The Los Angeles Innocence Project returned to court this week requesting access to hundreds of pieces of evidence that they believe could grant convicted murderer Scott Peterson a new trial.
Peterson was convicted in 2004 of killing his wife Laci Peterson and their unborn child Conner. The victims’ decomposed remains were later found in the San Francisco Bay a few miles away from where Peterson said he had gone fishing — the same day pregnant Laci was reported missing from Modesto in Stanislaus County.
His death sentence was overturned in 2020 and he is now serving a life sentence without parole.
He attended the Tuesday hearing virtually from Mule Creek State Prison.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project is a nonprofit legal organization that aims to exonerate wrongfully convicted criminals.
San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hill heard arguments from Peterson’s defense team saying that hundreds of pieces of exculpatory evidence were not made available to them from the prosecution during the trial where he was found guilty of the crime.
Some of these include records of Modesto Police Department’s investigation into a luxury Croton watch that was pawned at a Modesto pawn shop that the defense believes belonged to Laci. Peterson’s lawyers also said there is a phone conversation between a prison inmate and his brother who were associated with one of the criminals convicted of burglarizing the home across the street from the Peterson house around the time of Laci’s disappearance, said Paula Mitchell, Peterson’s defense attorney and director of the Los Angeles Innocence Project.
The defense is trying to connect the burglary to Laci’s death. While the prosecution said that the burglary occurred two days after Laci disappeared, Peterson’s attorneys said there was not enough evidence to support this conclusion.
Peterson’s attorneys also said that the prosecution did not fully disclose all reports to the defense related to a tip from Lieutenant Xavier Aponte of the California Rehabilitation Institute at Norco, a state prison in southern California.
Aponte reported to the Modesto Police Department about a phone call between an inmate and his brother who discussed Laci having a connection to the burglary. The brothers were known associates of Steven Todd, one of the criminals convicted of the burglary, Mitchell said.
“This is exculpatory evidence that the defense was not provided. The jury heard nothing about it. It only became an issue of investigation in 2005 after Mr. Peterson was found guilty and after the defense filed a motion for new trial,” Mitchell said.
However, prosecutors claim that there is insufficient proof that these pieces of evidence exist. If they do exist, they said the defense already received them or the defense is not entitled to access them, they said. They also think the defense is “fishing” for evidence already reviewed at the time of the trial in 2003.
Hill has 90 days to go over the arguments for each request made by the defense and will prepare a written ruling.
“I hope to get it done well before then but I’m not going to promise a date certain because I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to take me,” Hill said. “But it will be within 90 days.”
