Jodi Arias Trial Update Today hln: The next Jodi Arias trial hearing date will be on Jan. 3, according to the victim's brother. The Jodi Arias retrial will be heard at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, Ariz., despite attempts to have it moved. The Jodi Arias retrial will not be televised live.

Court transcripts show that there was a lot of tension between the prosecution and Jodi Arias defense lawyers in the five months that the courtroom drama played out across America. Details about the night that Arias stabbed and shot her former lover Travis Alexander were highlighted on news programming with graphic detail. Especially the more salacious aspects of the case like the phone sex conversation between Arias and Alexander, which was shown repeatedly on cable news shows.

The Jodi Arias trial hypnotized the U.S. with graphic descriptions of the murder and heated attacks on the convicted murderer. But TV only caught a small part of it as most of the drama came during sidebars that were not caught on camera. Jodi Arias trial Judge Sherry Stephens sealed all sidebars from public record and used a white noise machine to block what was being said by the lawyers from the video feed.

Sidebars showed how contentious the trial was. Jodi Arias' defense attorney Jennifer Wilmott went head to head with prosecutor Juan Martinez. State prosecutor Juan Martinez tried to throw as much as possible on the waitress and budding photographer while defense attorney Jennifer Wilmott tried to block as much as she could. At the time of the trial there were media reports that one of the defense witnesses refused to testify because she was getting death threats. The sidebar transcripts show that it wasn't just the death threats that kept her from the stand. The woman was afraid that the prosecution would make her drug use public and she would lose her welfare benefits.

The Arizona Republic reported, "Martinez could be heard in a sidebar as he detailed the cards he was going to play against her had she taken the stand. She had a drug problem, he said, she seemed high during an interview, she might not have the claimed income from photographs she sold to a television and could be in violation of welfare regulations."

Martinez tried to introduce issues showing bizarre behavior from Arias before the crime. The prosecution wanted to include details like Arias slashing Travis Alexander's tires and sleeping under his Christmas tree.

Jodi Arias admitted she killed Travis Alexander, but said she acted in self-defense because he was given to bouts of rage. Prosecutors said the killing was premeditated and fueled by jealous rage after Alexander said he wanted to break up with Jodi Arias and go to Mexico with another woman.

Jodi Arias was convicted of premeditated murder, but has not yet been sentenced. Once the jury found that the death penalty was on the table, they could not decide on a sentence.

Jodi Arias' lawyers asked judge Sherry Stephens to vacate the jury's ruling that the murder was "especially cruel." This is the classification that allowed the prosecution to argue for the death penalty. Jodi Arias' lawyers argued that "especially cruel" is too broad of a term for jurors who aren't legal experts to fairly judge what makes one killing more cruel than another. Arizona law defines "cruel manner" in terms of the victim's pain and suffering. It didn't take into the mitigating factors of the crime, like Arias' age or the "unusual and substantial duress" she was suffering. The filing challenged a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled defendants have the right for jurors to determine the aggravating factors that qualify them for the death penalty.