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.
IMO, he smothered her because there was no blood evidence in the home....or very little and none of it could be tied to her death.
He had motive and he ACTED like a guilty man who was in San Diego on the telephone with his brother having a "light-hearted" conversation the day the two bodies washed ashore instead of on the phone with the Modesto police to see if the bodies were those of his wife and unborn child.
He disguised his appearance and had ample money to cross the border and "get lost".
His parents' louzy defense testimony sealed his fate. Neither was believable.
I agree that law is supposed to be non-emotional.
But you have to accept that behavior can be evidence in itself. Sometimes you have to take three steps back and look at the forest. All evidence, events and behaviors added together are enough for me to believe he is guilty. His emotions (or lack thereof) are just a frame for the canvas.
Otherwise, Scott will have created the template for the perfect murder.
"This is the only loose end I see in this case---a cement anchor. If Peterson did the killing, why on earth would he keep one cement anchor? Why not dump them all while he's at it?"
He needed one to prove he had made the anchors. The whole reason he tried to use the fishing excuse was because it was a built in alibi. He never imagined the bodies would turn up WHERE HE SAID HE WAS WHEN SHE DISAPPEARED.
Like most murderers, Scott out smarted himself. One thing would have gotten him off scot free. If he had kept his mouth shut to the police. Thie is what provides the most breaks in criminal cases. Suspects lying to the cops. You can't change your story later without providing fodder that can be used to shred your ass in court. He probably broke another cardinal rule, though we will never know for sure. He probably lied to his lawyer. That is another quick way to find yourself led to the gallows.
Total & absolute agreement. Peterson was NOT convicted of killing his wife since there was no evidence to that effect. He was convicted and will be sentenced to death for being a schmuck.
In the meantime, there may well be a killer out there and the police, right from the get-go, decided to exclude anyone else from their investigation of Laci's disappearance.
This is NOT justice. No way.
It sets a dangerous precedent whereby police and prosecutors can accuse anyone of anything and get a conviction.
By this standard of evidence we can convict and execute *witches*.
Oh, sorry.
Look, I believe he is guilty, and you believe he is guilty. But the state didn't, in my opinion, prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
I think he committed a nearly perfect murder. But I do have a reasonable doubt (as the jurors did, IMHO).
That you, greta?
And I have even stronger evidence that OJ did it and started exibiting his guilt to others as soon as his plane landed in Chicago. J. Neil Schulman is a crock.
I didn't see Jimmy Hoffa disappear either, so I guess he's not missing... (You should put this all in a memo and send it to Dan Rather.)
Actually, there is lots of evidence that he did it. Like his motive, her body turning up right where he said he went fishing, the concrete anchor, his having the wrong fishing gear, his initial lying about his whereabouts on the day after her disappearence, his talking about his wife in the past tense before her body turned up. etc.
We may be related. ; )
I wholly concur there is evidence strongly suggesting he did it. But I even more emphatically charge that everything necessary was NOT proven, (which your response effectively confirms) especially not beyond a reasonable doubt. Coincidence is supposed to be insufficient.
I mean come on. Freshwater tackle? As opposed to saltwater? Damned good thing they don't check me out. I never use anything but drop lines. I grew up around small streams. If caught in the vicinity of a large river with my gear, does that make me subject to charges of genocide?
I understand the jury sat through a lot of details. But their job is to make the prosecutor prove his case. I do not believe he did and they didn't spank him for it. I've seen it on a grand jury I was on. I would ask for the elements of the crime, the prosecutor would dance around the subject and everyone wanted to know why I bothered asking.
Prosecutors are human. To include, wanting to take the easy way out, tunnel vision, and having their own agendas. Juries are supposed to have the intelligence to catch them at it and stop them. This one failed to do its job, IMO.
"Dumping a body weighed down by cement anchors is plenty proof of a murder having occured to me.
Me too."
I agree. Except that no such anchors were found weighing down the bodies and what anchors were presented as "evidence" did not match the anchors that were made with the mold Scott used to make anchors. There is no evidence the bodies were weighed down at all. Being dumped in December they would not have needed any weight as decomposition gases would not have bloated the bodies in 40 degree water.
Not sure if that's the case. There are plenty of people who have been convicted on circumstantial evidence.
I mean come on. Freshwater tackle? As opposed to saltwater? Meaningless by itself, but together with the other info suggests that he was lying about fishing that day.
I've seen it on a grand jury I was on. I would ask for the elements of the crime, the prosecutor would dance around the subject and everyone wanted to know why I bothered asking.
Same thing happened to me.
Prosecutors are human. To include, wanting to take the easy way out, tunnel vision, and having their own agendas. Juries are supposed to have the intelligence to catch them at it and stop them. This one failed to do its job, IMO.
What can I say.. If I was on the jury I would have convicted.
I beleieve that they were able to demonstrate the she was under water for weeks... proving that she was weighed down.
Sorry. I misunderstood your question as well.
http://www.courttv.com/archive/news/2002/0528/levy_ap.html
"Why didn't he testify on his own behalf?"
Because it is his right to not have to prove himself innocent. The accused has the right to be silent in this country and not contribute to his own prosecution.
PIFFLE
There was not enough evidence to convict, either circumstantial or tangible.
The trial was prosecuted at a emotional level. By that I mean that someone must have done it, and that someone is most likely the liar husband.
Most likely is not grounds to convict or more importantly to execute for a crime supposedly committed.
The trial was a sham. The jury was tainted and manipulated through a series of changes, and the decision should be vacated and a new trial commenced in a different jurisdiction.
I would also suggest a new defense lawyer, as this one has lost what little respect he once had.
Whether or not Peterson is guilty was not ever at issue in this trial. From the beginning, it was a struggle to prove he was innocent, and that is not the way our justice system is supposed to work.
Also,I continue to see errors in the purported evidence like anchors that were never found and never proved to be made in the quantities purported. These are all suppositions and not evidence.
The location of the bodies being the smoking gun can be easily overcome by the fact that the bay was announced as the probable location only days after her disappearance.
If I were going to dispose of a body, that is precisely where I would have placed it it implicate Peterson.
There are far more questions than answers created by this trial. Knowing what I know about it, I could not have arrived at a guilty verdict. I could not have said he was innocent, but that is not the point of a trial where guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
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