Convicted murderer Scott Peterson has been granted access to evidence by the judge in his bid for a new trial
Scott Peterson, a killer who was found guilty, has been given post-conviction discovery. This is the latest step in his quest for a new trial.
In a document from October 7 that Court TV got, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hill talked about more than 600 pieces of evidence that Peterson’s defence had asked to see.
The man named Peterson was given the death penalty for killing his pregnant wife Laci Peterson and their future child in 2002.
He got a new sentence of life in jail without the chance of parole in 2021. The next year, he was denied a new hearing because of claims that jurors had been dishonest.
In order to show the judge that Peterson deserves a new trial, his lawyers asked for a number of items linked to a break-in at the home of Rudy and Susan Medina, who lived diagonally across from the Petersons.
Two men, Steven Todd and Donald Pearce, who were linked to the break-in were not found to be responsible for Laci’s kidnapping.
Judge Hill said no to Peterson’s request for all Modesto police records, more information about their polygraph exams, and the steps officers took to check Pearce and Todd’s alibis.
Judge Hill, on the other hand, let Peterson’s team see audio and video recordings, as well as reports and handwritten notes from the police officers who interviewed the suspects.
Along with photos of the evidence found, Peterson’s team will also be able to look over the search warrants from 2003 that were used in the Medina burglary. These warrants include things that were clearly not belonging to the Medinas.
And Peterson’s team has also been looking at Laci’s Croton watch, which is covered in diamonds. Someone called Carl Jensen, a defence investigator, and said, “He was in jail watching TV and saw a Court TV report about the pawn of a watch that might have been Laci’s.”
His friend Deanna Harbin Renfro and her friend Anthony Scarlata asked him if he wanted to buy a watch in the middle of February 2003. this made him remember the story. He said the watch they showed him was about average size and had a lot of diamonds on it.
But agents followed up on those leads years ago and found that the watch was not the same. This led the judge to refuse to let anyone see any more case records.
Before, Peterson and his team asked to be able to test the DNA of a bloody mattress that was found in a burned-out orange van less than a mile from their home the day after Laci was reported missing.
In her most recent decision, Hill said, “The Court does not view the orange van evidence as casting doubt on Peterson’s guilt, because no witness or forensic evidence obtained ever established that Laci Peterson was in the orange van.”
This was in response to their previous request. This is clear from Detective Shipley’s participation and the fact that the two cases were linked during the investigation: the orange van was “part of the investigation of the offences charged.”
Based on this, Judge Hill let Peterson’s team see a full copy of the DOJ Central Valley Crime Laboratory file as well as papers related to getting fingerprints from the van.
In July, Judge Hill made a decision about how DNA testing would be done on a piece of duct tape that was found in Laci Peterson’s pants during her autopsy. Judge Hill said that the tests had to be done within 45 days and that the results had to be sent in secret.
According to court documents, the tests were finished in late August. The public has not been told about the tests or their results again.
He was put on trial again in January when the Los Angeles Innocence Project took over his case and used important pieces of evidence that detectives were said to have missed to ask for a new trial. A 15.5-inch piece of duct tape was found on Laci Peterson’s pants.
For the first time in twenty years, Peterson spoke out in August in Peacock’s three-part documentary series “Face to Face with Scott Peterson.” In the show, he kept up his modesty.
