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Peterson stage is set
Modesto Bee
The public’s first real look at evidence against accused double-murderer Scott Peterson is expected Wednesday, when prosecutors begin laying out a legal case that has been under wraps for 10 months.
MITOCHONDRIAL DNA ANALYSIS: Testing process used on the hair that showed it could have been Laci Peterson’s. Less accurate than nuclear DNA analysis. Defense argues that the process is prone to error.
GPS DEVICES: Placed in Peterson’s vehicles without his knowledge. The tracking units use a government satellite network to determine location. Defense argues that the devices were improperly installed, malfunctioned and are inherently inaccurate.
TRACKING DOGS: Indicated that Laci Peterson left the Peterson home in a vehicle and not on foot. Picked up her scent near where the bodies were found on the edge of San Francisco Bay. And, “showed mild interest” in Peterson’s boat and in containers in his warehouse. Defense notes scant precedent for use of dog-tracking evidence in California courts.
HYPNOSIS: Used on at least two potential witnesses. Defense attorneys say authorities did not accurately record prehypnotic memory and that the hypnoses weren’t conducted by an expert without law enforcement present.
One witness might help prosecutors counter eyewitness accounts of Laci Peterson walking her dog after her husband went fishing. Another told police she saw suspicious-looking men near the Peterson home, perhaps helping a defense theory that the pregnant woman was kidnapped.
WIRETAPS: Used to bug Peterson’s phones while he was being investigated. The defense says authorities improperly intercepted 71 calls between Peterson and his defense team. Also, an investigator “purposely omitted” information in affidavits seeking warrants for the wiretaps, the defense says.
AUTOPSIES: Baby’s body was relatively well-preserved, compared to mother’s. Prosecutors might suggest the baby was protected in the womb before being expelled during decomposition. Defenders could contend that Conner was born before being killed, and that Peterson could not have done it because he was under heavy scrutiny.
Also, a thin length of plastic tape circled Conner’s neck 1 1/2 times. Defenders might suggest foul play after birth; others could contend ocean debris.
TOXICOLOGY: Tissue analysis showed caffeine in Laci Peterson’s body but not in Conner’s. Defenders could say that proves Laci consumed caffeine after labor. Others say measurable amounts are not often found in fetuses.
LACI SIGHTINGS: She walked her dog, some people say, in La Loma neighborhood the morning of Christmas Eve — after authorities believe she was murdered. Prosecutors may suggest that the people saw someone else.
VANS: Sighted in the neighborhood at Christmastime — perhaps strengthening a defense theory of kidnapping. One van was seen at a gas station near where a man said he saw Laci Peterson and her dog; another was parked across the street from the Peterson home the day she was reported missing, a witness said.
SUBPOENAS: Issued by prosecutors to Scott Peterson’s parents, Lee and Jackie, as potential witnesses. The Petersons called it a ruse to keep them from proclaiming their son’s innocence, because a gag order bars witnesses from discussing the case.
DEC. 26: Police search the Petersons’ Covena Avenue home and confiscate Scott Peterson’s 2002 Ford F-150 pickup, his wife’s Land Rover sport utility vehicle, two computers and other items. A volunteer search center opens at the Red Lion Hotel. Volunteers start posting thousands of fliers with Laci Peterson’s photo and a reward notice.
DEC. 27: Investigators search a Modesto warehouse Scott Peterson used in his work as a fertilizer salesman and investigate his alibi at the Berkeley Marina.
DEC. 28: The search moves 10 miles west of Modesto, to 4,000 acres of wetlands along the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers.
DEC. 30: The handler of a bloodhound says she believes that Laci Peterson left her home in a vehicle, not on foot.
DEC. 31: Police say foul play has become the main focus of the investigation. More than 1,000 people attend a candlelight vigil.
JAN. 2, 2003: Police ask the public for help verifying Scott Peterson’s story that he was fishing.
JAN. 4: Teams, including dogs and divers, search the water and shore of San Francisco Bay near the Berkeley Marina and north to Brooks Island.
JAN. 6: Divers begin three days of searching at Tulloch Lake.
JAN. 9: Police say they have received 2,610 tips, with about 300 of them worthy of follow-up.
JAN. 10: A judge authorizes a wiretap on Peterson’s phones.
JAN. 11: Divers again take to the water near Berkeley, after sonar detects an object that might be a body. The object turns out to be an anchor.
JAN. 16: A relative of Laci Peterson says police told her family that Scott Peterson had an affair.
MID-JANUARY: Scott Peterson hires a psychic investigator.
JAN. 19: Scott Peterson spearheads a one-day effort to post missing-person fliers in Los Angeles.
JAN. 21: Scott Peterson calls the report about the affair “a bunch of lies.”
JAN. 24: Police call a news conference and introduce 27-year-old Amber Frey of Fresno, who says she had a romantic relationship with Scott Peterson.
JAN. 28: Scott Peterson, in an interview on “Good Morning America,” cries when talking about his missing wife and their son. He says he did not kill her and had nothing to do with her disappearance. He says he told police Christmas Eve about his affair with Frey. Peterson says that he told his wife about the affair and that she had made peace with it.
FEB. 4: Modesto used car dealer Doug Roberts gives Laci Peterson’s Land Rover to her family. He says he took the vehicle in trade when Scott Peterson purchased a 2002 Dodge Ram pickup a week before. Prosecutors disconnect the first wiretap on Peterson’s phones.
FEB. 8: About 350 people turn out for the first of three Saturday searches planned by Laci Peterson’s family.
FEB. 10: Laci Peterson’s due date arrives. Her sister and friends meet just after sunset for a candlelight vigil at East La Loma Park. Frey turns 28. Nude photos of Frey taken four years earlier begin to hit the tabloids.
FEB. 18-19: Police search the Peterson home again and a storage facility Scott Peterson rented.
MARCH 5: Police reclassify the Laci Peterson case as a homicide.
APRIL 13: Someone discovers the body of a baby boy in south Richmond, on the eastern shore of the bay.
APRIL 14: A woman walking her dog finds the body of a woman lodged in rocks at Point Isabel Regional Shoreline.
APRIL 15: A judge authorizes a second wiretap on Peterson’s phone.
APRIL 18: Modesto police arrest Scott Peterson in San Diego on two counts of murder. His hair is lighter and he has more than $10,000 in cash in his possession. State Attorney General Bill Lockyer confirms that the bodies found near the bay are those of Laci Peterson and her son, Conner. Second wiretap ends.
APRIL 21: Scott Peterson is arraigned in Stanislaus County and pleads not guilty.
APRIL 25: District Attorney James Brazelton announces that he will seek the death penalty for Scott Peterson.
MAY 2: Los Angeles defense attorney Mark Geragos, whose clients have included former Rep. Gary Condit of Ceres and actress Winona Ryder, takes over as Scott Peterson’s lead attorney.
MAY 4: An estimated 3,000 people fill First Baptist Church in Modesto for a memorial service for Laci Peterson on her 28th birthday.
MAY 5: Geragos says that he will not only prove his client’s innocence, but he also will find who killed Laci Peterson.
MAY 19: Frey hires attorney Gloria Allred. Frey says she is prepared to testify at Peterson’s trial.
MAY 28: Laci Peterson’s family hires attorneys in an attempt to retrieve some of her belongings. They include her wedding dress, china and a crib.
MAY 30: Laci Peterson’s family and friends remove truckloads of items from the slain Modesto woman’s house, touching off controversy between her family and that of her husband.
JUNE 3: The district attorney’s office reports that law enforcement agents have found a brown van that defense attorneys claim might have been involved in Laci Peterson’s disappearance. Prosecutors say investigators have determined that the van has no connection to the case.
JUNE 12: Judge Al Girolami issues a gag order limiting public statements by people associated with the Peterson case.
JULY 22: In court documents, Geragos says evidence “totally exonerates” Peterson and would tip off the true killers if made public.
AUG. 11: Defense attorneys and a pair of experts examine the remains of Laci Peterson and her son, looking for evidence to clear their client.
AUG. 12: Peterson’s defense team briefs two forensic experts on a satanic cult theory, including paintings and artwork near the bay and an experiment suggesting that the pregnant woman’s body could have been placed in the water nearby.
SEPT. 19: Reports surface that Cory Lee Carroll, a Fresno County inmate, says Peterson broached the idea of kidnapping his wife during a meeting with two members of a neo-Nazi gang about a month before she disappeared from her Modesto home.
SEPT 20: Lee Peterson, Scott’s father, disputes Carroll’s claim of a Nov. 29 meeting with Scott Peterson, saying that Scott and Laci were in San Diego until noon that day.
“Everything will be a revelation to us,” said Ruth Jones, a criminal law professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and a former prosecutor. “This case is unique in that sense.”
Peterson’s preliminary hearing, which likely will last five days, could demonstrate the strength of the prosecution’s case and outline the possible trial.
The hearing that begins Wednesday is to determine whether there is enough evidence to try Peterson in the deaths of his 27-year-old wife, Laci, and their son, Conner. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
It’s unclear how much evidence the prosecution will unveil at the hearing, because it’s relatively easy to have a defendant held for trial. For that reason, the defense rarely calls witnesses, protecting them from cross-examination.
But this case is different, legal observers said, pointing to widespread public scrutiny that has influenced legal tactics and might affect the trial.
“There are two battles going on here,” San Francisco Deputy District Attorney James Hammer said. “The legal battle and the PR battle.”
In the legal battle, attorneys are poised to spar over an array of evidence the defense wants kept out of court, including information from wiretaps, electronic tracking devices, DNA testing and scent-tracking dogs.
The judge also is to hear a defense argument that a potentially key piece of evidence — a single hair found attached to a pair of needle-nose pliers in Peterson’s boat — likely was “altered” while in police possession.
Prosecutors contend that the hair simply broke inside an evidence bag.
The hair could be a critical piece of physical evidence linking Laci Peterson to the boat her husband said he took fishing on Christmas Eve, the day she was reported missing.
The defense’s challenge of the evidence signals a wider tactic of trying to show that investigators acted improperly, echoing the O.J. Simpson murder trial, legal observers said. A jury acquitted the former football star in 1995 of killing his ex-wife and her friend.
“It’s a very important strategy,” said Professor George Bisharat, a criminal procedure specialist at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. “You
really saw the potential impact in the sense that there was law enforcement wrongdoing in the O.J. Simpson case.”
Frey heightens interest
Like the Simpson case, the disappearance of Laci Peterson, a pretty substitute teacher with deep dimples and a captivating smile, has become staple fare for cable television, supermarket tabloids and newspapers on both coasts.
A Fresno massage therapist stoked interest in January when she announced she had been romantically involved with Scott Peterson before his wife disappeared.
Police said Amber Frey, 28, cooperated with their investigation. Partial phone records show she called Peterson dozens of times while investigators tapped his phones, often calling a detective immediately after hanging up with Peterson.
Frey’s testimony is among the most anticipated, although prosecutors and her attorney have refused to say whether she will testify at the preliminary hearing.
In addition to tapping his phones, police searched Peterson’s home twice and tracked his movements, although they refused to name him as a suspect or rule him out.
For months, hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement personnel scoured fields, reservoirs and waterways from the Sierra foothills to San Francisco Bay for Laci Peterson.
In April, passers-by discovered Laci Peterson’s decomposed body and that of her son about a mile apart along the eastern shore of the bay, several miles from where Peterson had said he gone fishing.
He was arrested days later outside the Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla sporting a goatee and lightened hair. He had more than $10,000 cash with him, a law enforcement source said.
The 30-year-old fertilizer salesman has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail in Stanislaus County Jail.
Defense attorneys maintain that police ignored information that pointed to the “actual perpetrators,” focusing exclusively on Peterson from “Day One.”
Cults, a mystery van, gangs
Speculation has swirled around reports of a suspicious van in the neighborhood, satanic cults and a Fresno inmate who said Peterson talked to neo-Nazi gang members about kidnapping and murdering his wife.
Judges have sealed most of the normally public documents in the case, first in an attempt to protect an ongoing investigation, then citing Peterson’s right to a fair trial. Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami imposed a gag order that extended from attorneys to potential witnesses to court employees.
The moves largely have thwarted glimpses into the case. But Wednesday, the shroud is expected to lift, at least partly.
“Yes, there is some circumstantial evidence: He was a bad husband, had a mistress — which may have given him a motive — but what evidence do you have that links him to the crime?” said Jones, the criminal law professor. “What evidence do you have that links him to the date, time and place and perhaps manner of the killing?”
It remains to be seen how much of that information Senior Deputy District Attorneys Rick Distaso and Dave Harris will unveil.
“Over 99 percent of the time, the judge decides there is enough evidence to proceed to trial,” said Hammer, the San Francisco prosecutor. “It’s a very low standard.”
Because the standard of proof at a preliminary hearing is so low, prosecutors often reveal only what they need, shielding some witnesses from potentially grueling cross-examination until the trial, Bisharat said.
California law also allows police investigators to testify at preliminary hearings in place of witnesses they interviewed. That allows the information to be brought out in court without exposing the witness.
“Testifying is hard, particularly for members of the family who have to testify to emotional topics,” Jones said. “You try not to have them go through that again.”
Holding back some witnesses also removes the possibility that they will testify differently at the preliminary hearing than at the trial.
“There will always be discrepancies that will be exploited, inconsistencies that will be made to diminish the credibility of the witness at trial,” Bisharat said.
The defense “almost never” puts on witnesses at a preliminary hearing, protecting them from cross-examination and preserving a degree of surprise, Bisharat said.
Since the accused likely will be held for trial, defense attorneys typically have little incentive to present evidence and reveal part of their strategy.
But traditional approaches might not apply in this case.
Court of public opinion
With national TV and print media poised to disseminate most elements of the preliminary hearing online and in broadcasts from outside the courthouse, some experts said it would damage Peterson if his attorneys did not put up a vigorous defense.
Lead defense attorney Mark Geragos had sought to close the hearing to the public, a request Girolami and a state appeals court rejected.
Now the defense appears poised to try to damage investigators on the stand, contending that they installed tracking devices incorrectly, withheld information from a judge when they requested search warrants and monitored calls between Peterson and his attorney.
“The thing for them is to take away the near-certainty of guilt,” Hammer said. “One of the main defense goals is to put on other witnesses that the investigators ignored. Not just putting them on, but putting that information before the investigators and embarrassing them. It’s both that he’s not guilty and that the police rushed to judgment.”
The defense team in the O.J. Simpson double-murder murder trial followed a similar line, producing witnesses at the preliminary hearing to counter massive negative publicity, Jones said.
Stanislaus County District Attorney James Brazelton said in June that part of the reason he wanted a preliminary hearing was to debunk rumors and speculation about the case.
“The longer this drags on, the more stories get bandied about out there,” Brazelton said, “By putting on a prelim, they’re going to see some stuff that might open some eyes.”
Hearing’s side effects
But opting for a preliminary hearing rather than indicting Peterson through a closed grand jury proceeding could have side effects for the prosecution.
“The only advantage is the court of public opinion, and maybe to vindicate their reputation. Their reputation has been attacked,” Hammer said. “(Prosecutors) just want to blast them with their evidence. You can do it, but say goodbye to the thought of keeping (the trial) in Modesto.”
By laying out its case in an open hearing, prosecutors are ensuring that a trial would be moved because potential jurors would be tainted by hearing too much about the case, Hammer said.
Jones countered that the Simpson trial was held in Los Angeles County after prosecutors opted for a preliminary hearing.
Geragos has said he will ask to move the trial. That motion will likely come as the trial nears, allowing both sides to get a more accurate assessment of potential juror bias.
Prosecutors initially said they would oppose a motion to move the trial outside Stanislaus County, but they since have indicated they might support a move if it were clear Peterson couldn’t get a fair trial in Modesto.
The prosecution’s decision could also reflect a determination that the odds already are high that a judge would move the trial, Bisharat said.
“If the granting of such a motion is likely anyway, why not take this benefit now?” he said.
In rulings and comments from the bench, Girolami has indicated that he would prefer not to move the trial, but he has left open the possibility.
Still, the breadth of the media coverage could rule out a large group of potential jurors anywhere in the state, Hammer said.
“You end up kicking off well-read, well-informed people,” he said. “You’ll have people who don’t read, who don’t talk to their friends about the news. You have to ask yourself, ‘Who are those people?’ Hermits and bums.”
Bee staff writer Garth Stapley contributed to this report.
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