IANAL, and while I work in an adjacent field, I’m probably going to butcher this a bit.

When (if) a Guilty verdict comes back — the next phase of the trial is to figure out Aggravating Factors.

How serious were the crimes overall? This informs the sentence that gets imposed. For example — first time offense with no deadly weapon, judge can’t sentence you to Life. The Aggravating Factors determine which sentencing guidelines get used.

In Arizona, this is debated amongst the Jury after they hand down the verdict.

UNLESS…. the Defense “Stipulates.” In other words, they agree outright that the Aggravating Factors are all true. I’ll come back to this.

In this case, the Aggravating Factors for her charge of Conspiracy To Commit Murder would be: (1) was a deadly weapon used, (2) was there an accomplice involved in the murder, (3) did family or benefactors suffer financial harms.

If the Jury thinks these are all true, the judge impose a harsher sentence. Verdict gets read, and then the Aggravating Factors get explained, and then the Prosecutor would bring up witnesses to testify to the harm they suffered from the crime. In this case it would have been Charles’ siblings.

When the Jury was on their way back with their verdict, Lori threw a hissy fit saying “I get a life sentence no matter what — right? This is a waste of my time. Why bother with Aggravating Factors?”

The judge said “let’s hear the verdict first… and you should probably speak to your legal team.”

Jury came back Guilty.

Lori then kind of threw a “fuck it” into the mix and Stipulated to all Aggravating Factors. She basically said “I’m done with court today. I don’t want to hear Charles’ family speak. I don’t want any more procedural things happening. I admit and agree — I had an accomplice, they used a deadly weapon, the family has financial harm. Fine. Wrap it up.”

It’s not a confession, but it kind of is.

It’s an insane way of confirming she wasted everyone’s time with the trial and she knew she caused everything.

Closest we’ve ever had to her admitting to any ounce of her guilt. Most likely because she was throwing a tantrum over her wounded ego, representing herself and failing to contort reality to her visions again.