The California Supreme Court on Monday unanimously overturned the death sentence for Scott Peterson, who was convicted in 2002 of murdering his wife, Laci, and her unborn son.
In a decision written by Justice Leondra Kruger, the state’s highest court said the death sentence should be removed because the judge acquitted prospective jurors who expressed their opposition to the main sentence but said they were ready to put it on.
The court upheld the guilty verdict and said prosecutors could reinstate Peterson on the sentence if they wished.
“Before the trial began, the judge made a series of clear and significant errors in the selection of the jury which, under long-standing President of the United States Supreme Court, gave Peterson the right to an impartial jury.” undermined the penalty phase, “Kruger wrote.
The court said the rules for dismissing potential jurors based on concerns about the death penalty were well established by Peterson’s trial.
“Jurors may not be excused solely for opposition to the death penalty, but only for views which they are unable to reasonably consider imposing that sentence according to their oath,” Kruger wrote.
Instead of simply dismissing the potential jurors, the judge should have allowed them to question her so that her views could be better explored, the court said.
“As the present case proves, an inadequate or incomplete investigation of potential jurors could have disastrous consequences for the validity of a judgment,” Kruger wrote.
In addition to dismissing prominent jurors, Peterson had claimed that mass preliminary publicity disqualified him from a fair trial.
Peterson’s case was moved to San Mateo County after a judge found he could not get a fair trial in Modesto. Peterson’s appellate attorney argued that the trial would have to be rescheduled after questionnaires from more than 1,000 potential jurors in San Mateo County showed that many were already convinced Peterson was guilty.
But the court said the publicity was so widespread that moving the trial to yet another province would not matter.
“Just because this case was the subject of such widespread media attention, it is not clear what purpose a second change of location would have served,” the court said. “The publicity generated by the Peterson trial, as well as the trial stories of OJ Simpson, the Manson family, and any number of other so-called trials of the century before them, was interesting to the case, not the place.”
Attorneys in Stanislaus County must decide if they will try to seek the death penalty or agree to live the sentence without the possibility of parole.
Peterson’s appeal lawyer Cliff Gardner appeared doubtful Monday that prosecutors would seek a new trial over the sentence. He said the California Supreme Court is now re-submitting a separate challenge to habeas corpus on Peterson’s behalf that includes “new forensics and evidence of innocence.”
“In deciding whether to seek a new death sentence, the question for prosecutors now is whether they can prove Mr. Peterson punishable for this crime to even a single juror who has cited through an honest selection process for jury,” Gardner said.
Peterson is being held in the San Quentin prison, where scores of residents have been infected by the coronavirus and several have died. Asked if Peterson had contracted the virus, Gardner simply said, “He’s doing it right now.”
The California Attorney General’s Office, which filed the lawsuit before prosecutors, declined to comment.
Laci Peterson, 27, had to give birth in four weeks when she disappeared on Christmas Eve. Scott Peterson told police he left her Modesto home that morning to fish in Berkeley.
About four months later, the remains of Laci and the body of her unborn son, with the umbilical cord still attached, remained washed on a rocky shore at San Francisco Bay. A passerby walking with a dog found her a few miles from where Scott Peterson said he was fishing.
Laci’s disappearance had sparked a massive search. At first, her family did not suspect Scott. That changed after a massage therapist named Amber Frey told police she and Peterson had been there, and that he had told her his wife had died. She then recorded secret conversations with him for the police.
Police arrested Peterson in San Diego County. He had bleached his hair and goat flower and carried $ 15,000 in cash.
Prosecutors told jurors that Scott’s wife, on the night of Dec. 23, 2002, the next morning, was miraculous or underwent. He wrapped her body in a blue tarp, put her in the back of his boat, anchored her and threw her into the bay, they said.
Mark Geragos, who is defending Peterson in the process, claimed that Laci was abducted by strangers who dumped her in the bay to frame her husband.
