Once again an Arizona judge denied a plea to spare Jodi Arias from the death penalty during the second penalty phase of her murder trial.

In May 2013, a jury found the 33-year-old guilty of first-degree murder in the ghastly death of her former boyfriend Travis Alexander in his Phoenix home in 2008. However, the jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision on her sentencing. As a result, a retrial is set for Sept. 8 to determine whether or not she should be sentenced to death, life in prison or life with a chance of release after serving 25 years, Reuters reported.

On Friday, court documents revealed that Judge Sherry Stephens dismissed claims made by Arias' defense team requesting that the death penalty be removed as an option during her sentencing retrial. Her attorneys argued that the case was compromised when a key member of Arias' defense team was temporarily barred from visiting Maricopa County jails.

However, Judge Stephens issued a written ruling dated May 27: "The defendant has failed to establish she suffered any prejudice as a result of the incident involving the mitigation specialist," Reuters reported.

The incident occurred earlier this year when mitigation specialist Maria De La Rosa, who helps gather information to spare defendants from capital punishment, paid Arias a jail visit and was accused of smuggling one of her drawings out of a facility. As a result, the specialist was barred for one week in March from the Phoenix jail where Arias is being held before the ban was lifted by sheriff's officials.

Arias' attorneys argued that they planned to use the pinwheel drawing and collections of Arias' artwork to persuade the jury not to impose the death penalty, just like they did in her original trial.

"This is nothing different that we have done for the past two years," said lawyer Jennifer Willmott, noting that Arias' artwork was presented in her trial last year, the Arizona Republic reported.

Legal experts also added that keeping the specialist from seeing Arias and her other jailhouse clients is a breach on their constitutional right to a fair trial.