PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "If Peterson gets a new trial, his attorney has said he will present new evidence bolstering the defense theory that Laci Peterson was killed when she stumbled upon a nearby burglary. Investigators said that on Christmas Eve 2002, Peterson dumped the bodies from his fishing boat into San Francisco Bay, where they surfaced months later. The state’s high court last year said that there was considerable circumstantial evidence incriminating Peterson in the slayings."
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STORY: "California judge weighs new trial for Scott Peterson," published by Death Penalty News on August 26, 2021.
GIST: "A California judge said Wednesday that she anticipates a two-week hearing early next year before she decides if Scott Peterson deserves a new trial in the 2002 death of his pregnant wife.
That’s more than a year after the California Supreme Court ordered Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo to consider if juror misconduct was so significant that it denied him a fair trial.
Massullo is expected to hear testimony from juror Richelle Nice, who is at the center of the dispute and has denied that she was influenced by her own background of domestic abuse. Nice is identified in court papers as Juror 7. But she co-authored a book about the case with six other jurors.
That hearing would get to “the meat and potatoes of what the juror’s information is,” Deputy Stanislaus County District Attorney Dave Harris said.
Laci Peterson, 27, was eight months pregnant with their unborn son, Connor, when she was killed.
Massullo must decide if Nice committed “prejudicial misconduct” by failing to disclose that she had sought a restraining order in 2000 for fear that her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend could harm Nice’s own unborn child.
Peterson’s attorneys revealed in a June court filing that Nice also failed to disclose that her boyfriend beat her in 2001 while she was pregnant with another child.
As a [prospective] juror, Nice had answered “no” when she was asked if she had ever been involved in a lawsuit or been a crime victim.
Nice said in a court filing that she didn’t think the restraining order was a lawsuit, nor did she “feel ‘victimized’ the way the law might define that term.”
Massullo said she had wanted to schedule the evidentiary hearing for October, and she might still try to do it in early November. But she said delays in gathering evidence and sworn witness testimony, partly because of the coronavirus pandemic, make it more likely she will schedule the hearing for two weeks in late January or early February, after the winter holidays.
She expects to set the dates during a Sept. 22 hearing after considering several legal filings in the meantime.
Peterson, 48, participated in Wednesday’s hearing through a telephone link from San Quentin State Prison, home of California’s death row. The state Supreme Court separately overturned Peterson’s death sentence last year over unrelated faulty juror selection, and prosecutors said they won’t again seek to have him executed.
If Peterson gets a new trial, his attorney has said he will present new evidence bolstering the defense theory that Laci Peterson was killed when she stumbled upon a nearby burglary.
Investigators said that on Christmas Eve 2002, Peterson dumped the bodies from his fishing boat into San Francisco Bay, where they surfaced months later.
The state’s high court last year said that there was considerable circumstantial evidence incriminating Peterson in the slayings."
Source: The Associated Press, Staff, August 25, 2021
The entire post can be read at:
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they’ve exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
