UNBIASED - TRUE CRIME: The Disappearance of Laci Peterson and the Trial that Followed

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

The Day Laci Peterson Went Missing (2:06)The Days that Followed Laci's Disappearance (11:27)The Bodies are Discovered (22:17)Scott Peterson’s Trial (26:45)The Appeals (33:47)My Thoughts on Whether Scott Peterson is Guilty (41:27) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. You are listening to the Jordan is My Law podcast. This is your host Jordan and I give

you the legal analysis you've been waiting for. Here's the deal. I don't care about your political views, but I do ask that you listen to the facts, have an open mind and think for yourselves. Deal? Oh, and one last thing. I'm not actually a lawyer. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Tuesday. I hope you have a great day. I hope you had a great day depending on when you're listening to this. Either way, I hope the day is great. As you probably know, I started a true crime series last week.

But here's the thing, and I mentioned this before, but I'll say it again. My true crime episodes are a bit different than the true crime you might be used to. We're obviously going to cover the juicy details of the actual crime. That'll be the bulk of it. But I'm also going to focus a little bit on the legal aspect because, after all, I am a lawyer. So in the episodes where the suspect is actually caught and prosecuted, it's not, you know, still a pending mystery, I'm going to go

through a little bit of what that person's trial looked like, what the appeals process looked like, if any, and where they stand now. If their conviction led them to death row, I'll also discuss that. So, it'll be, you know, there's going to be more to it than what you might be used to, but we like that, right? So, we need to jump right into this because today's episode, we got a lot going on. Today's episode, we're talking about Lacey Peterson. Lacey Peterson was murdered in 2002, but her convicted killer, her own husband, faces the possibility of a new trial later this year. And if I'm being honest, I'm not convinced that he's guilty. So let's get into it. it's christmas eve 2002 lacy peterson was 27 years old at the time and eight months pregnant lacy was a substitute teacher and her husband scott was a fertilizer salesman he was a representative

for the west coast of some company that sold not only fertilizer but also some chemical nutrients and stuff like that. The Petersons were a beautiful couple. Objectively, they were gorgeous and soon-to-be parents. From the outside, everything looked perfect. They lived in this nice house in Modesto, California. They both had decent jobs and they were about to have a child. But nothing is ever perfect, right? Christmas Eve morning, Lacey wakes up around 7, 7 30. She eats some breakfast because according to Scott, since she was pregnant, she got sick if she didn't eat breakfast. So she eats some breakfast. Scott wakes up around 8 to 8 30. And around 8 8 45 Lacey is telling Scott about everything she plans on doing that day which included walking the dog and going to the store to get the ingredients for the french toast casserole that she was supposed to bring to her mom's house that night for Christmas

Eve dinner Scott says they watched a little bit of the Martha Stewart cooking show that was on TV. Lacey started mopping the floors, and while she was mopping, Scott is packing up his truck to leave for the day. Scott was originally supposed to go golfing, but he decided that it was a bit too cold, so he decided he'd go fishing instead. He leaves the house around 9 20, anywhere from 9 20 to 9 40 a.m. He first went to his warehouse, which is almost like his office. It was about three miles from their house, a nine minute drive, and Scott says while he was there, he sent one email and then hooked up his boat and drove to Berkeley, which checks out. Investigators have record from the time he spent at the warehouse. The records indicate that he was on his computer from about

10 30 to 10 56 a.m. and that he sent one email to his boss and then looked up instructions on how to assemble a new woodworking tool that he had recently gotten. Then, there are about 20 minutes of his time at the warehouse that are unaccounted for. Prosecutors say that this time was spent covering up the murder, but one could logically assume that this time was spent assembling the woodworking tool that he was just looking up how to assemble, right? Because when the warehouse was looked at by detectives later, this tool was fully assembled. Meanwhile, while Scott is at the warehouse, at about 10 18 a.m., one of the Peterson's neighbors sees the Peterson's dog, Mackenzie, walking outside alone with its collar and leash on, almost like it was out for a walk

without an owner. The neighbor puts the dog in the backyard of the house quickly, just kind of puts it back there, walks away, didn't really do anything else, didn't knock on the door, nothing, just walked away. So at this point, Scott is now heading to the marina. It's unclear what time he leaves his warehouse exactly, but he arrives to the marina in Berkeley at 1254 p.m. We know this because he actually provided detectives with a time-stamped parking receipt. After he parked his car, he went fishing from about 1 to 2 p.m., roughly. Now, keep in mind that there were witnesses that saw Scott at the marina. This is midday we're talking about, mid-afternoon, so it's light out. If he did have a

body, I'm having a hard time understanding how no one would see him lugging a body or hauling body parts, whether they were bagged up or not, into this tiny boat of his. So Scott ends up leaving the marina around 2 15 p.m. and he calls Lacey. Lacey doesn't answer and this is the voicemail that he left. So, Scott leaves for that voicemail, and at about 4.30, he gets back to his warehouse where he left his boat he gets home he sees Lacey isn't home but her car is there and the door is unlocked and the dog is in the backyard with its leash on he thought that that was a bit unusual but he really didn't think too much of it because they had that dinner that night at Lacey's parents' house, so he figured maybe her mom had picked her up and Lacey was over there helping her mom get dinner ready or something. So then Scott puts his clothes in the wash,

grabbed some pizza and milk from the fridge, dumped out the dirty mop water from when Lacey was mopping earlier, and took a shower. Now people think that it's very weird that he put his clothes in the wash right when he got home and he took a shower, but the reality is he was just out fishing and he works with chemicals. So at his warehouse, he's around chemicals and his wife is pregnant. So Scott's like, look, I had just gotten done fishing I work with chemicals I have a pregnant wife I don't want to expose her to that so I showered which honestly I don't think is that weird that doesn't strike me as bizarre so when

Scott gets out of the shower he checks the messages on the home phone remember this is 2002 and he hears his own message to her. So this obviously tells him that she hasn't been home since 2015 when he left her that message. And then there's also a message from Lacey's stepdad. And Lacey's stepdad is asking her to bring over some whipped cream for the pies when they come over later. So now Scott starts to get worried because he thought she was with her mom, but now that he got that message from her stepdad, he has no idea where she is. He calls Lacey's mom just to see if maybe she was there. Lacey's mom said she was not there, and obviously alarm bells

start going off. And Scott says to Lacey's mom, well, the dog is here, the car is here, but Lacey isn't here. Lacey's stepdad immediately calls 911 to report Lacey missing. He tells the dispatcher that Lacey had taken the dog out for a walk in the park that morning, but that the dog returned home without Lacey. And that was the stepfather's knowledge at this point. So the police arrive around 6 p.m. to meet Lacey's parents at the park where she had taken the dog on a walk, allegedly. One of the detectives that was there, Detective Brocchini, suggested that they go to Peterson's house. They go back to the house.

Detective Brocchini immediately starts going through the house, opening drawers, going through things, trying to find any evidence at all. But there was no evidence of forced entry into the house, no evidence of blood, no evidence of a struggle, nothing. That same night, Scott sat down for an interview from about midnight until 1am. The interview went fine. Scott was being cooperative. But the reason that Detective Brocchini wanted to interview Scott in the first place was because he says Scott's until 1 a.m., the interview went fine. Scott was being cooperative, but the reason that Detective Brocchini wanted to interview Scott in the first place was because he says Scott's demeanor was off during the search of the house. Scott was worried about things like them scratching his car. He wanted everyone to use coasters when they were drinking. He didn't seem too concerned about the

fact that his pregnant wife was missing as much as he was concerned about all of these other things. During the interview, Brichini asked Scott if he would be willing to take a polygraph test, and Scott said sure, but Scott didn't end up taking the polygraph test because Scott's family was actually the one that's like, eh, let's wait a little bit, which, whatever, Honestly, I don't really blame them for that. Polygraphs are not 100% accurate, and if you do fail, let's be honest, you are assumed to be 100% guilty. So it's not that crazy in my eyes for his family to not want him to do that, at least for now, right? Like, let's's give it a minute let's see what else develops here and then you know maybe we'll reconsider but it's been one day let's see what happens so during this

interview Scott is essentially recapping his and Lacey's morning what they did what they talked about um Detective Bruchini asked Scott if he remembers what Martha Stewart was cooking on her show that morning just, you know, to get some more details and kind of like corroborate the story. And Scott was just like, I don't know, she was making some kind of meringue or something and that will eventually come into play later and that will be kind of important but the interview was fine Scott was cooperating so Christmas morning the next day so she's been missing for a day now Scott called his parents to tell them that Lacey was missing he was extremely upset Scott's dad actually thought that Scott was trying to say Lacey miscarried because he was so upset

and so hard to understand and this is the same day that media outlets started to show up in the Peterson's neighborhood and neighbors were actually starting to come forward saying that they saw Lacey walking the neighborhood that day. And there actually ended up being about 20 sightings of Lacey walking her dog that day, but there was an issue with corroborating all of this testimony because times were conflicting with each other and honestly the police never really looked that far into these sightings, but nonetheless people did say that they saw her. It's unclear, you know, like I said what time, but many people saw her. I can't imagine there's 20

people that see someone walking their dog in a neighborhood but that's what we got so then the morning after Christmas so the 26th she's been missing for two days this is when the police want to do a formal search of the house the police asked Scott initially if they could search and Scott was fine with it but he wanted to go and to his attorney and get the approval from the attorney because whenever you retain an attorney an attorney will always tell you you know let me make decisions for you essentially when it's when you're part of an investigation so he was waiting to hear back from his attorney but the police got impatient and said well look

we have a warrant anyway so we're're going in. The media took this and spun it like he told the police no, and the police had to use their warrant, but he was actually just waiting to get confirmation from his attorney. So this was at about 5 p.m. on the 26th. So then right around this same time on the 26th, one of the Petersons' neighbors, who had been out of town for Christmas, came home, and they find their house had been robbed while they were away. They called 911 to report the robbery, and within a few days, the guys responsible for the robbery were arrested. And this is where it's a little weird immediately upon being arrested without even being prompted the first thing these guys say is I had nothing to do with the pregnant girl so that's weird I mean it's weird also at the same time I can see the flip side of things that you know if you just so happen to rob

that neighborhood on the day that some pregnant woman went missing and they can't obviously you're going to be a little paranoid that you're going to be tied to that but also if you are tied to that you're going to be paranoid you know so that was kind of odd but nonetheless the police actually do everything to keep this robbery separate and distinct from Lacey's disappearance so a few days after they arrested these guys, they do a press conference and they say that the robbery investigation is over, the guys have been arrested, and that the robbery took place on the 26th. Keep in mind that the 26th was the same day that the neighborhood was flooded with media outlets and it was the house directly across the street

from the Petersons' house that was robbed. So wouldn't you think if there's tons of media vans and news outlets and people outside of Scott Peterson's home that someone would have noticed a home being broken into right across the street. So this robbery could have very well taken place on the 24th and not the 26th, which would have been the day that Lacey went missing. Now the same day that police announced that the robbery investigation is closed, police receive a phone call from a woman by the name of Amber Frey. And if you are familiar with this case, you know who she is. But if you're not, Amber was Scott's mistress.

And Amber essentially calls the police station and tells them that she had been having an affair with Scott and didn't know that Scott was married. And I just feel the need to point something out here. Amber tells the police that her and Scott had only been having an affair for five weeks and had only seen each other four times. Now look, obviously any affair is questionable, but typically when we hear about affairs, the prosecutors use it as a motive as to why that person killed their husband or wife. What the prosecutors will say is, oh, they wanted to be with this other person. They didn't want to be married anymore and they just thought murder was the easiest way out of it. But I can't see someone killing their wife who's eight months pregnant with your first child over a girl he's known for just over a month.

Call me crazy, but I just don't see that being a strong motive. So anyway, the police and Amber then work together to get intel on Scott. So from December 30th onward, Amber is recording all of her calls with Scott and Scott has no idea. Scott had previously told Amber that he was going to Europe for the holidays and what he had told her is that he was married at one time but that he lost his wife and this was going to be the first Christmas without her so he wanted to get away very weird and I don't know if I were just to throw my two cents here I would say that this he was saying this as an excuse so that she didn't expect to see him over the holidays but I well okay I take that back because I was going to say I don't think she would expect

to see him if they've only been seeing each other for five weeks. But then again, if she didn't know he was married and he was single, then why wouldn't they spend New Year's together or something, you know? So, okay, so now it's the 31st, New Year's Eve, 2002. Lacey's family holds a candlelight vigil for Lacey. At this vigil is where a well-known picture was taken of Scott, which was plastered all over the media, and he's holding a candle and almost laughing, and you can literally just google Scott Peterson vigil and this picture will come up. There are two stories here. As with anything, obviously, if you're a media outlet, this is the picture that you're going to put on the front cover, and you're going to say, Scott Peterson doesn't care that his wife is missing,

here he is laughing, having fun, he's not sad at all. But Scott's family said that Scott had just had a nice moment with his niece and he was smiling at her and that was just one of the million pictures that were taken, but that one was used for the clickbait, which I could see happening. Like that's what the media does. So who knows? But then over the course of the next week, Scott and Amber have some interesting phone calls that were obviously recorded. The first one was right after New Year's. And he tells her how he had a great New Year's. He watched fireworks and it was just a great time.

In reality, Scott was attending Lacey's vigil, but he didn't want Amber to know that. So he's making up all these stories about how great his New Year's was. So then on January 6th, Scott calls Amber out of the blue and lets her know that he is the Scott Peterson that's been in the news lately. And that, yes, his wife is missing so she in that phone call plays kind of she she just plays dumb and acts like this is the first time she's hearing about it and she's so shocked yada yada so Scott comes clean and then on January 14th the National Enquirer gets a hold

of a picture of Scott and Amber from a Christmas party. And they actually were nice enough, this is very surprising coming from an outlet like this, but they were nice enough to let the police know that they were going to publish this picture. And at this point, police are like, okay, we need to tell Lacey's parents before this gets out. So the police tell Lacey's parents about Scott's affair. allegedly the first words out of Lacey's mom's mouth was why did he have to kill her. Then on January 24th, so 10 days later, the police hold a very famous press conference where Amber comes out, takes the stand, gets on that mic, and talks about her affair with Scott. After she does this, Scott called Amber to tell her how proud he was of her for coming out with the truth, which I don't know. I don't know what his motive was here. I don't know if it was he's just nuts or he wanted to

look like the good guy. I don't know. So now Scott feels the need to give an interview because there's all this attention on him for having an affair, and he wants the attention back on Lacey so people can work, you know, more to find her. He gets an interview with Diane Sawyer and tells her that Lacey actually knew about the affair. Lacey wasn't happy about it, but Lacey didn't feel the need to end the marriage because of it. And then he puts the nail in his own coffin. And he makes the mistake of referring to her in the past tense. And he says she was I mean is amazing and it was at that point that everyone kind of felt he was

guilty because at this point she had only been missing for about a month so put yourself in those shoes if your husband or wife is missing do you automatically after a month assume they're gone and accept that they're gone and refer to them in the past tense? Or do you talk as if they're still here and as if they're coming home soon? So from here, the case goes stale. It's, you know, he's looked at as the main guy. Everyone thinks he's guilty, but nothing's really happening. They didn't have enough evidence to arrest him. They weren't looking for other leads. They weren't looking into the other guys that

robbed the house to see if maybe they're responsible for anything. So nothing's happening. The cops aren't doing anything. It's just kind of stagnant. And then it takes a very big turn in April. On April 13th and 14th of 2003, two bodies wash up on the shore of the San Francisco Bay about one mile apart from each other. One of those bodies is Lacey's and the other is Connor, her unborn child. Lacey's body was just a torso. Her head and limbs were missing. Her cervix was still intact. There was a piece of tape on Lacey's lower torso. Connor allegedly had a piece of tape wrapped around his neck, the same kind that was on Lacey's torso. His skin was not decomposed at all, but the right side of his body was mutilated and the placenta and umbilical cord were not found with his body. Coroners were

unable to determine Lacey's cause of death due to the deterioration of her body and the condition that it was in, but forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Badden said in an interview that Lacey's head and limbs were probably removed before she was put in the water and that it can't be determined how the baby came out of Lacey's body, but the fact that Connor's skin was not decomposed means that the baby was in Lacey's womb for many months after Lacey was in the water and was likely in Lacey's womb up until shortly before both bodies washed ashore. Now keep in mind these bodies washed up like I said within a mile of each other and one washed up on April 13th and one washed up on April 14th. That is a pretty big coincidence if you ask me. That also makes me believe that

baby Connor was in her body up until shortly before they washed ashore because it's hard to believe that they were so far from shore both got dumped and ended up in relatively the same place. I would think that she carried him with her for a long amount of time. And then obviously that increases the chances of them being found in a similar location. But I know, this is all very gruesome. So four days later on April 18th, Scott is driving in San Diego in La Jolla, which is very close to San Diego, to play golf with his family. But he notices that there were some unmarked cars behind him. He figured it was the media.

So he calls his family and he tells them he can't make it because he didn't want to create a media frenzy at the golf course. And we know this because his phone was tapped so police actually have the call of him calling his family to tell them this so scott just drives around aimlessly he finally ends up going back to the golf course because he doesn't know where else to go and that's when the unmarked cars put their lights on and Scott realizes, oh, this is not the media. This is the cops. When they search his car, they find some interesting things. Four cell phones, not two, but four.

Camping gear, his brother's ID, hiking boots, a shovel, Viagra, a picture of him and Lacey, and $14,000 to $15,000 in cash. Now Scott's mom says there's good reason for this cash in his car. He had loaned her money, she paid him back, and he had not gotten a chance to deposit the cash yet. It's not like he was planning on running away or anything. People also at this time thought that because he had dyed his hair blonde, he was trying to run. He was trying to escape, but his hair had actually been dyed blonde for a while. He had actually done some police, some interviews with the police with blonde hair, so that wasn't something super new like people thought it was, and so yeah, so there's speculation that he's trying to run but Scott's family of course says there's good reason for everything and on April 21st so a few days later

he was arraigned and charged with two counts of trial and they actually moved his trial because originally it was supposed to be in modesto but they thought that the people of modesto were so emotionally connected to this trial that it would be too biased so they moved it to redwood california which really isn't that far so i mean I mean, I don't know. I would feel like everyone in that vicinity kind of has the same emotional connection to the case, but nonetheless, they moved the case to Redwood, and when jury selection started, they actually had to automatically dismiss 50% of the jurors because they were all dead set on the fact that Scott was guilty. The judge also dismissed anyone who was

opposed to the death penalty, and this is important because ultimately the prosecution was going to seek the death penalty in this case, so the judge didn't want people opposed to the death penalty on the jury. And just as a side note, yes, the death penalty is still legal in California, but there has not been an execution in 16 years. I honestly don't know if we'll ever see an execution again in California, but they do have death row nonetheless. So the jury is selected, but the judge also makes an interesting decision. He doesn't sequester the jury, which is interesting considering the magnitude of this case. Typically, in high-profile cases, the judge will sequester the jury so that they don't, you know, go home to their family and talk about the case, or they don't find out any

external information, and they're limited to what is in the courtroom. But in this case, the judge was like, no, you guys are welcome to go home to your families at the end of the day. Feel free. So at trial, the prosecution's case was essentially that Lacey was killed on December 23rd. Scott moved her body to his truck on the morning of the 24th. He took her body to the marina in Berkeley and threw it overboard. Prosecutors say that the motive was that he wanted to be a young guy. He didn't want to be a father. He didn't want to be married. And it would just be easier to kill Lacey rather than get a divorce. The defense says, look, you aren't going to like Scott. Okay. He was cheating on his wife. He has the tendency to lie.

But we're going to prove that he's innocent of murder. And they even play a clip at one point of the Martha Stewart show from that morning where she was making meringue. Why is this important? Because this means that he wasn't making that up, that him and Lacey were watching the Martha Stewart show that morning, and in turn that dispels the prosecution's case that Lacey was killed the night before Christmas Eve, because if she was killed the night before

Christmas Eve, Scott wouldn't have been watching Lacey's favorite show, the Martha Stewart show. Or maybe he would have. Maybe it was a setup. Maybe this whole time he had this plan. But I really don't think so. The whole dynamic of this trial was the prosecution would say something good that would incriminate Scott, and then the defense would have their turn and rebut what the prosecution said, and so it was almost like the prosecution could never really get ahead.

So at one point, the prosecution calls this expert witness as one of their witnesses and goes through the normal questioning and this computer expert witness had prepared a report about the activity on the Peterson's computer and the defense has their opportunity to cross-examine after the prosecution, you know, direct examines their witness. And the defense asks if there was any computer activity in the Peterson home the morning of Christmas Eve. And the expert witness says that, yeah, around 8 40 in the morning, someone was looking at a scarf from Gap and a sunflower umbrella. Well, according to the prosecution, Lacey was dead by 8.40 a.m., but these searches are arguably only searches that would come from a female. Now, keep in mind, this fact wasn't included

in the expert witness's report because that witness was hired by the prosecution so that fact went against everything he was on the stand to say but because he's under oath he has to tell the truth so when he was asked that question he had to tell the truth that yes there was activity on this computer that morning. So the defense purposely asked these key questions because they knew it would have been left out of the report, but it held their case and the jury needed to hear that. So the prosecution then says these searches were done by Scott to cover his tracks and make it look like Lacey was still alive. But then the prosecution changes their story. And they're like, okay, well, if Lacey was on the computer, Scott still had an hour to kill her and clean up the body. So now mid-trial,

the prosecution is switching up their game. That is wild. At this point, the defense is winning. The prosecution doesn't really have any damning evidence. It's looking good for Scott. It's looking like he might get off. But then the trial totally changes with the introduction of the phone call recordings between Scott and Amber. When the jury hears these tapes, there are a few things that are pretty clear. One is that Scott has no problem lying. He can lie through his teeth. Two is that he really isn't that sad. He's talking to Amber as if life is normal. And three is that while all of this stuff is happening, his wife is missing, he's being questioned by the police, he is capable of putting on this entire front that he is in Europe having the time of his life. And that is ultimately what swayed the jury. And the jury rendered a guilty verdict and sentenced him to death. When someone is sentenced to death in California, there are two types of appeals.

And this actually isn't just California either. This is most states that have the death penalty. One is an appeal and one is a state habeas proceeding. There is one mandatory appeal, so to speak, and that's a review. So the state habeas proceeding is basically to confirm the conviction. During this, all of the evidence, all of the routes and avenues that were taken during the trial are re-examined to ensure that the death penalty was the right outcome. When you're dealing with something as serious as life or death,

the habeas proceeding is essential. So let's fast forward to 2012. Scott gets a new team of attorneys and they file an appeal. There are really two main reasons for this appeal. Defective jury selection and admissibility of evidence. The defective jury selection issue is based on the fact that when the jury selection took place, jurors were dismissed if they said they were opposed to the death penalty. Scott's team of attorneys says that this should have never happened. What should have happened is a follow-up question. If someone was opposed to the death penalty, they should have also been asked this question. Even if you don't agree with the law, could you apply the law to the facts of this case? If the juror says yes, they can't be excused based solely on their personal opinion. If they're capable of being impartial and applying the law as it should, then they have every right to be on that jury.

Because when you really think about what happened here, essentially what the judge did by dismissing potential jurors who were opposed to the death penalty, it created a jury that was full of people in favor of the death penalty and more likely to hand down that sentence. That is unfair. Now the evidence portion of the appeal is based on two things. The first is that the state was allowed to admit evidence of a cadaver dog picking up Lacey's scent on the dock at the Berkeley Marina, and Scott's team says this was unreliable evidence. The dog that the state used was named Trimble. In essence, the dog had to pick up Lacey's scent even though Lacey had never stepped foot

on that boardwalk. Even assuming that Scott dumped her body, he had to have carried it from the truck to the boat, and she would have never walked on the boardwalk. So how could the dog pick up her scent? Prior to this, the state had tried these what they call non-contact vehicle trail scents with Trimble, the same dog that they used, and Trimble was wrong 75% of the time, but the jury wasn't allowed to hear that. The second evidence-based issue surrounds defense evidence that was excluded. So the state had this theory, right, that Scott took Lacey's body into his boat, he drove the boat out, and he dumped the body. Well, to rebut that

theory, the defense tested this theory many times with the same exact boat from the same exact manufacturer with the same weight that would have been in the boat if Lacey's body was in it, and the same time of year under the same weather conditions. And what the defense found is that when you try to push a body of that weight off the boat, Scott's tiny boat capsizes. But the judge decided that the defense's test was not similar enough to what the prosecution says occurred, so the defense couldn't admit the tapes of the test. But what Scott's team says is ironic, is that the judge allowed the jurors to go visit the exact boat themselves, on land of course, and when the jurors visited the boat, they tried rocking it back and forth to determine its stability, and obviously

rocking a boat on land is not similar to rocking the boat in the water, but yet the judge allowed this. So those were the main reasons for Scott's appeal. And then in August 2020, nearly eight years after his appeal was filed, the California Supreme Court reversed Scott's death sentence after finding that the potential jurors that were dismissed for opposing the death penalty should have never been dismissed. The judge then sent this case to the lower court where Scott was originally tried and convicted to handle sentencing. A few months later, in December 2020, the judge determined that Scott would be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for Lacey's murder and an additional 15 years for Connor's murder. In the midst of all

this, there is a separate appeal going on. So while all of this is happening, in October of 2020, so after the death penalty was reversed but before his new sentence was given to him, the California Supreme Court also ordered a lower court to re-examine Scott's murder convictions, noting that juror number seven committed prejudicial misconduct by not disclosing her prior involvement with other legal proceedings. So this is what happened there. According to Scott's attorneys, juror number seven, Rochelle Nice, failed to disclose some critical information about herself when the jury selection process was going on. Specifically, she failed to mention that she actually sought a restraining order in November of 2000 while she was four and a half months pregnant because she was scared for her unborn child because of threats from her boyfriend's

ex-girlfriend. She also failed to disclose that she was beaten by her boyfriend in 2001 while she was pregnant with another child. Now, obviously, these two instances are kind of related to Scott's charges. So these were important things for the attorneys to know, and they should have been listed in the voir dire questionnaire that jurors fill out during the selection process. But because she failed to disclose all of this, Scott's attorneys say that her answers on the voir dire questionnaire were false and constituted misconduct and raised the presumption of prejudice. Scott's attorneys also say that Nice intentionally lied to get on the jury in order to convict Scott and put him on death row. So essentially they're saying her goal was to get on this jury because of what she had been through and she wanted to convict Scott. She went into this with bias. And this is exactly what may get Scott Peterson a new trial. Now note that the next hearing that deals with this exact issue is in two days.

It's on August 11th. It was originally scheduled for June 28th, but it was pushed back because one of Scott's attorneys tested positive for COVID. So it's soon. There's clearly a lot of moving parts in this case. I mean, there is a lot going on here. But let me just make it clear that this hearing coming up in a few days is not a new trial, nor does it guarantee him a new trial. So there's two outcomes that can happen here. Either it's determined that there wasn't enough prejudice from this juror's misconduct and his conviction stands and he

spends the rest of his life in jail but he will not get the death penalty or there was substantial prejudice and it's enough to get him a new trial. So we'll see what happens. It's crazy to me that this case was so long ago and yet there's still so much going on. And honestly, I'm not convinced that Scott is Lacey's killer. In order to convict a defendant of murder, the crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And I truly don't know if the evidence in this case carries that weight. Here's my thing. Given the condition that Lacey's body was in when it was found, Scott would have had to have ample time to not only kill her, but dismember her, put her body parts into bags, and dispose of it. Now, I've never killed anyone,

but I would imagine that this takes a long time, which would mean that if Scott killed her, wouldn't he have had to do it the night before she went missing to have the requisite time? He wouldn't have had the time in the morning, at least in my eyes, and also, wouldn't the police have had to have found blood or something in their house or Scott's warehouse? Instead, the only piece of evidence that they found was a piece of Lacey's hair stuck in a pair of rusted pliers on Scott's boat. Now, yes, this is concerning, but at the same time, I leave hair everywhere I go. Most girls actually shed hair constantly. So this really isn't that surprising to me.

And also, if Scott is granted a new trial, he allegedly has experts that will testify that Connor died four to five days after Lacey disappeared. Now, of course, the state has experts that will testify that Connor died in utero, but what if, what if Lacey was kidnapped and her and Connor weren't killed until after she gave birth? I know that sounds crazy because, of course, you do have that idea that they were found relatively close to each other on the shore and this would likely, given the fact that Connor's skin was not decomposed, this would mean that she carried him well into the time that she had been gone. Things just aren't really adding up here.

So yes, Scott was having an affair. He did act a bit unbothered when it happened. He definitely is capable of lying, but does the evidence rise beyond a reasonable doubt? That is the question. So on the next true crime episode, I will briefly recap what happens during Scott's August 11th hearing before I jump into the next true crime story that took place in my hometown on Super Bowl Sunday in 2017 that left three people dead. People that I went to high school with. But don't forget to join me Mondays as well where I give you my unbiased, impartial take on current affairs and the law. And please, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a five-star review on whichever platform that you listen to me on.

And with that, I will talk to you guys soon.