Um... Scott Peterson didn't have 11 people swear he was playing basketball with them at church at the time Lacy was killed. There's a slight difference in the cases.

I understand your reluctance to convict a man on circumstantial evidence, but there sure were an awful lot of "circumstances" in the Peterson case.

 

My point was that when the defendant is painted as despicable then the jury will almost certainly convict, especially when there is a sympathetic victim in the case. I just find it odd that 2 jurors dismissed, immediate conviction. Were they dismissed for actually looking at the "evidence" in the case? A secondary point is that the police are just like everyone else. Once they get an idea into their heads, particularly about a suspect, then it is almost impossible to get them to look at anyone else.

 

Man it's a good thing I have a job, otherwise I'd spend all day watching Court TV. I'm a self-admitted trial junky though and I have followed the Peterson trial to some extent. I caught some interesting tidbits while working from home last week.

Anarky, the jury instructions for circimstantial cases in CA include something along the lines of "...if there is no direct physical evidence linking the accused to the crime but there is no other reasonable alternative possible, you can find the defendant guilty..." So basically if the jury looks at Scott's behavior after Laci's reported missing, the affair(s) the financial gain, the behavior when he was arrested, the fact that they found the body where he said he was fishing etc...the verdict may be reasonable and just given those instructions.

Of the 2 jurors that were replaced late in the trial, the gal did some independent research and in an interview stated she was leaning towards guilty, and according to rumors, the MD/JD guy had wanted to review all the evidence in detail before submitting a verdict. When the rest of the jurors said "screw that", wanting to find him guilty and move on to thir 15 minutes of fame, he asked to be let go.

Anyways, it's certainly interesting. (At least to me! )

jd

 

I have not followed this case because I don't care to "immortalize" people that are charged with murder.

But I would be interested to hear from those that think that he was not guilty on why when he was apprehended hundreds of miles away he had dyed his hair blonde, shaved off his beard, had his Passport and several thousand dollars in cash on him? I guess that was just a coincidence?

 

The jury has spoken... now onto the appeal process.

 

^ now on to him dying of old age on death row...

 

In California when a person is sentenced to Death Row, there is an automatic appeals process through the California courts. The attorneys for this process must be trained for this process. Due to the limited number of qualified attorneys, Mr. Peterson will be incarcerated for 5 years before he will be assigned an attorney. The games begin.

 

The judge can reduce the sentence from death to life in prison. To be cont'd...I, for one, thought he was guilty. As the jurors said, it was everything put together that convinced them. And the fact that he never showed any emotion or took the stand in his own defense. That is because he didn't have one.