Scott Peterson’s hope that the California Court of Appeal would overturn his murder conviction were dashed this week when it instead directed his lawyers to return their case to the same Redwood City courthouse where he has had no luck over the past two decades convincing a jury or a string of judges he is innocent of killing his pregnant wife Laci and unborn son two decades ago.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project, which took on the notorious case more than a year ago, had asserted in an 847-page petition that it had uncovered evidence that would “eviscerate” the prosecution’s original case and exonerate the former Modesto fertilizer salesman, including new witnesses who say they saw Laci walking her dog at a time prosecutors say she was already dead.
But after the California Court of Appeal for the First District on Thursday rejected its petition, saying claims of new evidence are better settled in the lower court, Peterson’s lawyers said they would refile the petition in San Mateo County court within weeks.
Criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor Michael Cardoza, who closely followed the Peterson trial in 2004, said however that those defense lawyers are “grasping at straws” and Peterson’s chances of freedom are all but nil. “Peterson’s appellate claims have ricocheted through the Superior, Appellate, and Supreme Courts, each echoing the last,” Cardoza said. “Believing they will change their opinions, conclusions, is like debating with a mirror.”
Nonetheless, moving the case back to San Mateo County will restart what may be another long cycle of motions from defense lawyers, responses from Stanislaus County prosecutors and more hearings — perhaps from the same judge who denied a slew of defense motions to retest DNA on a bloody mattress found in a burned-out van and other evidence a year ago.
Peterson’s murder trial was moved to Redwood City from Modesto because of extraordinary pre-trial publicity. Scott and Laci Peterson, who had met at Cal Poly and had just finished decorating their nursery nautical blue, appeared to be the perfect young couple. When Peterson returned to their Modesto home from the San Francisco Bay where he spent the morning out in his fishing boat Christmas Eve, he announced that Laci was missing.
Public sentiment quickly turned against him with the revelation that he was having an affair with a Fresno massage therapist, whom he had told — before Laci vanished — that he had “lost” his wife and would be spending his first Christmas without her. He was arrested after Laci’s body and that of their unborn son washed up separately on the edge of the Richmond shoreline four months later.
Peterson never took the witness stand during the murder trial that attracted celebrity lawyers and trial watchers and became such a national sensation that when the guilty verdict was announced, hundreds of people packed the courthouse plaza and let out cheers.
The Innocence Project’s lengthy petition included a 126-page, first-person declaration from Peterson, countering some of the prosecution’s original circumstantial evidence against him. “I was in no way responsible for Laci’s disappearance or her death or that of our son, Conner,” he wrote.
Peterson spent most of the past 20 years on San Quentin’s Death Row, but was ultimately transferred to Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County after the state Supreme Court overturned his death sentence over the dismissal of potential jurors who were morally opposed to the death penalty but said they would follow the law and could impose it if appropriate. The high court upheld his murder conviction.
I think that’s pretty much it for Scott unless something Earth–shaking comes up — and there’s nothing.
Stanislaus County prosecutors declined to comment Friday and the Innocence Project wouldn’t elaborate on its statement that it intends to refile its petition in San Mateo County. Its public petition, however, outlines what it believes is new evidence, including that a burglary at a house across the street from the Petersons’ happened the same day Laci disappeared, not two days later as prosecutors claimed; that a blood-stained mattress found in a burned-out van might be connected to the case; that the size of the infant found washed up on shore proves Laci might have lived for days after her disappearance and point to other killers; and that Modesto police rushed to judge Peterson to the exclusion of other suspects.
The original jury already heard testimony about the size of the infant and police missteps from Peterson’s defense lawyers at trial, while recent judges have weighed in on some of the other issues.
Cardoza, the former prosecutor, says he agrees with the Innocence Project that the Modesto Police made mistakes investigating the case. He also believes Peterson was denied a fair trial because of the sensationalism surrounding the case that may have influenced the jury. Nonetheless, he doesn’t believe it’s enough to overturn the guilty verdict and set Peterson free.
“I think that’s pretty much it for Scott unless something Earth–shaking comes up — and there’s nothing,” Cardoza said. “They could keep trying to write addendums, but it’s not going to work. The courts have been more than clear.”
Source: marinij.com, Julia Prodis Sulek, May 31, 2025
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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