Just one day after California Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo announced that she was not granting Peterson a new trial in the murders of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner, Frey, who was revealed to have had an extramarital affair with Peterson, is breaking her silence.
"It's relieving to hear Scott Peterson will not get a new trial," she said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital by her longtime attorney, Gloria Allred. "I would have been willing to testify again. However, I am relieved that my testimony will not be necessary. If I were called to testify, I would give truthful testimony again, for the truth doesn't change over time."
Massullo ruled that a new trial was not warranted despite allegations of a biased and deceptive juror. She issued the long-awaited decision on Tuesday, when she wrote in her 55-page decision that the juror accused of wrongdoing had acted out of emotion, rather than a bias against Peterson, and she had made "honest mistakes."
"The Court finds that several of the answers provided by Juror No. 7 on her juror questionnaire were false in certain respects," she wrote. "The Court concludes that Juror No. 7’s responses were not motivated by pre-existing or improper bias against Petitioner, but instead were the result of a combination of good faith misunderstanding of the questions and sloppiness in answering."
Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, did not respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment. Pat Harris, Scott Peterson's attorney, wrote in the statement provided to Fox News Digital that he was "disappointed" in the ruling, but the case was "far from over."
"Just in the last few months, we have learned new information that will prove Scott Peterson did not murder his wife, Laci. And we are going to continue to push forward until he is freed," he wrote. "As for the ruling, the judge does concede that Juror #7 committed misconduct but excuses that misconduct by writing that her background, her contentious relationship with her boyfriend and her frequent memory lapses are all excuses for her misconduct. We respectfully disagree."
Janey Peterson, Peterson's sister-in-law and outspoken advocate, told Fox News Digital that Scott "is innocent" and "did not have an impartial jury."
"We will not stop fighting until Scott is free and we find who murdered Laci and Conner," she wrote in a message after Tuesday's news. "20 years ago this week, Laci Peterson was seen alive walking her dog after Scott had left for the day. Sometime after that walk, the evidence shows she encountered men burglarizing the home across the street. Those men kidnapped her and later killed her."
Saturday will mark 20 years to the day since Laci Peterson disappeared.
Meanwhile, Peterson, now 50, is currently serving a life sentence at California’s Mule Creek State Prison.
He was convicted in 2004 in the murders of his 27-year-old wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner. Prosecutors argued at the time that he killed Laci and disposed of her body on Christmas Eve 2002 in San Francisco Bay.
Frey not only testified against Peterson, but worked with law enforcement as a police informant and ultimately helped to convict him of first-degree murder in Laci’s death and second-degree murder for the killing of Conner.
The California Supreme Court overturned Peterson’s death sentence in 2020 after news that prospective jury candidates were improperly dismissed came to light, but the court maintained his conviction.
Peterson's attorneys had argued that a new trial is warranted because juror Richelle Nice was biased and lied in her questionnaire to get on the jury. Meanwhile, prosecutors have argued that Nice "did the best that she could when faced with a 23-page questionnaire that had 163 questions.
"She's inconsistent on her answers," prosecutor David Harris previously told the court. "But being wrong does not necessarily make it false or make her a liar. It just might be that she's really bad at filling out forms."
Nice previously testified that she did not have any bias against Peterson until after hearing the evidence presented at trial.
Source: Fox News, Staff, December 22, 2022
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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
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde