Featured Image Credit: Getty Images
Topics: Documentary, True Crime
Marissa Dow
Sorry to add to your “the world is falling apart” anxiety, but Scott Peterson has a reason to be a household name again. The new Peacock documentary Face to Face with Scott Peterson presents an alarming inside look at Scott’s renewed determination to overturn the 2004 conviction that resulted in him being sentenced to life in prison. Scott’s wife Laci, who was eight months pregnant at the time with their son Connor, went missing in December of 2002, on Christmas Eve. Laci and the fetus’ bodies were later discovered washed ashore of the San Francisco Bay. Scott was tried and convicted by a jury of his peers two years later after a five-month trial for their murders, but there’s now a group trying to change all of that by taking up Peterson’s case. The LA Innocence Project (which is a separate entity from the nationally recognizable Innocence Project) has shared its beliefs about why Scott is innocent in deep detail throughout Face to Face. But with the amount of information out there about the horrifying cases’ resurgence, a breakdown of all the updates about Scott Peterson’s alleged innocence feels very necessary.
The LA Innocence Project announces they are taking on Scott Peterson’s case as they believe he was denied constitutional rights during his 2004 trial. In the filings, they allege “new evidence now supports Mr. Peterson’s longstanding claim of innocence and raises many questions” that will exonerate Scott, as first reported by ABC News. In addition to a detailed plea via letter to the court, Scott’s new defense filed three motions, which they are convinced will lead to earning Scott’s freedom.
At a hearing for the first of the three motions, the judge dismisses the first request presented by Scott’s team. This motion was designed to seal the proceedings of Scott’s forthcoming trial which would protect the identities of future witnesses called. Legal scholars say is an action intended to encourage witnesses to come forward and reduce prejudice surrounding a trial (something defenders of Scott Peterson say the media circus of the first trial made impossible).
The second motion is presented to the court in May of 2024, regarding DNA testing for more than twelve items Scott’s defense claimed were overlooked, ignored, or missed during the original trial. The judge rules only one of the new pieces of potential evidence presented by Scott Peterson’s defense team could be retested: a piece of duct tape. A hearing was set for July to determine how the duct tape will be tested. In a major loss to theories asserted by Peterson’s defense, a mattress found in a stolen van that was already tested in 2019 was not allowed to be re-tested. The LA Innocence Project alleged the mattress could have blood on it related to the case, but the judge agreed with the prosecution that there was no evidence to support this claim.
A hearing occurs to determine where the one piece of new DNA testing will happen. The defense and the prosecution’s preferred labs for the duct tape were declined by the judge who ultimately suggested a third approved lab.
On July 15 and July 16, a motion to enter new post-trial evidence related to the burglary into discovery is brought before a judge. This evidence includes multiple items including a tennis watch the defense alleges was possibly stolen from Laci and pawned, and witness testimony. During this hearing, the defense pushes to include the testimony of corrections officer Xavier Aponte, who has sworn he heard phone recordings from inmates linking Laci to the burglary that happened next door. Scott’s defense insists this burglary could have happened on the same day Laci went missing. The prosecution who convicted Scott maintained in Face to Face that the robbery happened two days after Laci went missing. The current DA representing the state against Scott also has evidence to support their office’s belief that accounts from Xavier Aponte and other prison informants are nothing more than “jailhouse rumors.” The judge is set to make a ruling on what will be included in 90 days.