Posted on 11/30/2004 10:26:51 AM PST by J. Neil Schulman
CONVICTED BY SUSPICION -- WHY SCOTT PETERSON MAY BE INNOCENT
by J. Neil Schulman, guest contributor.[November 30, 2004]
[HollywoodInvestigator.com] Scott Peterson may or may not have murdered his wife, Laci, and their unborn child. But the Redwood City, California trial that has just convicted Peterson of murdering Laci with premeditation was a kangaroo court in which none of the elements necessary to achieve a murder conviction were offered, much less proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
The first element that needs to be proved in any murder trial is that a murder has occurred. There was never a determination by any California medical examiner that the cause of Laci Peterson’s death was homicide. No medical examiner was able to determine the cause of Laci Peterson's death, nor even prove to a medical certainty in what week beyond her disappearance on Christmas Eve that she died.
A thorough examination of the residence where Scott and Laci Peterson lived together, by teams of detectives and forensic experts, uncovered no evidence whatsoever that a crime had occurred there.
No crime scene was ever found.
No forensic evidence was found in the Petersons’ motor vehicles lending any foundation to the suspicion that she had ever been transported in one of them -- alive or dead -- to the place where, months later, her body was found.
No weapon was ever produced with any evidence that it had been used to cause Laci Peterson’s death.
No witness was produced who had seen or heard Scott Peterson argue with Laci near the time of her disappearance, much less any witness who had seen Scott Peterson fight with his wife or kill her.
The only forensic evidence produced in court that even presumptively linked Scott Peterson with the death of his wife was a strand of hair that DNA analysis showed to be Laci's, in a pliers found in Scott Peterson’s fishing boat. A police detective interviewed a witness who had seen Laci in the boat warehouse where Scott stored that boat. Even in the absence of this witness statement to a police detective, the rules of forensic transference indicate that transference of trace evidence between a husband and wife who lived together is common, and not indicative of foul play.
No witness ever saw Laci in that fishing boat, nor did any witness ever testify to seeing Scott Peterson bringing a corpse-sized parcel onto his fishing boat. Thus, the fishing boat never should have been allowed into evidence, nor should prosecution speculation into his dumping her body using that boat have been permitted.
Nor was any evidence offered in court showing that Scott Peterson had engaged in any overt activities in planning of a murder. He was not observed buying, or even shopping for, weapons or poison. Police detectives found no records in his computer logs that he was spending time researching methods of murder. No evidence was offered that he ever considered hiring someone to kill her.
No evidence was offered in court indicating that Scott Peterson had any reasonable motive for murdering his wife, such as monetary gain, or to protect great marital assets that he’d lose as an adulterer in a divorce in California, a no-fault community-property state, or because Scott had some basis to believe he had been cuckolded.
So in a case without an ME’s finding of homicide or a known time of death;
without a single witness to a crime having occurred;
without a crime scene;
without a murder weapon;
without any indisputable forensic evidence linking the defendant husband to his wife’s death;
without an obvious motive;
without the prosecution presenting conclusive direct or circumstantial evidence overcoming every single exculpatory scenario by which Laci Peterson might have otherwise come to her death;
in summation, without the prosecution demonstrating that Scott Peterson and only Scott Peterson had the means and opportunity to murder his wife and transport her alive or dead to the San Francisco Bay in which her body was found ... how is it possible that Scott Peterson has just been convicted of a premeditated murder with special circumstances warranting the death penalty?
It comes down to this: Scott Peterson was having an adulterous affair at the time of his wife’s disappearance, and Scott Peterson is a cad and a bounder.
Scott Peterson repeatedly lied to everyone around him – including his new mistress – to further the pursuit of this affair. This pattern of lying was established by audio tapes of his phone conversations with his mistress that were played in court. But these tapes were played before the jury without any foundation for their playing being offered, since their playing spoke to no element required for conviction in the crime with which he was charged. And these tapes -- which were more prejudicial than probitive -- destroyed Scott Peterson's credibility to appear as a potential witness in his own defense. They served only to make the jury hate Scott Peterson.
Scott Peterson found himself at the center of a media circus, and his attempts to change his appearance and escape being followed can equally be interpreted as either avoidance of the media who were stalking him or avoidance of police who were tracking him.
The bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn child were discovered in close proximity to the location where Scott Peterson said he had been fishing at the time of her disappearance. But those bodies were found after months of all-media publicity in which Peterson’s alibi was broadcast and published, and if Laci had been murdered by some third party, the murderer would have easily had both means and motive to dump her body at that location to convict Scott and end pursuit of themselves for that murder.
In any case where more than one explanation of a fact can be offered, the judge’s charge instructs the jury that the explanation suggesting innocence is the one they are legally required to adopt in their deliberations.
Scott Peterson was convicted at trial of murder possibly leading to a death sentence in which the trial judge allowed prosecutors to speculate in front of a jury on how Scott Peterson might have murdered his wife. Anyone who’s watched a single episode of Perry Mason or Law & Order knows the judge is charged with forbidding such speculation unless there is a foundation of facts in evidence.
No such foundation was presented indicating a method of murder in the murder trial of Scott Peterson.
In other words, Scott Peterson looked and acted guilty, and in the age of 24-hour -a-day TV news networks that have to fill up those hours with ratings-producing subjects, Scott Peterson’s trial and conviction was the perfect storm of Guilty by Suspicion.
Scott Peterson may very well have been convicted of a murder that he committed. If so, he was convicted in a case that under our system of justice – in which the presumption of innocence may only rightfully be overcome by evidence that is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt – never should have been allowed into court, much less handed over to a jury.
The jury that convicted Scott Peterson was a lynch mob inflamed by prejudicial testimony and their conviction of Scott Peterson qualifies as a hate crime. The verdict needs to be overturned on appeal. The judge brought out of retirement to preside over the case needs to be retired again. The prosecution needs to be brought up on civil rights charges to make sure this behavior is punished.
May God have mercy on Scott Peterson’s soul if he is, in fact, a psychopath who spent Christmas Eve murdering his pregnant wife so he could avoid the inconvenience of a divorce.
And may God have equal mercy on the prosecutors, judge, and jurors who have taken away Scott Peterson’s life – whether through a sentence of life imprisonment or death by lethal injection – if they have allowed their disgust for a deeply flawed man to whip them into a passion in which suspicion in the absence of any proof was sufficient to convict him.
Copyright © 2004 by J. Neil Schulman. All rights reserved.
J. Neil Schulman's book, The Frame of the Century?, presents as strong a case for a suspect other than O.J. Simpson in the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson as was presented to convict Scott Peterson in the murder of Laci Peterson. Our sister publication, the Weekly Universe, has previously reported on Schulman's 'Vulcan Mind Meld with God' and his discovery of an eye drop that cures cataracts.
The Coroner's office -- which is a political office -- listed the cause of death as "homicide." No ME could possibly conclude the cause of death as homicide because they were unable to determine a cause of death.
And if you want to go by the Coroner's official report, Scott Peterson is off the hook, because the official date and time of Laci's death is the day her body washed up on shore, April 14th -- not the previous Christmas Eve when Scott was supposed to be fishing.
JNS
I don't have to believe anything, if the state's case does not convince me. It does not.
I believe he probably did it. I do not believe the state met its burden. For him to be convicted despite that diminishes everyone's rights to a fair trial.
What would constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt in your eyes? In any murder case?
Anything more than supposition and coincidence would be a good start.
???? Even though it was apparent by the state of decomposition that she'd been dead for quite some time? Puhleeeze. So by your reasoning, Peterson couldn't possibly have done it because, officially, she died on April 14. Well, then there are probably a lot of people in prison who shouldn't be because the victims weren't found until quite some time later than when they might actually have been murdered. Makes perfect sense, eh?
Be more specific. Be mindful that objects with fingerprints can be moved from place to place, and that fingerprints can be scanned and duplicated. Video and phototographs can be manipulated to no end, of course. And eyewitnesses can easily be mistaken about many things. I find it hard to imagine a case where one couldn't formulate a scenario consistent with an accused killer's innocence. But the issue of plausibility rears its ugly head.
Scott Peterson is alleged to have done many things that would suggest he knew his wife was dead before her body was discovered. Collectively, they constitute pretty strong evidence that he knew his wife was dead. That Scott Peterson had such knowledge is not mere supposition; it is a theory which the prosecution has supported with considerable evidence.
You might argue that even proving that Scott Peterson knew of his wife's death would not prove his participation in her murder. That would be correct. On the other hand, possession of guilty knowledge does create a strong presumption of guilty involvement, just as possession of stolen property creates a strong presumption of involvement in theft. If the police find in a person's garage a large amount of merchandise that has been stolen from the area, that would generally be adequate to prosecute the person for theft even if nobody actually saw the person steal any of it. It may be in some cases that a person might have a reasonable explanation for possessing the merchandise; if, for example, he could produce a receipt that showed he paid a reasonable amount of money for it at what he reasonably believed to be an estate lot sale, that could be grounds for acquittal. It is not, however, the job of the jury to speculate that he might have acquired the property by what he thought were legitimate means. If the defense wishes to claim that he did so, the defense must claim that.
So again, I ask you to please break down for me: do you believe that the state failed to provide adequate evidence to show that Scott Peterson knew of his wife's death, or do you believe that such knowledge does not constitute evidence of his involvement in her murder?
Coroners have the authority to inquire into and determine in all cases the circumstances, manner, and cause of death. The difference is that a coroner is an elected official, while a ME is usually appointmend by some government body. Yes, it is a political office, but if a coroner is a physician, he can perform autopsies. He still has the authority to make the determination as to manner and cause of death, and whether or not that death was a homicide. So, according to you, because a coroner (oh, the horro) made the determination, it's not valid? And Scott's off the hook because the body wasn't found until April 14th? That's quite a stretch.
Indeed. They seem determined to prove that Lefist caricatures of conservatives as "mouth-foaming sadists" are true.
Sadly, these "FR caricature conservatives" reflect poorly on the more rational conservatives among us. It's one of the reasons I've come to call myself a libertarian -- they're more cool and rational.
Thank You
I could counter with, if he was smart enough to commit the crime and hide the evidence so completely, the last thing he would do is a whole string of things that would end up convicting him. That is just as strong "evidence" that he didn't do it as you suggest you have he did. I won't bite.
But one would generally expect that if someone had an innocent reason for doing them, they would likely be able to articulate what it was.
I could counter with, if he was smart enough to commit the crime and hide the evidence so completely, the last thing he would do is a whole string of things that would end up convicting him. That is just as strong "evidence" that he didn't do it as you suggest you have he did. I won't bite.
Many psychopaths are extremely arrogant. They have a certain level of intelligence, but their arrogance drives them to do really dumb things. I had a college roommate who boasted openly about his exploits stealing radar detectors, and showed off his switch blade knife and car-opening tools. He'd tell all sorts of stories about how he was so smart and the police were so stupid. Not sure exactly what happened to him after he got caught with stolen college computer equipment (after I'd moved out the room) and various other contraband.
Scott Peterson might well have gotten away with his crime if he weren't so arrogant. But the very notion that arrogant stupidity disproves psychopathy is absurd.
Peterson said he knew who did it. That utterance is on tape.
No, you don't.
Which, of course, makes your entire article bogus.
Pretty much.
Absolutely untrue.
You don't even need a body, FGS.
Before you waste bandwidth here,
you ought to READ the law regarding
what constitutes a murder.
Your entire rant is based on a false premise.
It's the defendant's responsibility to DEFEND himself, which he did NOT do. Because he can't.
His OWN attorney said he was guilty as hell.
You haven't been watching this trial, have you?
This guy will NEVER deal; not even know, when his own life is in danger.
There is absolutely no explanation for why he told somebody that his wife was dead two weeks before she disappeared, other than the fact that he was planning to kill her.
There is absolutely no explanation for why their bodies washed up where he TOLD the police he'd been "fishing" other than the fact that he dumped them there.
You're exactly right; the date of death is the day Conner died, which was the 23rd or 24th. Conner died because SHE died.
Right from the start, your argument is inconsistent with reality. Plenty of murderers have been convicted though their victims' bodies had never been found.
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