Stanislaus County prosecutors said Friday they will again seek the death penalty for Scott Peterson, whose death sentence was recently overturned nearly 16 years after he was convicted of slaying his pregnant wife, Laci, and the couple’s unborn son.
The California Supreme Court tossed Peterson’s death sentence in August, saying the trial judge dismissed jurors who generally opposed capital punishment without asking whether they could put their views aside.
The ruling, however, left the door open for the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office to bring the case before new jurors, and ask them to reinstate Peterson’s death sentence or give him life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“The District Attorney’s office through Assistant District Attorney Dave Harris announced at this time it is their intention to retry the penalty phase of the case,” spokesman John Goold wrote on the office’s Facebook page Friday morning.
Peterson’s trial and sentencing garnered massive media coverage across the globe, and the new developments have rekindled interest in the murder case.
If Peterson’s capital punishment is reinstated, it is unlikely that he would face a death chamber any time soon.
Gov. Gavin Newsom last year placed an executive moratorium on the death penalty, and even before then no prisoner on California’s Death Row has been executed by the state since 2006.
Prosecutors first announced their decision in a Friday hearing at Stanislaus County Superior Court in Modesto.
Source: sfchronicle.com, M. Cassidy, October 23, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
