Scott Peterson case update: Stanislaus County DA plans to re-try death penalty phase

The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office announced in court Friday it plans to retry Scott Peterson’s penalty phase after the California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence in August.

Peterson, 47, appeared at the hearing remotely via video conference from San Quentin Prison. With a buzzed haircut, he wore a blue-collared shirt and blue mask. He only spoke twice to acknowledge he would temporarily waive time in the case to consult with his attorney, Pat Harris.

“An innocent man has been sitting in jail for 15 years. It’s time to get him out,” Harris told reporters outside the courtroom before the hearing. “It’s been 15 long years and you can imagine your ups and downs, but overall he is very happy that the court has taken a look at the motions, taken a look at the evidence, and has given him two separate chances here so we are excited about that.”

The Supreme Court overturned Peterson’s death sentence on the grounds the trial judge in San Mateo County Superior Court, the late Al Delucchi, wrongly excluded 13 potential jurors. The trial was moved from Modesto to Redwood City because of the pretrial publicity.

The jurors had stated they were opposed to the death penalty, but Delucchi failed to determine whether they could put their beliefs aside and follow the law, according to the court’s unanimous opinion. Delucchi died in 2008.

In the same opinion, which was made in response to Scott Peterson’s automatic appeal of his death sentence, the court upheld his 2004 conviction for killing his wife, Laci Peterson, and the couple’s unborn son, Conner.

But last week, the court made a ruling in Peterson’s petition for habeas corpus, which could lead to his conviction being overturned. Unlike the automatic appeal, which focuses on alleged errors made by the trial judge, the petition can introduce new evidence to show the conviction or sentence was wrong.

San Mateo court considers juror misconduct

The court ruled that a San Mateo Superior Court judge must decide whether prejudicial misconduct by a juror occurred when she failed to disclose that she’d been the victim of a crime and obtained a restraining order against the perpetrator.

Pat Harris told reporters it could take two to four months to resolve whether Peterson will get a new trial.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Dave Harris — who is not related to Pat Harris and appeared remotely over video conference with District Attorney Birgit Fladager — said the District Attorney’s Office wants to wait for the outcome from San Mateo County Superior Court before beginning jury selection in the penalty phase.

But he said the office was working under a tight deadline of 60 days from the date the case was remanded to Stanislaus Superior Court on Sept. 24 and could only wait if Peterson agreed to waive time until after the hearing in San Mateo Superior Court.

Peterson’s attorney, Pat Harris, initially wouldn’t agree to a time waiver until the DA announced on the record its intentions with the penalty phase.

Dave Harris responded, “At this point in time, we are on a track to retry the case.”

Pat Harris agreed to a “limited time waiver” of two weeks so he had time to talk with Peterson. The next hearing in Stanislaus Superior Court will be Nov. 6.

Asked why her office decided to retry the penalty phase Fladager said by email, “I won’t be making any comments outside the courtroom in order to comply with ethical rules governing attorney conduct.”

Hearing draws ‘Fox News’ and ‘Inside Edition’

Pat Harris — who was part of Peterson’s original defense team — told reporters after the hearing that the District Attorney’s Office should have informed him of their decision to retry the case before the hearing so he’d had time to discuss the options with his client.

“Given the fact that we were sandbagged today with this decision, I am going to have to have some time ...to be able to talk to Mr. Peterson and see how we will move forward,” he said. “There is a very good likelihood we will (waive time). But we are not going to make that decision sitting there five seconds at the counsel table” with Peterson not available.

The hearing was attended by Scott Peterson’s brother Joe and sister-in-law Janey as well as members from the media. The hearing drew more than two dozen media members from Sacramento and Bay Area TV stations as well as a producer from “Fox News” and a crew from “Inside Edition.”

But only 14 people were allowed in the courtroom to maintain social distancing under COVID-19 precautions. The video conference of the hearing was live-streamed with more than 100 people watching. No one from Laci’s family was at the hearing and Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, has not responded to requests for comment.

Janey Peterson told reporters before the hearing: “We still need justice. We still need justice for Laci, Connor and Scott. We don’t have justice for Laci with Scott on death row because Scott is innocent. Whether we are back in court to try a new penalty phase or whether we are back in court to do the whole trial over, we will be able to present the evidence that shows that.”

Pat Harris said he believes the jury pool will be different this time, saying TV news personalities like Nancy Grace were painting Scott Peterson as guilty before his 2004 trial even began.

“At one point we took a poll … and it actually showed more people believed the moon landing was fake than believed Scott Peterson was innocent, and that was before any evidence was ever presented.”

“Unfortunately the atmosphere at that time was mass hysteria and hatred of Scott Peterson,” Pat Harris said. “Fifteen years later we hope that that has died down some and we hope the actual evidence will get heard and this will get decided on evidence and not emotion.”