QUOTE OF THE DAY: "“The case cries out for further investigation,” Mitchell, Peterson’s defense lawyer, told the judge during her arguments. “This is an entirely circumstantial case in which no murder weapon was found, no time or date was established, no cause or manner of death was established,” Mitchell said. “DNA could have changed the outcome” of the trial, she said."
STORY: "Scott Peterson strikes out as judge denies nearly all requests for new DNA testing," by Reporter Julia Prodi's Sulk, published by The Mercury News, onMay 29, 2024. Scott Peterson strikes out as judge denies nearly all requests for new DNA testing.
SUB-HEADING: "Judge says defense argument about the Peterson baby being born alive was “nothing but rumor and third-party hearsay."
GIST: "Convicted murderer Scott Peterson’s attempt to prove someone else killed his wife, Laci, and their unborn son failed overwhelmingly Wednesday when a judge denied all but one request to retest DNA samples from old pieces of evidence.
Although his new defense lawyers from the Los Angeles Innocence Project will be allowed to retest a piece of duct tape stuck to Laci’s pants when her body was found washed up along San Francisco Bay in 2003, they won’t be able to retest a stained mattress from a burned out van found two miles from her Modesto home. They hoped it would show Laci was kidnapped and killed that Christmas eve morning in 2002, then thrown into the San Francisco Bay to frame her husband who said he was fishing there the day she disappeared.
The judge also denied the defense request to retest a length of plastic twine found wrapped about the neck of the baby, which washed up separately from his mother after an April storm churned up the bay. The defense had hoped the twine would show DNA from other suspects to prove the theory, originally made and rejected by jurors during the original trial in 2004, that the baby was born after Laci disappeared and the assailants threw mother and son separately into the bay.
Like the original trial 20 years ago, national news media, including a crew from Dateline NBC, attended Wednesday’s hearing – a testament to the endless fascination with the case of the handsome Modesto fertilizer salesman accused of killing his substitute teacher wife and dumping her body in the bay, while he made plans for a future with his mistress from Fresno.
Peterson, watching the hearing over a Zoom link from Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County, looked down and appeared to take notes as he heard the series of rulings against him. Several members of his family in the courtroom appeared dejected and declined to speak to the press.
“It’s not over,” Peterson’s defense lawyer Paula Mitchell said after the ruling. “It’s far from over.”
Another hearing is schedued for July 1 to go over details about the duct tape to be retested, and the defense team is still hoping to gain access to evidence from eye witnesses who said they saw Laci walking her dog the morning she disappeared.
In her ruling from the bench Wednesday afternoon, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth M. Hill said that any suggestion the baby was actually born before Laci’s death amounted to “nothing but rumor and third-party hearsay.” Autopsy evidence from the original trial was clear, she said, that Laci’s womb had protected the baby for months at the bottom of the bay until the top of her uterus gave way during the storm.
In denying the defense request to retest the stained mattress, Judge Hill said the mattress fabric had been tested for DNA as recently as 2019 and the results came back negative for blood or any female DNA.
The defense failed to show that new DNA testing would be more “discriminating or probative,” she said.
The judge also said the defense failed to present any evidence that the burned out orange van found on Christmas morning was connected to Laci’s murder, or a robbery across the street from her home that happened in the days surrounding Laci’s disappearance.
The defense lawyers’ singular victory — that they will be able to retest the duct tape from Laci’s pants — would have to show evidence that someone other than Peterson used it during her murder in order for Peterson to have any chance at a new trial.
Hill’s rulings came after defense and prosecution lawyers had battled in court over whether there was some other explanation for the murders.
“The case cries out for further investigation,” Mitchell, Peterson’s defense lawyer, told the judge during her arguments.
“This is an entirely circumstantial case in which no murder weapon was found, no time or date was established, no cause or manner of death was established,” Mitchell said. “DNA could have changed the outcome” of the trial, she said.
Dave Harris, a Stanislaus County deputy district attorney who helped prosecute Peterson in 2004, argued that the circumstantial evidence was enough to convince jurors that Peterson killed his wife.
“The people know the truth,” Harris said during his presentation. “They know he’s guilty of murdering his wife and unborn son.”
Like he did in a 337-page brief, however, Harris again recounted what he called “overwhelming” evidence against Peterson, including that Peterson told his mistress he had “lost” his wife before she actually disappeared and he would be spending his first holidays without her.
Peterson’s defense team, Harris said, has never explained why Peterson was doing internet searches in early December studying the currents and depths of the bay, even before he bought the fishing boat he told no one about. The defense never explained, he said, what happened to all the extra cement he purchased if not for making several anchors to weigh down his wife’s body. Harris also recalled a wiretapped phone call when Peterson’s mother encouraged him to fly to Washington where there had been a Laci sighting.
When he hung up, Harris said, “you can hear the defendant laughing at his mother who thinks he’s going to go to Washington and search for his missing wife.”
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
---------------------------------------------------------------
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;
—————————————————————————————————
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;
————————————————————————————
YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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