California attorney general calls Scott Peterson’s latest claims ‘baseless fishing expedition’

The California Attorney General’s Office called Scott Peterson’s latest effort to have his murder conviction overturned “a baseless fishing expedition.”

After a judge in December rejected the juror misconduct claim from Peterson’s first petition for habeas corpus, he filed a second petition in April claiming to have new evidence that supports his theory that his wife, Laci, was killed by men she’d witnessed burglarizing a neighbor’s home on Christmas Eve 2002.

The latest petition, filed in California’s First District Court of Appeal, also alleges law enforcement suppressed evidence and prosecutors presented false evidence about the burglary during Peterson’s 2004 trial, which concluded with his convictions for murdering Laci and their unborn son, Conner.

The AG’s office, in its 151-page response filed last month, said the jury already rejected the burglar theory, as did the Supreme Court in its 2020 rulings on Peterson’s automatic appeal and first habeas petition.

The response says Peterson’s petition reprises old claims with a “different gloss,” like the false-evidence claim regarding the burglary, which was previously presented as ineffective assistance of counsel, and a false-evidence claim regarding expert testimony on Conner’s fetal age, both of which already were denied by the Supreme Court.

While the theory that burglars killed Laci has been part of Peterson’s defense from the beginning, his latest petition includes declarations from two new witnesses who said they heard a man confess to the murder.

Under California Law, a conviction can be overturned if “new evidence exists that is credible, material, presented without substantial delay and of such decisive force and value that it would have more likely than not changed the outcome at trial.”

Peterson argued that the confession would have changed the outcome.

It came to light in August 2022, about a week after the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing for the juror misconduct claim from Peterson’s first habeas petition — the one rejected in December.

A woman messaged Peterson’s sister-in-law Janey Peterson on Twitter. Janey Peterson, a staunch believer in Scott’s innocence, has been intimately involved in his legal proceedings and even attended law school, passing the state bar in May. She also maintains a website and social media pages that detail Scott’s appeal process.

AG calls declarations ‘unreliable and untrustworthy’

The woman on Twitter told Janey Peterson she knew of a man who, during a gathering a few months earlier, confessed that he and two others burglarized the home of Susan and Rodolfo Medina, across the street from the Peterson home on Covena Avenue. He said they were dragging a safe out of the home when Laci saw and confronted them, threatening to call police.

According to the petition, this man told the witnesses, ”they could not afford to get caught. They had to shut her up ... the men he was with killed Laci.” He also said that they dumped Laci’s body in the San Francisco Bay after hearing on the news that Scott Peterson had been fishing there the day of her disappearance, according to the petition.

Peterson’s petition identified the man, as well as the witnesses who gave signed declarations saying they heard his confession, only by their initials.

The AG’s Office alleges the materials are invalid because Peterson did not file a motion or obtain an order permitting the information to be sealed.

Furthermore, “even charitably construing the declarations as containing new information, they are not competent evidence because they contain hearsay that is so wholly unreliable and untrustworthy as to be inadmissible,” according to the AG’s response.

The response questions why neither of the witnesses, Janey Peterson, or anyone on Scott’s defense team went to police about the confession. It says the petition doesn’t explain why they chose not to. And it said it was unsurprising a defense investigator never was able to locate the man who allegedly made the confession.

“Indeed, all involved have consistently taken steps to hide the identity of these new witnesses from the authorities, preventing any investigation,” the AG’s response says.

While Peterson’s team didn’t go to police when it got the information last year, Janey Peterson told The Bee they tried to provide the unredacted petition and declarations to county officials in May. She said a scheduled meeting was canceled after it was determined the AG’s office would be handling the response.

“We attempted to hand over new evidence of a crime — new evidence of who was involved in Laci’s abduction and murder — but the authorities didn’t want it,” Janey Peterson said.

District Attorney Jeff Laugero responded Wednesday, “If the AG did not review it or accept the information, I am more than willing to meet with the defense team for the information.”

Burglary, disappearance timelines don’t coincide, state says

Two men were arrested in January 2003 in connection with the Medina burglary, and one of them confessed, saying the crime was committed Dec. 26, 2002.

“The police should have known that the last thing any suspect in the burglary is going to do is put themselves on Covena Avenue on Christmas Eve, the day Laci went missing,” Peterson’s petition reads. But he contends that’s exactly when it happened.

The AG’s Office says, “No matter how much (Peterson) attempts to manipulate the timeline of Laci’s disappearance and the Medina burglary so as to make them coincide, the evidence adduced at trial does not support it. Nor is there any credible evidence that even if the two events did coincide on the same date — December 24 — the burglars would have encountered Laci because she had disappeared before the burglary occurred.”

The evidence presented at Peterson’s trial was that he left their home home around 10:08 a.m. and returned around 5:15 p.m.; neighbor Karen Servas found the Petersons’ dog running loose with its leash attached and put it in their backyard at about 10:18 a.m.; the Medinas left home about 10:30 a.m. and burglars broke in sometime between then and Dec. 26, when the Medinas returned.

The prosecution said that for the defense’s burglar theory to be true, Laci would have been abducted while walking her dog during the 10-minute window from when Peterson left to when Servas found the dog and put it back in the yard.

Peterson argues in his petition that Laci could have been abducted any time during an approximately six-hour window beginning shortly after 10: 18 a.m., when Servas put the dog in the backyard, and before 5:15 p.m., when Scott returned home.

He points to a declaration by Russell Graybill, the Petersons’ postman. Graybill said in a declaration filed with Peterson’s first petition that the gate to the Peterson home was open when he arrived to deliver mail between 10:35 and 10:50 a.m. and that he did not hear the dog bark as it usually would.

“This was some 15 to 30 minutes after Servas had put the dog back into the yard and closed the gate, indicating Laci had gone on her walk after Servas put the dog away,” Peterson’s petition says.

The AG’s office said Graybill’s declaration was contradicted by his trial testimony that there was nothing out of the ordinary at the Peterson home that morning.

The AG’s response says Peterson’s defense team had the opportunity to call as witnesses several people who said they saw Laci walking her dog after 10:18 a.m. but didn’t because the statements would have conflicted with Servas’ testimony. Peterson said in his first petition that counsel thought it possible the jury would find the witnesses “were either mistaken or not credible,’” the response says.

Likewise, Peterson’s defense had one of the convicted Medina burglars on its witness list but didn’t call him, either. “The reasonable inference is that (Peterson’s) trial counsel vetted (the burglar) and found that he would not be helpful to (his) defense,” the response says.

The response was filed July 28. On the same day, the court granted Peterson’s request for appointment of counsel, which will have 60 days to reply to the AG’s response.