Laci Peterson's stepfather, Ron Grantski, enters the courthouse Monday. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Peterson wiretappers testify
By GARTH STAPLEY
and SUSAN HERENDEEN
BEE STAFF WRITERS
Last Updated: March 2, 2004, 05:05:25 AM PST
Wiretap experts who previously helped authorities build a double-murder case against Scott Peterson testified Monday behind closed doors -- for the defense.
Also Monday, Judge Alfred Delucchi indicated he is close to ruling on key decisions regarding evidence, including authorities' use of wiretaps and dog-tracking, and statements Peterson made to media before his arrest in April.
And, the judge made it clear that jurors will be shown graphic autopsy pictures of Laci and Conner Peterson.
Michael Murman, president of Nebraska-based Pen-Link Ltd., and employee Kevin Clements shook hands with prosecution investigators after emerging from the judge's chamber Monday. They made no comment.
But sources on both sides said the phone-bugging experts were summoned by Mark Geragos, Peterson's Los Angeles attorney.
Clements in June uncovered recordings of 176 of Peterson's cell phone calls -- recordings that authorities initially didn't know they had.
Clements told The Bee at the time that it is "not uncommon" for authorities to unwittingly record portions of calls while bugging phones. A defect in AT&T Wireless technology allowed wiretap agents to unknowingly capture calls in "audio buffers," Clements wrote in a court document.
Pen-Link specializes in intelligence gathering, typically working hand-in-hand with law enforcement -- not defense attorneys.
The company's customer list includes the FBI; CIA; Secret Service; U.S. Marshals; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the federal Drug Enforcement Administration; and Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In a 2000 interview, Murman told The Associated Press he expected to pull down sales of $50 million to $70 million over the subsequent five years.
Geragos has asked Delucchi to throw out all wiretap evidence -- including more than 3,000 of Peterson's calls before his arrest in April -- because authorities allegedly botched some of the monitoring. In addition to the 176 "buffer" recordings, authorities have acknowledged recording portions of three calls between Peterson and his defense team.
Though agents apparently didn't know they recorded the 176 calls, they also didn't follow a judge's strict orders to turn down or "minimize" equipment during calls having nothing to with the double-murder investigation.
Soon after the 176 calls were made public, two wiretap experts said the revelation could wreak havoc with the prosecution's case.
"Failure to minimize can be a fatal defect," Raymond Perini has said. The New York defense attorney previously monitored dozens of wiretaps when he was a Long Island prosecutor.
Perini said that a judge can decide that the entire batch is contaminated and throw out parts of or all evidence gathered from the bugs.
Delucchi is expected to decide, perhaps as soon as today, whether prosecutors can use wiretap evidence. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Thursday.
Last week, prosecutors revealed that Peterson's father, Lee Peterson, and girlfriend, Amber Frey, for a short time were listed as wiretap "target subjects" and possible "co-conspirators" in an early stage of the case. Their names were removed from a judge's instructions on phone bug protocol five days later.
Prosecutors believe Scott Peterson, 31, killed his pregnant wife on or shortly before Christmas Eve 2002. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
Trial participants spent nearly all of Monday behind closed doors, much of it with Murman and Clements. When they emerged, the judge and attorneys on both sides put finishing touches on a lengthy jury questionnaire that prospective jurors will fill out before they are asked verbal questions.
The questionnaire has yet to be made public, but discussion among the trial participants indicates jurors will.......
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Key rulings expected on pieces of evidence
Posted on Tue, Mar. 02, 2004
Key rulings expected on pieces of evidence
By Julia Prodis Sulek
Mercury News
The judge in the Scott Peterson double-murder case plans to rule today on whether two key pieces of evidence will be allowed into trial -- dog tracking and phone tapping.
Peterson's defense lawyers want both excluded before the trial begins. Jury selection starts Thursday.
Dog handlers have testified during hearings on the pre-trial motions that trained tracking dogs picked up Laci Peterson's scent at her husband's warehouse where he kept his fishing boat, on the rim of the boat there and at the Berkeley Marina, where police believe Peterson took her body before dumping it in San Francisco Bay.
The dog tracking evidence is among the little direct evidence presented so far against Peterson in the largely circumstantial case. Prosecutors also say one of Laci Peterson's hairs was found in a pair of pliers at the bottom of the boat, supporting their theory that Peterson put her body in it before throwing it overboard.
Judge Alfred Delucchi also plans to rule today on whether to allow evidence from the wiretaps police placed on Peterson's cell phone and home phone in the weeks after Laci Peterson disappeared Dec. 24, 2002. Many of those calls were to his mistress, Amber Frey, a Fresno massage therapist who cooperated with police as soon as she saw Peterson's face on the TV news a few days after Laci Peterson disappeared. She has said she didn't know Peterson was married.
Dozens of the calls were also between Peterson and his former lawyer, Kirk McAllister, but prosecutors say as soon as they realized the nature of the calls, they would turn off the wiretap device. Those calls are protected by law by the attorney-client privilege.
But one of those calls was recorded, apparently accidentally when the wiretap device experienced a glitch. Prosecutors have said in court documents that they never listened to that call.
On Monday, two defense witnesses who helped install the wiretap devices for Modesto police testified in the judge's closed chambers. One of the witnesses, Kevin Clements, was familiar with the glitch........
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Experts: Dog tracking details most damaging to Peterson's defense
Experts: Dog tracking details most damaging to Peterson's defense
By Brian Skoloff
ASSOCIATED PRESS
6:20 p.m. March 1, 2004
REDWOOD CITY – Prosecution claims that police dogs discovered the path Scott Peterson took to dump his pregnant wife's body could be the most damaging details in a capital murder case so far built on circumstance, according to forensic experts and defense attorneys.
If, that is, jurors ever hear the scent-sniffing details. Judge Alfred A. Delucchi promised to decide Tuesday whether testimony from dog handlers would be admitted as evidence.
Peterson's lawyers have tried feverishly to discredit dog tracking as more "voodoo" than science. And even some dog handling experts say prosecutors are reaching too far when they say the dogs prove Peterson stuffed his wife's body into the boat he says he took fishing alone on San Francisco Bay the day she vanished – Christmas Eve, 2002.
Still, it might be hard for the defense to sway jurors if they do hear claims the dogs picked up Laci Peterson's scent on the 14-foot aluminum boat her family insists she never knew he bought. Movies and TV shows have persuaded the public: tracking dogs get it right.
"It could impress the jury a lot. That could be the whole case right there," said Los Angeles Defense Attorney Harland Braun, Robert Blake's first attorney in the murder case against the actor. "It also indicates how desperate the prosecution is that this is so crucial to their case."
Prosecutors claim Peterson, 31, killed his wife at their Modesto home, drove to a warehouse where he picked up the boat, then ferried the body from the Berkeley Marina and dumped it into the bay.
Laci Peterson's body and that of the couple's unborn son washed ashore about two miles from the marina. Prosecutors have presented neither......
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Tuesday, Mar. 02, 2004
On February 26, California Superior Court Judge Roger Beauchesne issued a tentative ruling in a civil suit against Scott Peterson, who is charged with the murders of his wife, Laci, and their unborn child.
The civil suit -- brought by Laci's mother, Sharon Rocha -- seeks to have any profits Scott might receive from the sale of his story kept in a trust account until a verdict is reached in his murder trial.
Judge Beauchesne said no to that request. But he also made clear that his ruling was "tentative" -- subject to reconsideration in twenty days, he said, if Rocha's attorney submitted further argument.
The issue of whether convicted felons can profit from the sale of their stories, which are inevitably entangled with their victims' stories, is a familiar one. While courts have been very hostile to the idea of effectively censoring books and movies in this way -- considering it a First Amendment violation -- victims' rights groups have been adamant that they consider sales of criminals' stories an unacceptable reminder that crime can, indeed, pay. They contend that if such stories must be sold, then the profits ought to go to the victims, not the criminals.
Is it contrary to the First Amendment to re-direct the profits from books and movies by convicted criminals to their victims? In this column, I address that question, and discuss the legal issues raised by the Rocha civil case ruling.
Why Did the Judge Issue a "Tentative" Ruling?
To begin, readers may wonder: What's going on with this "tentative" ruling? Is this judge just indecisive? The answer is no.
Tentative rulings -- sometimes nicknamed "tentatives" -- are a typical feature of practice in civil cases in Superior Court in California. Often, a judge will post his tentative ruling, and then immediately hear argument from the parties' attorneys as to whether he should reconsider the ruling.
It's a tough situation: The losing parties usually have only minutes to try to change the judge's ..........