Posted on 03/16/2005 9:59:57 AM PST by Howlin
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Shackled at the waist, Scott Peterson returned to court Wednesday to learn his fate for the slaying of his wife and her fetus, four months after jurors found the former fertilizer salesman guilty of their murders.
Peterson was escorted into San Mateo County Superior Court under heavy security, wearing a dark suit and handcuffs chained to his waist. Ten of the 12 jurors who sentenced him to death in December sat in the jury box.
Judge Alfred A. Delucchi was set to decide Wednesday whether to grant the former fertilizer salesman a new trial, sentence him to death - as the jury recommended - or give him life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Peterson, 32, was convicted Nov. 12 of two counts of murder in the deaths of his wife and her fetus. The jury recommended the death penalty a month later.
Hours before the hearing began, Peterson's former mistress, star witness Amber Frey, said she stood by her decision to turn to police. Peterson's lawyer is challenging the use of telephone conversations she recorded for the trial.
"As far as having not come forward there may not - and certainly in the jurors' eyes - there would not have been justice, so I stand by my choices and my decisions that I made," Frey told NBC's "Today" show Wednesday.
In asking for a new trial, defense lawyer Mark Geragos said Peterson's telephone calls to Frey should not have been admitted. He said Peterson never implicated himself in the crime during the calls and that authorities should not have tapped his phone.
Geragos also said prosecutors withheld evidence that a state prison inmate claimed he heard that Laci Peterson had interrupted a burglary at a neighbor's home in Modesto on Dec. 24, 2002, the day she was reported missing.
Scott Peterson claims he went fishing that day, and Geragos says the tip "points to the conclusion that Laci was alive after Scott left for the day."
"If the evidence were presented at a retrial, it is highly probable a different result would have occurred," Geragos wrote.
But prosecutor David Harris said the burglary happened two days after Laci Peterson's disappearance. He said the evidence was handed over a year before the trial started and would not have changed the verdict.
"His claim is reminiscent of the 'boy who cried wolf,' " Harris said.
The motion for a new trial, filed Feb. 25 in Redwood City, also claimed the judge erroneously dismissed two jurors, and erred in denying Geragos' motion for a second change of venue.
How about a couple of dancing monkeys on unicycles?
What did she say??
See my post #132
At what prison???
Where Scott is headed.
Shudder, shudder......
sw
One things probably for sure, Scott will be the prettiest boy on death row. I'm glad I'm not him. It makes my life seem not to bad at all.
Cheering.....BRING HIM IN.......
They are waiting for the bastard.
Scott will be more likely to die by suicide than by inmate violence. San Quentin's death row inmates don't eat, exercise or otherwise interact with the general prison population or others on death row. He'll live longer with a death sentence, no doubt about it.
He is going to be a target....after all, they all have nothing to lose.
"It is hereby ordered that ... for the offense of the murder of Laci Peterson ... and the murder of Conner Peterson ... that the defendant Scott Lee Peterson shall be put to death," San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Alfred A. Delucchi said.
ROFL.....a new version of BEN GAY is about to come upon Snottie too !!!!!
Your information is incorrect. Some inmates do interact with other inmates. The officials decide which ones are compatible.
San Quentin.
Nancy Grace stating that Geragos wants to start his own reality show.
Good grief. Bizarro world.
I just saw some of the jurors on tv, one of them was saying Scott came into the courtroom laughing and joking, "just another day in Paradise" the juror said.
Total lack of conscience, I suppose. Not a smidgen of remorse.
But the judge said the hearing was an opportunity for Laci's relatives to speak only. He ordered Scott Peterson to pay $10,000 restitution for funeral expenses and an additional $5,000, though the reason for that amount was unexplained.
Sharon: There is an unbrearable sadness in my life. The cott I knew was the one Laci loved and I entrusted her to him. You made a conscious decision decision to murder them and you planned and executed their murders, yes you did. You threw them away like a piece of garbage. Your arogance led you to believe you were smarter than evryone else but you were dead worng. You are not intelligent at all, you are stupid. Stupid to think murder was your only way out of a marriege. You atended a xamas party with your girlfriend while your pregnantwife went to a party alone. There was no way for me to know on 12/15 that it was the last time I would see my daughter but you knew. You are lazy, spoiled, self centred and a coward but above all, you ae an evil murderer. Not even satan will claim to have a part in your make up. You Scott are proof that evil can lurk anywhere. You don't have to look evil to be evil. Why did you mureder her? That's an answer we'll never get. How dare you murder her? I want her and always will. I trusted her and you betrayed her, me and everyone. She didn't stand a chance physically against you Scott, How did that make you feel? Did you feel accomplishment, relief they were gone? There's a huge whole in my heart and it will never heal. I miss Laci, miss teasing her, hearing her giggle, miss her telling me about plans and recipes. I miss being my daughter's mother.
SR: I'll never meet my grndson becasue his own father murdered him. L didn't know the SP that sits in this courtroom. She loved you but she didn't need you Scott. I find solace in the thought that you dsentenced yourself to death when you murdered Lai. You took it upon yourslef to be her judge, jury and executioner. I want you to get what you deserve which is death. You didn't count on Laci's spirit being so strong. Stroonger than your evilness. L was buried without arms to hold her baby, without a head to smell him in her ams. You have no idea what that thought does to my soul. I look at her picture and I am haunted of pictures of you murdering her. Did she know you were murdering her? Did you look her in the eye while you were murdering her? Was she conscious when you put her in the bay? Nothing will ever undo your evil. You deserve to be oput to death asap. What were you thinking as you were killing Laci? What do you think she was thinking? I'll tell you what I think she was thinking: Scott why are you killing me? You know how much I love you. You promised to take care of me. Scott I don't want to die, please stop. And your son was thinking, Daddy why are you killing us, we don't want to die.
Harriet Ryan:
Most fireworks ever witnessed in a courtroom sentencing.
SP was alone when he was sentenced because his parents had left the courtroom earlier when BR was testifying. The jurors were sobbing by the end. Brochinni was weeping in the courtroom.
All of the statements by the family were aimed at trying to get a response from SP. SR spoke about getting into Laci and Conner's thought as they were being killed. And into SP's thoughts as he was murdering them. WHY? WHY? WHY? At that point he jerked his head back. Every other witness he stared down. When she said You planned and executed these murders! and SP was shaking his head, SR paused for a long fice seconds and then said, "Yes you did, Scott, yes you did."
Harriet Ryan reports that Scott jerked his head back once when Sharon Rocha kept asking him why. Scott stared everyone else down.
Harriet Ryan reports that Mark Geragos played it very low key after arriving five minutes late for court. Scott sat all alone looking down at the defense table when the attorneys spent fifteen minutes in the judge's chambers.
Scott was dressed in a black suit with hands shackled and a leather belt around his waist. No laughing today. Feet not shackled.
Judge D made point to say that he agreed with the jury that there was a betrayal of trust beteen the perpetrator and the victims, as a husband and father.
SP was talking to tMG throughout the judge giving his sentence.
Harriet Ryan reports that Brent Rocha actually went out and bought himself a gun in January 2003. The only reason he didn't use it on Scott is because he wanted Scott to sweat it out.
Now that Gerragos is off the trial I wonder if he will be punished by the Court for some of the stuff he pulled during the trial.....such as that boat in the parking lot with the dummy in it.
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