Considered one of California’s most infamous convicted murderers, Scott Peterson, appeared in court docket through video Tuesday in an effort to get DNA testing of proof that he says may exonerate him within the killing of his pregnant spouse and unborn son.
Peterson’s try to clear his title is now backed by the Los Angeles Innocence Venture, a nonprofit authorized group with a repute for exonerating wrongfully convicted criminals. Peterson appeared from Mule Creek state jail in a blue jail shirt almost twenty years after he was convicted of killing his pregnant spouse, Laci, and tossing her physique into San Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve 2002.
Laci Peterson, 27 vanished Christmas Eve from their Modesto residence. 4 days after she and their unborn son, Conner, turned up in San Francisco Bay in April 2003, Scott Peterson was arrested for homicide. It will turn into one of many state’s highest-profile homicide circumstances when it was revealed that he had a secret girlfriend whom he had informed his spouse was lifeless.
Peterson, now 51, was convicted in 2004 and initially sentenced to dying, however that sentence was subsequently overturned and he’s now serving life with out parole.
In a San Mateo County courtroom Tuesday, Paula Mitchell, government director of the Innocence Venture, started what she described as one in all a number of motions in an effort to indicate Peterson’s constitutional rights have been violated, together with a “declare of precise innocence that’s supported by newly found proof.”
Mitchell informed the decide that for many years since Peterson’s 2004 trial, very important proof related to the conviction has been withheld and that prosecutors proceed to thwart and delay the invention of doubtless exculpatory proof.
“Mr. Peterson’s been ready for 20 years for police reviews and audio recordings and video recordings that ought to have been offered,” she stated “We’re desirous to get our investigation underway.”
Key to the Innocence Venture’s efforts is a van that was set on fireplace on Dec. 25, 2002 in Modesto, a day after a housebreaking at a house close to the Petersons’ residence. Contained in the van was a mattress with what one investigator has stated gave the impression to be bloodstains. That van was discovered a mile from the Peterson residence, elevating the chance that it may have performed a job within the homicide.
The Innocence Venture alleges that it has proof from the van proprietor that reveals that the van didn’t have a mattress inside it earlier than it was stolen and earlier than Laci Peterson’s killing.
Mitchell on Tuesday additionally stated she had given prosecutors a casual request for “very particular” gadgets of discovery on Nov. 14, 2023, and continues to attend for entry to these gadgets together with audio recordings, interviews notes and police reviews.
“We spent loads of time attempting to suss out what, frankly, are very alarming deficiencies within the discovery that was offered to the protection on the time of trial,” Mitchell stated.
Peterson appeared through a monitor within the courtroom and smiled at one level when requested if he may hear. His hair was pulled again into a person bun or ponytail and answered briefly when the decide requested if he understood.
Peterson has maintained his innocence since his arrest and in court docket papers famous that there is no such thing as a bodily proof tying him to the killings.
A decide set hearings for April 16 and Could 29 to debate the broader discovery and DNA difficulty. The decide informed prosecutors they wanted to handle each points as Mitchell repeatedly expressed considerations about delays by prosecutors.
“As we speak’s listening to was simply step one in a protracted course of. We have now not commented on our motions, and we’ll proceed to current our case in court docket — the place it must be adjudicated,” Mitchell stated in a press release.
Peterson was resentenced in 2021 after the California Supreme Courtroom decided that the jury in his trial had been improperly screened for bias towards the dying penalty. Prosecutors settled for all times with out parole relatively than new proceedings. He was moved off dying row the next 12 months.
Final 12 months, a decide rejected an effort by his legal professionals to get the jury verdict overturned. They’d argued {that a} juror was biased. That juror had not divulged on a jury questionnaire that she had gotten a restraining order whereas pregnant.
