Posted on 06/23/2003 5:35:38 AM PDT by runningbear
Out of Bounds
April 26, 2003
He may be no angel, but Scott Peterson was never a Sun Devil, either.
Peterson, the Modesto, Calif., man charged in connection with the deaths of his wife, Laci, and unborn son, is rumored to have attended Arizona State University and played on the school's golf team as a walk-on.
It never happened, according to school officials.
"We've researched all the media guides, all the record books, everything, and we can't find his name anywhere," said Doug Tammaro , ASU's associate sports information director. "As far as we know, and we're pretty sure, Scott Peterson never played golf for ASU."
The confusion could stem from the fact that Peterson did, apparently, play high school golf with ASU alum Phil Mickelson when the two attended University High in the San Diego area.
Mickelson, though, has said he doesn't remember Peterson being on the team.
Find this article at:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/sports/articles/0426P2main0426.html
Other Views: Suspected murderer Scott Peterson has a fan club
Monday, June 23, 2003
News
Deborah Mathis Other Views
Deborah Mathis
WASHINGTON -- One of the strangest phrases I have ever heard was this: "Joey Buttafuoco's agent."
That was years ago, but it still stuns me that a married man who had an affair with a young girl -- a girl who showed up at his house one day and shot his wife in the head, no less -- would have the need for an agent.
"Joey Buttafuoco's parole officer" or "Joey Buttafuoco's jailer" or "Joey Buttafuoco's attorney," I could understand. But "Joey Buttafuoco's agent"?
It has been downhill ever since, this business of parlaying crime and infamy into fame and money. By now, the roster is too long for a single newspaper column.
Not that I need to rehash; their celebrity easily brings the names to mind.
I am all for redemption, of course, believing as I do that people can and do change. I believe in second chances. Even two or three "second" chances in some cases.
But shouldn't there be some evidence required? At least a modicum of humility, remorse and repentance before the goodies are dispensed?
The latest entry into this theater of the absurd and ignominious is news that Scott Peterson, the California man accused of murdering his wife and unborn son, is getting loads of mail from women professing their love and devotion. Add "Scott Peterson's Fan Club" to the list of implausible phrases.
For all we know -- know, not believe -- Peterson did not commit the atrocities against his wife and son. It will take a trial to weigh the facts and come to an honest verdict about whether Peterson is guilty or the innocent fall guy he claims to be.
The women should remember that the police and prosecutors are working on a presumption too -- that of guilt -- and it behooves the thinking person to wait out the case to determine which presumption is right, mindful always that hunches, wishfulness and presumption are not proof.
So why would a woman in her right mind offer herself to a man under these circumstances?
I know things are tight in the gender game -- more women than men to begin with, an educational and socioeconomic gap to contend with, fear of commitment and the playboy syndrome to overcome, etc., etc. -- but, please.
By his own admission, Peterson was, in the least, a sexual cheat, and although that does not make him a murderer, it does makes him bad mating material. He might yet redeem himself, but that would take time.
My only counsel to these women -- other than to get help -- is patience. Let the trial play out. If Peterson is convicted, ditch the fairy tale and count your lucky stars that you dodged a bullet. If he is acquitted and you can't tear yourself away from the fantasy, even then, don't just give your devotion away. Give it time, and make him prove he deserves it.
But then what do I know about modern ways? I still think it's crazy that Joey Buttafuoco had an agent. I'm still stuck in the days when shameless people got their reward the old-fashioned way: They earned it.
Deborah Mathis, a columnist for Gannett News Service, appears on this page periodically.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More wiretapped phone calls discovered in Peterson case
SACRAMENTO (AP) — An investigator who wiretapped Scott Peterson's phones says he recently discovered 176 calls that were recorded without his knowledge, and prosecutors are asking a judge to determine whether police can screen them for evidence.
In court papers filed Wednesday, investigator Steven Jacobson said the calls were discovered Friday by an expert from the software company that designed the wiretap system. The two men listened to about 10 seconds of one of the calls to determine that hidden computer files contained actual phone calls and not a dial tone or dead air.
"We heard a person in a Southern drawl talking to Scott Peterson in what appeared to be a business-related call," Jacobson wrote in an affidavit.
Jacobson said he had not heard that conversation before among the 3,858 phone calls police previously acknowledged logging on the fertilizer salesman's home and cellular phones. He said he didn't listen to any others before having them transferred to computer discs and sealed in envelopes for Superior Court Judge Al Girolami to review.
The newly discovered calls could present another hurdle for prosecutors as they fight defense claims of prosecutorial misconduct over the wiretaps. When word of the previous wiretaps came out, defense lawyer Mark Geragos asked the judge to dismiss the prosecutors handling the case or toss out the wiretaps because investigators listened to portions of conversations between Peterson and his lawyer.
Peterson, 30, has pleaded innocent to two counts of murder and could face the death penalty if convicted in killings of his wife and unborn son. He was arrested after their remains washed ashore in San Francisco Bay in April, near where he said he was fishing Christmas Eve when his pregnant wife vanished.
Prosecutors have said officers mistakenly listened to snippets of two of 69 conversations between Peterson and lawyer Kirk McAllister and one conversation with a private investigator, but Geragos said that was enough to find that they had violated attorney-client privilege.
Girolami has scheduled a June 26 hearing on the wiretap and other matters.
Both sides are bound by a gag order and cannot comment.
In a related court matter, the defense appealed a judge's order to unseal search warrants, saying their release would ignite a "media firestorm of misinformation."
Geragos filed his appeal Tuesday at the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Fresno to keep eight search warrants from being made public next month.
Superior Court Judge Roger Beauchesne ruled Thursday that the documents, which are expected to contain evidence and police theories, should be unsealed July 8 after a previous appellate ruling expires.
That order, however, is now on hold as the court considers Geragos' latest appeal. Prosecutors and lawyers for California newspapers and broadcasters, who argued to release the documents, have a week to file responses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From 'Why did he?' to 'Did he?' in 28 days
Since Mark Geragos (left) took over Scott Peterson's case, media discussion about the case has changed dramatically.
By Harriet Ryan
Court TV
A few days after he took Scott Peterson's case, defense lawyer Mark Geragos stood on the steps of the Stanislaus County courthouse surrounded by his new client's family and predicted public opinion of the murder suspect was about to change.
"I think it's only a matter of time before we're able to turn America's head around," Geragos told scores of reporters eager to gobble up any speck of information about Peterson and the killing of his pregnant wife, Laci, and unborn son.
At the time, Geragos' forecast seemed about as likely as June snow in Modesto. In the hot, dry California city and across the nation, Peterson was Public Enemy #1. When he was arrested, a throng of angry citizens greeted his arrival at the county jail with bloodthirsty chants and signs reading MURDERER. The front page of the New York Post showed Peterson in shackles beneath the headline "MONSTER IN CHAINS." And the California attorney general pronounced the case against Peterson "a slam dunk."
But in the 28 days since Geragos became Peterson's attorney, an improbable, but unmistakable shift in the public discussion of the crime has occurred. The question is no longer "How could he do it?" but "Did he do it?"
The change seems clearly the result of a series of press leaks — some directly credited to the defense side and others to unspecified sources — including speculation that Laci Peterson died at the hands of a Satanic cult and Thursday's revelation by MSNBC that the coroner found a plastic tape "noose" around the neck of the Petersons' unborn son, Conner, when his body was found on the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay.
Geragos denied being the source of that leak and even volunteered to swear to it on the witness stand, but steamed prosecutors made clear they thought the defense was to blame. In court papers filed just hours after the report, prosecutors said the new information "skewed" toward Peterson's legal team and asked a judge to release the entire coroner's report publicly so "the media will see what the actual facts are."
Whoever the source, the report concerning the condition of baby Conner's body fit nicely with the Satanic cult theory of the murders advanced first through defense leaks and then openly by Geragos. About two weeks after the lawyer took over Peterson's case, NBC reported that the defense had information about cults operating in the Modesto area and speculated that Conner Peterson was cut from his mother's body during a Satanic ritual. Other reports citing defense sources indicated that when Peterson's body was recovered on the bay shoreline, it was mutilated in a manner consistent with ritual sacrifice, and still other outlets reported that the defense was chasing its own prime suspects, some apparently connected with a strange brown van and a suspicious man with 666 tattooed on his arm.
Although no one knows when Peterson's trial will begin, nor where it will be held — the defense is expected to ask for a change of venue — the leaks are likely the first effort to influence the panelists who will some day, in some courthouse, sit in judgment of Scott Peterson.
"There's been a concerted effort to try to change the hearts and minds of potential jurors," said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson. "The strategy is to create questions now and hope that it will translate into reasonable doubt later."
Not all legal experts agree on its wisdom, however. Miami jury consultant Sandy Marks, who worked for the defense in the trials of Timothy McVeigh and William Kennedy Smith, said that, while putting the defense story out in the public arena can be useful, timing the release of information is important.
"Jurors — and people in general — have a short memory. This will only be good for the next week or two. If he's got substantial stuff, why leak it now? Let's save it for right before trial," Marks said.
Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer Harland Braun, who initially represented Robert Blake, disagreed.
"If you've got anything, get it out there or you are going to lose the jury," said Braun, no stranger to defending clients by going on the offense. Long before Blake was arrested, Braun released documents and audiotapes portraying Blake's murdered wife as a conniving grifter. In defense polling done after he made the information public, 80 percent of those surveyed believed Blake guilty, but 90 percent had a negative opinion about his alleged victim, Braun said.
Putting the information out is essential, Braun said, because jurors consider public opinion along with the law and evidence as they deliberate, and few panelists want to buck conventional wisdom with their verdicts.
"They are going to worry about what their neighbors think. Nobody wants to be regarded as a buffoon," said Braun.
Chicago-based jury consultant Paul Lisnek said the long window before the trial could actually help the defense to make the Satanic cult theory — which he described as "pretty far out there" — sound "more palatable."
"The more people hear something, the more reasonable it sounds. If you put this cult theory out now, by the time the trial happens, it will have become part of their reality and jurors will say, 'Oh yeah, the Satanic theory, I've heard about this," said Lisnek.
The volume of leaking may come to an end soon, however. Superior Court Judge Al Girolami, who is overseeing the case, has voiced concern about the massive media coverage and said he is leaning toward imposing a gag order, perhaps as early as next Friday.......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.