes after her conviction for killing a former boyfriend, Arias told a TV station she would "prefer to die sooner than later," complicating matters for defense lawyers who had hoped to spare her life during the penalty phase of the trial. The case was scheduled to resume Thursday, but court officials postponed it until Wednesday without any explanation.

The surprising interview with Fox affiliate KSAZ only added to the circus-like environment surrounding the trial, which has become a cable TV sensation with its graphic tales of sex, lies and violence. Since her arrest, Arias has repeatedly sought the spotlight, including TV interviews, 18 days on the witness stand before a global audience, jailhouse tweets and now the post-conviction comments.

She cannot choose the death penalty. It is up to the jury to make a sentencing recommendation, and the judge will then make the final decision.

If she were sentenced to death, she could decide not to appeal to speed up the process, but it could still take years to play out as she lives under punishing conditions on death row. The state Department of Corrections says Arizona death row inmates have little contact with the outside world and only get to leave their solitary cells for two hours a day, three times a week. They get three showers a week.

The panel of eight men and four women convicted Arias of first-degree murder Wednesday after about 15 hours of deliberations over four days. Testimony began in early January.

The so-called "aggravation" phase of the trial was expected to begin next week. When it does, jurors will deliberate one more time to determine whether the death penalty should be an option for sentencing Arias.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez must convince the panel that the murder was committed in an especially cruel, heinous and depraved manner. This phase will be a mini-trial of sorts, as both sides call witnesses to present testimony to jurors — the defense in an effort to spare Arias' life, the prosecution to at least have a shot at a death sentence.

If jurors find the killing fits the definition of cruel and heinous, the panel will recommend either life in prison or death.

If the panel finds no aggravating factors exist, jurors will be dismissed and the judge will determine whether Arias should spend the rest of her life in prison or be sentenced to 25 years with the possibility of release.

Arias admitted killing her onetime boyfriend Travis Alexander on June 4, 2008. She initially denied any involvement, then later blamed masked intruders. Two years after her arrest, she said it was self-defense when the victim attacked her after a day of sex.

Prosecutors said she planned the killing in a jealous rage as Alexander wanted to end their affair and was planning to take a trip to Mexico with another woman.

Phoenix criminal defense lawyer Dwane Cates said Arias has presented obstacle after obstacle for her defense attorneys, who are now just trying to save her life.

"Her defense counsel put four years of their lives into this," Cates said. "They're trying to do everything they can for her, and every problem they have in this case is caused by her.

"Every time she opens her mouth, she creates a new problem for the defense," Cates added.

He said prosecutor Juan Martinez will likely play for jurors the jailhouse interview from several years ago in which she said she wouldn't be convicted — along with the interview she did after her conviction.

"I would say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, she challenged you to convict her and you did. Now give her her wish and put her to death,'" Cates said.

Defendants convicted of crimes rarely do interviews right after convictions and before being sentenced, but Arias honored an earlier request that she talk to the Fox station in the event of a first-degree murder conviction.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which runs the jail system, has allowed Arias to do other media interviews and even put on a videotaped "American Idol"-style Christmas singing contest in which Arias took home the top prize.

The sheriff's office said no more interviews will be allowed with Arias now that she is on suicide watch.

During the next phase of the trial, prosecutors will likely call back to the witness stand the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, as well as the lead detective to explain for jurors how Alexander did not die quickly and likely suffered tremendous pain.

Arias stabbed and slashed Alexander nearly 30 times, shot him in the forehead and slit his throat from ear to ear, leaving the motivational speaker and businessman nearly decapitated before she dragged his mutilated body into his shower where friends found him about five days later.

Complicating things even more for her attorneys are Arias' own words. As she sat in jail awaiting trial several years ago, she made a bold prediction during an interview on the television show "Inside Edition."

"No jury will convict me," she said. Then she went before a camera Wednesday and made more news.

"Longevity runs in my family, and I don't want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place," a tearful Arias said. "I believe death is the ultimate freedom, and I'd rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it."

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Brian Skoloff can be followed at https://twitter.com/bskoloff .

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Taking the Kids -- how a museum exhibit is changing lives in Los Angeles

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  Touch the tires of a NASA space shuttle.Leroy Hamilton

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  Space potty exhibit, California Science Center.Leroy Hamilton

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  The Endeavour.Leroy Hamilton

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  The Mercury 3: Richard Hercules, Taylor Semaganda and Keilyn Wells â future astronauts discussing the Endeavour missions.Amy Davis

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Richard Hercules, 10, lives in L.A.'s inner-city and has never been on an airplane, but that hasn't stopped him from dreaming of becoming an astronaut when he grows up.

He was moved to tears when he saw the Space Shuttle Endeavour fly over his school on its way to its new home at the California Science Center and even more excited when he could walk around the gargantuan space craft -- 122 feet long -- at the museum, touching tires that flew in space, peering up at the tiles crucial to re-entry, inspecting a space potty and galley. (Tortillas, it turns out, are the perfect space food because there were no crumbs to fly around in the gravity-less environment.)

"When I grow up and have my own kids, I can show them the Endeavour and tell them my story about when I first saw it," he said.

"When I saw the Endeavour up close," added Taylor, Richard's classmate at Century Park Elementary School, "I realized that one day I could travel to space."

New museum exhibits often foster excitement and increase tourism and, since it opened last fall, "The Space Shuttle Endeavour Exhibition" has done both in spades. (Did I mention there is no entrance fee to the wonderful hands-on museum, though you can pay $2 for a timed entrance to Endeavour?) But besides garnering excitement and enthusiasm, this exhibit has the potential to change children's lives.

"The shuttle coming here opened a world of possibilities for these kids, many of whom are the children of immigrants," explained Amy Davis, Taylor and Richard's fifth-grade teacher. Suddenly, they saw the possibilities of a career in math, science, technology and engineering. "It was so hard for them to grasp from a textbook," said Davis. "Seeing the shuttle in front of them makes all the difference."

The children's enthusiasm and engagement spurred Davis to thank the Science Center in a letter. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart for investing time and money so a small, 10-year-old, inner-city child could see that dreams can come true and for giving him hope in his future," she wrote. That missive, in turn, inspired the museum to feature the Century Park fifth graders' Endeavour projects in their shuttle exhibit.

An astronaut raised in California came to speak to the children at school. And now, four of Davis' students, including Richard and Taylor, have been offered scholarships to a week at Space Camp this summer in Huntsville, Ala. (Davis is working on sponsors to cover the kids' flights.) Keep in mind that these are kids who haven't been to camp, who typically don't have the opportunity to go on family vacations. "I'm most excited about living like an astronaut," Richard said.

The Endeavour, which was the doomed space shuttle Challenger's replacement and the only shuttle to be named by schoolchildren, arrived with great fanfare at the Science Center on Oct. 31, carried on the back of a specially equipped Boeing 747 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and paraded through the heart of urban Los Angeles as 1.5 million people turned out to watch and cheer.

The other three shuttles are on public display on the East Coast -- The Enterprise at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum Complex in New York, the Discovery at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., and the Atlantis in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center. (The Enterprise was a prototype that never actually went into space like the others.)

"For 30 years (19 years in the case of the Endeavour) humans crossed the threshold from being tentative about space exploration with long periods of time during which there were no humans in space to an era of permanent human presence in space (at the International Space Center)," said Dr. Kenneth Phillips, curator for Aerospace Science at the California Science Center.

"We hope that visitors will appreciate the role of the space shuttle program in transforming the human approach to spaceflight and human thinking about what is possible," he added.

That's certainly the case for one group of inner-city kids now thinking differently about their own futures.

In the last six months, more than 1 million people, including thousands of kids, have turned out to see Endeavour at the Science Center -- remarkable when you consider that until now, the Science Center's annual attendance was 1.6 million, observed William Harris, the museum's senior vice president of development. Harris escorted me around the Space Shuttle Endeavour Exhibition as excited kids on field trips gawked and chattered as they checked out spacesuits, a moon rock, earlier space capsules and articles astronauts carried with them in space (a small Slinky, beads blessed by the Dali Lama, a New York Giants cap). They also inspected the control room that monitored the first minutes of every shuttle launch from nearby Canoga Park, Calif., learning that all of the orbiters were built locally.

When the permanent home for the shuttle is completed in 2017, visitors will be able to observe it upright -- and even slide down a 50-foot slide that will simulate how it would feel to land.

"Its size is the coolest thing ever," said 14-year-old Samantha, a member of the Science Center's Curator Kids Club, a group created for kids who live in the underserved communities around the museum. "You can compare how small you are next to it!"

The shuttle, said Harris, is single-handedly turning the California Science Center in L.A.'s Exposition Park into a must-see attraction for those visiting Los Angeles and spurring more people to visit Exposition Park and the neighboring L.A. County Natural History Museum with its amazing dinosaur exhibits.

"Be prepared to be amazed," said 11-year-old Oracio, also a young curator.

I was.

Eileen Ogintz is a syndicated columnist and writes about family travel on her Taking the Kids blog, and is the author of the new series of Kid’s Guide to NYC, Orlando and the just released Washington, DC  from Globe Pequot Press. 

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Carter praises Chavez for 'improving the lives of millions'

While President Obama called the death of Venezuela strongman Hugo Chavez a chance for a "new chapter" in the Latin American country's history, former President Carter instead praised the strongman's "commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen."

News on Tuesday of Chavez's death after a battle with cancer generally was greeted with a mixture of relief and hope in Washington, where Chavez has long been a persona non grata. But Carter and at least one Democratic congressman instead publically mourned the socialist president.

Carter, offering "condolences" to Chavez's family, said he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, met him during his first presidential campaign in 1998.

"We came to know a man who expressed a vision to bring profound changes to his country to benefit especially those people who had felt neglected and marginalized," he said. "Although we have not agreed with all of the methods followed by his government, we have never doubted Hugo Chavez's commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen."

Carter said Chavez's "bold" leadership helped cut poverty rates and integrate Venezuelans into public life. Left unsaid was how much the country's oil boom contributed to those advances, and some critics have said Chavez squandered the opportunity to put those proceeds to better use. Inflation and crime, meanwhile, have soared.

Chavez was criticized for unprecedented power grabs at home, and much of the disdain felt toward him in the U.S. came from his willingness to ridicule America's leaders, from Bush to Obama.

"We recognize the divisions created in the drive towards change in Venezuela and the need for national healing," Carter said. "We hope that as Venezuelans mourn the passing of President Chavez and recall his positive legacies — especially the gains made for the poor and vulnerable — the political leaders will move the country forward by building a new consensus that ensures equal opportunities for all Venezuelans to participate in every aspect of national life."

Democratic New York Rep. Jose Serrano, too, spoke highly of Chavez, based on the Venezuelan leader's visit to Serrano's district in 2005.

"Though President Chavez was accused of many things, it is important to remember that he was democratically elected many times in elections that were declared free and fair by international monitors," Serrano said. "President Chavez was a controversial leader. But at his core he was a man who came from very little and used his unique talents and gifts to try to lift up the people and the communities that reflected his impoverished roots. ... He understood democracy and basic human desires for a dignified life."

That statement drew a swift retort from Republicans.

“It’s simply insulting that a Democrat congressman would praise the authoritarian ruler Hugo Chavez. Chavez systematically cracked down on the basic freedom and liberties of Venezuelans, nationalized private industries and befriended anti-American dictators like Castro, Ahmadinejad, and Assad," Republican National Committee spokesperson Alexandra Franceschi said. "Americans should stand together with the freedom loving people of Venezuela as they hope for a peaceful transition to a democracy, instead of praising the former dictator."

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