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Scott Peterson's conviction was overturned and he was resentenced to life in prison. |
A California court sentenced Scott Peterson to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killings of his wife and unborn child on Wednesday.
In 2004, Peterson, 49, was found guilty of killing his wife Laci and their newborn son Conner. Peterson was originally given a death sentence.
The California Supreme Court overturned Peterson's death sentence in August 2020, stating that possible jurors had been wrongfully rejected, in part because they had indicated general opposition to the capital penalty on a questionnaire.
For the first-degree murder of Laci, Judge Anne-Christine Massullo sentenced Peterson to life in prison without the possibility of release, as well as a concurrent sentence of 15 years to life for the second-degree murder of Conner.
In court, Laci Peterson's family members spoke to her with tears in their eyes.
"You didn't want to be a father because you didn't want the responsibilities. You're a wimp, "Sharon Rocha, Laci's mother, said.
She also mentioned Conner's potential as a young guy.
"By now, he would have been eighteen years old. You would have been free of child support ten months ago and would not have had to worry about being responsible for a kid "Rocha said.
But she insisted on two things: "Laci and Conner will always be dead, and you will always be their killer."
The court battle that resulted to the resentencing
Laci Peterson, who was seven months pregnant with Conner when she went missing on December 24, 2002, was reported missing. In April 2003, their remains washed up on the beach and were discovered separately.
Scott was found guilty of their murders by a jury, and he was sentenced to death in 2005.
The story of Laci Peterson's disappearance drew a lot of attention.
Peterson had been in jail limbo since the California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence for murdering his wife and unborn child in August 2020.
After meeting with the victims' families, Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager said earlier this year that she would not seek to reintroduce the death sentence, saying the "procedure is simply too terrible to bear once more."
The prosecutor's December 1 motion read, "The People argue to the Court that the only punishment available for this defendant is a term of life without the possibility of parole plus 15 years to life for the murders of Laci and Conner," Peterson's wife and unborn son.
The resentencing comes amid yet another legal knot in Peterson's case: the California Supreme Court ordered a lower court to reconsider his murder convictions in October 2020 after a jury failed to disclose involvement in other judicial processes.
Scott Peterson during his resentencing on December 8, 2021, as seen in a drawing.
The court noted that "Juror No. 7 committed prejudicial misconduct by failing to disclose her past engagement with other legal procedures, including but not limited to being a victim of a crime."
The juror's responses on her voir dire form were fraudulent, according to Peterson's lawyers, and she committed misconduct, raising the presumption of bias.
In what was undoubtedly one of the most well-publicized cases in recent memory, Peterson was sentenced to death in 2005 for the murders of Laci and Conner in 2002. However, the state's top court determined in 2020 that prospective jurors were wrongfully rejected after expressing general opposition to the death sentence on a questionnaire.
"In this case, the trial court erroneously dismissed many prospective jurors based on written questionnaire responses opposing the death penalty, even though the jurors gave no indication that their views would prevent them from following the law — and, indeed, specifically attested in their questionnaire responses that they would have no such difficulty," the court wrote in its 2020 decision.
Prosecutors say Scott Peterson murdered her in their Modesto home and then dumped her corpse in the San Francisco Bay from a fishing boat he had recently purchased.
Peterson has always maintained his innocence, and his appeals have focused on numerous aspects of the trial, such as the media coverage, the jury selection process, the evidence accepted and not admitted at trial, and prosecutorial remarks.
A plethora of circumstantial evidence, including testimony from a woman who said she had been dating Peterson (who purported to be single) and the fact that Peterson claimed to go fishing on the San Francisco Bay the day his wife vanished, convinced the jury of his guilt.
Peterson was ordered to be brought from San Quentin State Prison to the San Mateo County Jail for resentencing on November 23 by the court.
In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on the death sentence. The moratorium only lasts as long as Newsom is in office.
Since 2006, California has not carried out an execution.
The proper spelling of San Quentin State Prison has been added to this article.