“People still see me as a character: Nurmi the evil defense attorney who supports Jodi Arias,” Kirk Nurmi told the Phoenix New Times in 2016. “As opposed to who I am and what my career stands for.” When Nurmi became Arias’ court-appointed lawyer, he’d built up a solid reputation in the Phoenix area as a staunch death penalty opponent defending capital cases. With Arias, he wrangled over how to handle her case and quit the public defender’s office in an attempt to ditch his client. But Arias fought to keep him as her lawyer, to which the judge agreed. “I was court-ordered to keep her case even after I left the public defender’s office,” Nurmi told Law & Crime, calling that period “involuntary servitude.”
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Arias’ case took up the bulk of Nurmi’s time, which didn’t allow him to take on new clients. After the case ended, Arias gave multiple interviews in which she blamed her lawyer for her conviction, and the taint of the case continued to follow him, which wasn’t good for business, per the Phoenix New Times. And then he got a devastating medical diagnosis.
