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I had not intended to return to this discussion, but let me just state that many of the posters simply don't know the facts of this case.

Laci's body was not found weighted down by a concrete anchor. No anchor was ever recovered in proximity to her body. No anchor having any link to her body was offered into evidence in the trial.

Laci's body was not found bound with duct tape. Considering that when her body was recovered it lacked head, arms, or lower legs, there was little that could have been restrained with duct tape. Duct tape entered into the case because some pieces of duct tape were found in the general area where her body was recovered, but no proof was ever offered linking that duct tape to her body.

Read Mark Geragos' motion to dismiss at the preliminary hearing, available on the Court TV website at http://www.courttv.com/trials/peterson/docs/setasidemotion.html You'll discover that the prosecution failed to introduce during the actual trial anything that met the burden even for the case to be tried, and that Geragos' motion to dismiss in the preliminary hearing is still unrefuted even as Scott Peterson's jury is considering whether or not to put him to death.

I have been accused to being prejudiced, of being a shill for Marc Geragos, of being here to sell the only one of my books that has anything to do with criminal justice.

Two of my books are science-fiction novels and one is a theological comic fantasy. Another of my books is a collection of short stories. One is a collection of my screenwriting. Another is an interview with science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein. One is a defense of the right to keep and bear arms, another presents essays of a libertarian nature. Only one of my books, published in 1999, deals with the analysis of a trial.

I don't know Scott Peterson or anyone else in the case, don't know any of the lawyers on either side, nor anyone connected to the case in any way.

Nor would I ever want anyone like Scott Peterson -- a pathological liar and cruel adulterer -- in my life.

I care about fair trials, and no matter how lousy a human being Scott Peterson is, for the reasons I stated in my article and follow-up posts, he never got one.

Our system of justice requires more than speculation based on unestablished assumptions before you can charge someone with a crime, much less convict them and put them to death or imprison them for life. That's what happened in this case, and it stinks to high heaven.

That's my summation and I'm out of here again.

JNS