California | What’s next for Scott Peterson following resentencing? Case is far from its conclusion

After being resentenced to life without the possibility of parole, Scott Peterson is looking ahead to the hearing that will determine if his conviction for murdering his pregnant wife will be overturned.

The evidentiary hearing will focus on one of 19 claims in Peterson’s petition for habeas corpus filed by his defense team in 2015. It alleges a biased juror lied on a jury questionnaire about being the victim of a crime and party to a lawsuit so that she could sit in judgment of Peterson.

Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo will make a decision within 90 days of the hearing’s conclusion in March, but no matter the outcome there are legal options for the losing side, which could take years to exhaust.

The California Supreme Court in October 2020 ordered that the issue be decided by a judge in San Mateo Superior Court, where Peterson’s 2004 trial was held due to the pretrial publicity in Stanislaus County. In its ruling, the California Supreme Court also denied or found moot the other 18 claims in Peterson’s habeas petition.

IF PETERSON LOSES

Should Judge Massullo uphold Peterson’s conviction, his attorneys can bring a new habeas petition to the state Court of Appeals and then the California Supreme Court on the single juror misconduct claim, said Peterson’s habeas attorney Cliff Gardner.

“It could take a few more years in state court assuming we lost at every level,” Gardner said.

Then Peterson could take the habeas petition to federal court, not just on the juror misconduct claim but all 19 claims in the original petition filed in state court.

The other claims include ineffective counsel by Peterson’s trial attorney, and doubts about the credibility of some expert testimony and aspects of the investigation like a cadaver dog with a poor track record.

A federal habeas petition would start in the U.S. Northern District Court, because the case was tried in San Mateo County. If Peterson lost his case there, it could be appealed to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of appeals and finally, he could seek review of the habeas petition by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gardner said that process can take several years at each level and there’s a low likelihood the U.S. Supreme Court would grant review. The court hears just 80 to 85 cases of the 5,000 to 7,000 it receives each year.

IF PETERSON WINS

If Judge Massullo overturns Peterson’s conviction, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office has appeal options it can pursue before going into another trial. If relief is granted, the state may take the case through higher levels of the state system and possibly seek review in the U.S. Supreme Court, Gardner said. He said the state does not have the option to take the case into the lower federal courts and whether it can seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court depends on if Massullo’s decision is based on state or federal law, Gardner said.

If based on state law, the federal courts would have no jurisdiction, Gardner said. Again, the case could take several years at each court level.

If the DA decides not to seek an appeal, new charges would have to be filed and the case could be settled or retried.

Following Peterson’s resentencing, Massullo ordered that he be transferred from the San Mateo County Jail back to San Quentin State Prison, within 10 days of the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing.

No longer a condemned inmate following the overturning of his death sentence last year, Peterson won’t be housed on death row, where he has spent the last 16 years of his life. He could be moved to a different prison altogether.

Massullo will have 90 days to make her decision following the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing. Peterson will likely be back in prison by then but if the judge overturns his conviction, he will be brought back to county jail.

There, Peterson would have the opportunity to seek bail. However, his attorney Pat Harris said it’s unlikely, given the case’s history as a former death penalty case, that a judge would grant bail.

EVIDENTIARY HEARING

The evidentiary hearing is scheduled to be held from Feb. 25 to March 4. One more issue needs to be worked out before the juror in question, Richelle Nice, is called to testify at the hearing.

Her attorney has said she will exercise her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination if she is not granted immunity to criminal charges.

Nice previously submitted a declaration to the court that explained her answers on the jury questionnaire. It is that declaration, if her testimony were to deviate from it, that now makes her vulnerable to a possible perjury charge, according to her attorney.

The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office has not granted her immunity or indicated if it will. In briefs submitted to the court last month, the prosecution and defense agreed that a judge has the authority to grant immunity if the District Attorney’s Office elects not to.

The defense has accused Nice of lying when she wrote on the jury questionnaire that she’d never been the victim of a crime or a party in a lawsuit.

Nice was pregnant in 2001 when she obtained a restraining order against her then-boyfriend’s former girlfriend for stalking and threatening them. Also, the year before, the same boyfriend was arrested on charges that included domestic violence in an incident that named her as a victim.

Prosecutors say Nice did not understand that a restraining order is a type of lawsuit. Regarding the domestic violence incident, Nice’s declaration described the incident as a “heated argument.” She said it was her then-boyfriend, not her, who called the police and she did not consider herself a victim. But Peterson’s defense team said Nice knowingly put false information on the questionnaire because she wanted to sit in judgment of Peterson, “in part to punish him for a crime of harming his unborn child.”

Source: modbee.com, Erin Tracy, December 13, 2021

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog