Scott Peterson is charged with killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son.
Posted on 02/17/2004 5:29:10 AM PST by runningbear
GPS data at issue in Peterson case
Scott Peterson is charged with killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son.
GPS data at issue in Peterson case
Judge to hear defense request to sequester jury
Tuesday, February 17, 2004 Posted: 0544 GMT ( 1:44 PM HKT)
REDWOOD CITY, California (CNN) -- Prosecutors and defense attorneys in Scott Peterson's murder trial are due in court again Tuesday to argue whether information gathered from tracking Peterson's vehicles by satellite after his wife disappeared should be admitted as evidence.
Peterson, 31, is charged with killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son. Their bodies washed up separately on the shore of San Francisco Bay in April 2003.
After Laci Peterson vanished in late December 2002, police in the couple's hometown of Modesto placed global positioning system devices on three vehicles used by Scott Peterson to track his whereabouts. GPS devices use satellite technology to pinpoint locations.
A prosecution witness testified last week that the GPS devices, despite briefly malfunctioning at least four times, accurately tracked Peterson to San Francisco Bay.
Peterson told police he was fishing in the bay December 24, 2002, the day his 27-year-old wife disappeared, and had launched his boat from the Berkeley Marina. The bodies washed ashore a few miles from the marina.
Prosecutors said the GPS evidence is circumstantial but indicates that .......
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Court considers introduction of GPS data
Article Last Updated: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 3:43:18 AM PST
Court considers introduction of GPS data
Modesto police used satellite device to track Scott Peterson
By Jason Dearen, STAFF WRITER
REDWOOD CITY -- Prosecutors in the Scott Peterson double-murder trial will continue arguing today that data from a satellite tracking device during the Modesto police's surveillance of Peterson should be allowed as evidence.
Not only could the data be important for the prosecution's case against Peterson, the debate being heard in the Redwood City courtroom will influence the future use of Global Positioning Systems, or GPS, by California law enforcement agencies.
"This is the first case where it's been challenged, and it will set the precedent one way or the other," said Michael Seigel, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Florida and a professor at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law.
Seigel said GPS technology has been admitted as evidence in other states and in some federal cases because, to this point, it has not been challenged.
Police installed the tracking device on vehicles driven by Peterson after his wife disappeared and before his arrest. At a hearing Wednesday, prosecutors presented maps that showed Peterson's alleged visits to the Berkeley Marina in the days and weeks after Laci disappeared.
At this point only the prosecution and defense know how the evidence will be used, and both sides are under a gag order and cannot comment. But some legal experts have said the data might be used by prosecutors to show that Peterson returned to the marina to see if the bodies had floated to the surface.
Defense attorney Mark Geragos pointed out three separate glitches in the data and argued that the information should not be allowed as evidence because the technology is flawed.
The prosecution is expected to call as a witness today a representative from Orion Electronics, the manufacturer of the device used by Modesto police.
Geragos spent most of Wednesday's hearing grilling the prosecution's first witness, Peter Loomis, a staff scientist for Trimble Navigation, a maker of GPS technology.
While Loomis bolstered the prosecution's case by testifying that, despite the brief malfunctions, the devices are scientifically sound, Geragos had him on the defensive much of the day.
Other issues to be decided by Delucchi before jury selection begins include: .........
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GPS debate continues today in Peterson trial
GPS debate continues today in Peterson trial
By Michelle Durand, Daily Journal Staff
Judge Al Delucchi is expected to hear final testimony today about whether global positioning technology should be allowed as evidence in the Scott Peterson murder trial or if it is “fatally flawed” as the defense claims.
Delucchi’s decision, which will come after experts for both sides testify, will determine the admissibility of the tracking data. Prosecutors hope to use the data to show Peterson’s movements after police began eyeing him as a suspect in the disappearance of his pregnant 27-year-old wife, Laci, from the couple’s Modesto home.
If allowed, the evidence could be used to show that Peterson traveled to an area north of Fresno — the town where Peterson’s mistress lived — and to the Berkeley marina where the bodies of his wife and the couple’s fetus were eventually found. It would also be the first time the technology would be used in a California court.
If Delucchi agrees with defense attorney Mark Geragos, a jury will not hear about the tracking devices and what data was collected. Geragos argued last Wednesday that the systems are “fatally flawed” and lost track of his client two separate times. Geragos also wants prosecutors to tell the court where on Peterson’s vehicles the tracking devices were attached.
If the GPS ruling is given today, decisions will follow on whether to sequester the jury and if two separate juries are needed for the guilt and penalty phases. Prosecutors filed motions last week opposing Geragos’ request for both. The rulings must be completed before jury selection can begin in the capital murder trial. Delucchi has said he hopes to begin picking a jury within two weeks.
Other pre-trial motions remaining including the admissibility of dog tracking evidence and the testimony of a witness who was hypnotized.
If convicted of killing his wife and unborn son, 31-year-old Peterson faces........
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(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Not necessarily. Once in Vegas or Tahoe there would be records, and people who could confirm you were there.
Electronic records, credit card charges, phone calls, ATM activity, are already being used in courts to establish where someone was.
No decision on whether bugged calls allowed
No decision on whether bugged calls allowed
By GARTH STAPLEY and JOHN COTÉ
BEE STAFF WRITERS
Last Updated: February 19, 2004, 11:55:36 AM PST
REDWOOD CITY -- Wiretap testimony in Scott Peterson's trial Wednesday focused on nuts and bolts of how phone bugs work, except for one spirited exchange when defense attorney Mark Geragos threatened to call a prosecutor to the witness stand.
Judge Alfred Delucchi, however, twice shot down the idea.
Seeking to have an opposing attorney testify is unusual, legal observers said.
"There is a reluctance, a reticence, to call the actual attorneys in a case," Los Angeles defense attorney Bradley Brunon said. "I would have been real surprised if the judge granted that."
Geragos wanted to ask prosecutor Rick Distaso -- under oath -- about meetings involving officers who monitored Peterson's phone calls, Distaso and Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Wray Ladine, who approved the bugging.
Geragos already has subpoenaed Ladine because no stenographer was present to record the meetings.
Ruth Jones, a professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and former New York City prosecutor, said investigator Steven Jacobson's testimony regarding the meetings should be sufficient.
Geragos' desire to put Distaso on the stand could be a tactic to keep his opponent off balance, Brunon said.
"There's probably some gamesmanship going on," Brunon said.
"Mark doesn't want to make their job any easier than it is," Jones said. "He's going to make a lot of motions, and he's going to lose many of them. But that's his job, to make motions."
Wednesday, Delucchi called a recess at 11:02 a.m. to listen to some recordings of calls challenged by Geragos. The judge also invited Jacobson, Peterson and his attorneys into his chambers.
They didn't emerge until after lunch, when attorneys on both sides met first with the judge behind closed doors, then privately with each other and again with the judge before he announced at 3:52 p.m. that the session would not reconvene until this morning.
All participants are bound by a court-imposed gag order from revealing what was discussed in the meetings.
Jacobson was the only witness called Wednesday, and he spent most of his time explaining phone bugging.
Peterson's two cell phones were tapped from Jan. 10 through Feb. 4, Jacobson said, and again from April 13 until his arrest April 18. Jacobson said he called off the first tap because it wasn't producing evidence.
Reasons for prosecutors' desire to introduce the wiretap recordings remain unclear. They introduced no such evidence at Peterson's preliminary hearing in October and November.
Geragos takes exception to the taps because agents monitored parts of calls between Peterson and his former attorney Kirk McAllister and with the attorney's private investigator. Such calls by law are confidential.
Jacobson, wearing a western-style blazer and carrying a cowboy hat, said his agents did not record many calls that weren't related to the case.
Peterson made or received more than 3,800 calls during the time the taps were authorized, he said.
Of those, agents detected 69 calls between Peterson and McAllister or the investigator, Jacobson said, but listened to parts of only three......
Cat and dog hair?
No... Wait! Scotty planted them!!!! heeheee..
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