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PHOENIX, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Lawyers for convicted killer Jodi Arias have filed a motion asking for all charges against her to be dropped over alleged prosecutorial misconduct. Arias' defense team claims prosecutors destroyed or withheld key evidence during the trial in which Arias was found guilty of the first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.
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They say the evidence they needed to prove a piece of Arias' testimony -- that she was mentally and sexually abused by Alexander, and that he was a pedophile -- had been hidden or deleted by the prosecution.
Prosecutors painted Alexander as a devout Mormon and Arias a sexual deviant, a description the defense was unable to contest without the alleged files.
In the motion, the defense says it can prove, thanks to "recent forensic analysis" of Alexander's computer, that thousands of files of pornography and child pornography were wiped from the drive and deliberately covered up.
In the original trial, Mesa Police testified there was no pornography on Alexander's computer and a defense expert was unable to detect deleted files. Arias' attorneys asked for the computer back, and only received it on Oct. 20, at which point they say another defense expert was able to detect the deleted files.
They say the new analysis found thousands of files were deleted in a 3-hour period on June 19, 2009, when the computer was in the custody of the Mesa Police Department.
The defense said in the motion that such misconduct would merit a complete dismissal of all charges without prejudice. It also sought to drop the possible death penalty, which would halt the current trial, set to reconvene Wednesday.
