UPDATE: The Associated Press is reporting that jurors who deadlocked in the sentencing retrial of Jodi Arias were 11-1 for the death penalty. The majority could not sway the lone holdout.
Read the original story below.
Convicted murdered Jodi Arias will not receive the death sentence after an Arizona jury failed to reach a decision Thursday.
"In my assessment, we are hung and additional time will not change this," Maricopa CountyJudge Sherry Stephens said.
The announcement came after jurors deliberated for 26 hours over five days.
Arias was first convicted of the first-degree murder of former boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2013, but her sentencing was up in the air after a hung jury in May 2013. Judge Sherry Stephens declared a mistrial for the penalty phase at that time, and Thursday's sentencing was the result.
Alexander was found brutally murdered in 2008 after he didn't show up for work. He was stabbed 27 times, shot once and slashed in the throat. (Video via HLN)
Arias claimed that she killed Alexander in self-defense, but the jury decided that the killing was premeditated.
The jury was tasked with deciding between the death penalty and life in prison for Arias.
In this interview with KSAZ after her murder conviction in 2013, Arias said, "I believe death is the ultimate freedom," though she wavered on that statement later.
Stephens said Arias will be sentenced April 13. Our partners at KNXV in Phoenix report that she will choose between life in prison without parole or the possibility of parole after 25 years.
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