A California judge denied Scott Peterson bail Wednesday ahead of his December re-sentencing hearing for the 2002 murder of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner.
Peterson, 48, has spent 15 years living on death row after being sentenced in 2005.
His death sentence was overturned last year after the California Supreme Court found that jurors who disagreed with the death penalty, but were willing to impose it, had been improperly dismissed.
Peterson is expected to be re-sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on December 8 at the San Mateo County courthouse.
Meanwhile, Peterson’s attorneys are pushing for a new trial due to alleged juror misconduct.
Scott Peterson, 48 (pictured with police in 2005), was denied bail ahead of his December re-sentencing hearing. He has spent 15 years living on death row for the murder of his pregnant wife, Laci, and unborn son, Conner. His death penalty conviction was overturned last year
Peterson, pictured with Laci, is expected to be re-sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on December 8 at the San Mateo County courthouse
Last year, the state’s high court ordered Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo to decide if Peterson should be granted a new trial and if the alleged juror misconduct did take place during his 2004 trial.
Peterson and his legal team maintain his innoncene, saying earlier this month that ‘it’s time to get him out.’
Lara Yeretsian, who was on Peterson’s original defense team in 2005, also claimed Wednesday that there is new evidence that will prove Peterson did not kill Laci and Conner.
‘There is new evidence that Scott’s not the one. It will show who the true suspects are,’ Yeretsian told Fox News.
‘I didn’t think he would be convicted the first time around.
‘I really believe in Scott’s innocence based on the evidence I had seen during the first trial.
‘I truly don’t believe he got a fair trial because of all the publicity and all of the emotions and visceral reactions of him having an affair.’
Yeretsian declined to provide specifics about the alleged new evidence, pointing out that Peterson is not currently her client.
She did note, however, that she may join his defense team if a new trial is granted.
Peterson (pictured at his trial in 2004 with defense attorneys Mark Geragos, left, and Pat Harris, right) and his counsel are seeking a new trial due to alleged juror misconduct
Laci Peterson’s family also previously said they have ‘no doubt’ that Scott killed her and their unborn child. The couple is pictured on their 1997 wedding day
Peterson will also have to sign a ‘waiver of irregularities’ in order to have his current counsel – who are appellate attorneys – represent him in a new trial, a judge ordered Wednesday.
The ruling came after the prosecution argued that, by law, appellate attorneys only handle death penalty cases, which the new trial would not be.
Michael Hersek, executive director of the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, which is currently representing Peterson, argued that ‘withdrawing from the case after a partial victory’ was not an option.
‘Number one, it would abandon Mr. Peterson in this case, which would not be fair to him,’ he said.
‘Number two, it would send a terrible message in all of our other cases because we spend years developing relationships with our clients … relationships of trust that require them to provide us a great deal of information about not only their social history and their life issues, but also the facts of the underlying offense.
‘Not only would we lose the trust and confidence of all of our clients because they will see us as a penalty phase only shop, because once we get partial victory, they’re out of luck. And we can’t have that. That’s an institutional concern from our point of view.’
Hersek also claimed the decision to require new counsel was out of the judge’s jurisdiction.
Stanislaus County Assistant District Attorney David Harris argued that, regardless of jurisdiction, allowing the Habeas Corpus Resource Center attorneys to remain on the case would set a ‘bad precedent.’
‘I think that’s more of a bad precedent than the court looking at this in the first place to determine what the court gets to do and what their jurisdiction is. … They are capital habeas litigators, but they want to stay on a non-capital case.’
The prosecution and defense will return to court on November 10 to discuss the waiver of irregularities.
Investigators say Peterson took Laci’s corpse out on his fishing boat, pictured, after killing her, then dumped the body in the San Francisco Bay
Peterson maintains his innocence and claims Laci was killed after disturbing a burglary at the couple’s home in Modesto, California (pictured)
Peterson was convicted in San Mateo court after his trial was moved from Stanislaus County due to the massive pre-trial publicity that followed the Christmas Eve 2002 disappearance of 27-year-old Laci, who was eight months pregnant with Conner at the time.
Her corpse was found floating in the San Francisco Bay in April 2003, with Conner’s fetus found to have been mutilated.
Investigators say Peterson took the bodies from their Modesto home and dumped them from his fishing boat into the bay.
Peterson was convicted of his wife’s murder in 2004 after jurors were told how he had a masseuse mistress named Amber Frey.
Frey did not realize Peterson was married when they first began dating.
He is also said to have dreaded becoming a father.
Peterson maintains his innocence and claims Laci was killed after disturbing a burglary.
His death sentence was overturned in August 2020.
Peterson’s attorney argues that he he can prove that there was a nearby burglary the day Laci (right) disappeared, aiding the defense’s contention that someone else killed her when she stumbled upon the crime
In May 2021, District Attorney Birgit Fladager announced that Peterson would spend his life in prison, saying there were no plans to have his 2005 death sentence reinstated.
The death penalty was thrown out after a court ruled jurors should not have been excluded from Peterson’s murder trial for being anti-capital punishment.
Fladager also noted at the time that Laci Peterson’s family found the legal process ‘simply too painful to endure once again.’
The family has ‘no doubt’ Peterson killed his wife and unborn son and deserves the death penalty but doesn’t want to pursue that punishment because ‘this process is simply too painful to endure once again,’ Fladager said in her filing in San Mateo Superior Court in May.
However, the defense is arguing in favor of a new trial after they say a juror, Richelle Nice, failed to disclose her own history of domestic abuse while pregnant in order to convict Peterson.
The basis for re-examining the conviction comes after the court found a juror committed ‘prejudicial misconduct’ for not disclosing prior legal proceedings. The juror Richelle Nice (pictured) didn’t disclose that she filed a lawsuit in 2000 to obtain a restraining order after her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend harassed her while pregnant
According to Peterson’s counsel, Nice did not disclose that she had filed a lawsuit in 2000 to obtain a restraining order after her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend harassed her while she was pregnant.
The juror said in her lawsuit that she feared for her unborn child.
Peterson’s attorneys previously said that when asked as a potential juror whether she had ever been a victim of crime or involved in a lawsuit, she responded ‘no.’
His attorneys have also claimed that Nice deceived the judge to get on the jury for the high-profile case.
Nice, who was among the jurors to jointly publish a book about the case, has denied the allegations that she lied just to get on the jury.
The defense also accused Nice of writing letters to Peterson while he was in jail, asking him to confess to the murder of his pregnant wife.
Fladager has called the move a ‘witch hunt’ to try and discredit the juror in an attempt to throw out the original case against Peterson and trigger a retrial.
Superior Court Judge Christine Massullo will rule on whether or not Nice performed juror misconduct.
Nice has asked for immunity from testifying in Peterson’s trial and plans to plead the fifth.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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