Case of convicted killer Scott Peterson taken up by LA Innocence Project
The LA Innocence Project has reportedly taken up the case of Scott Peterson, who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife in 2004.
The organisation’s mission is to exonerate the wrongly convicted and free the wrongfully incarcerated. Peterson, 51, was sentenced to death following his conviction, but this was overturned in 2020.
ABC reports that the LA Innocence Project is seeking new evidence from the original trial. Peterson pleaded not guilty to the charges and his legal team has maintained his innocence.
In a statement shared with The Independent, a spokesperson for the group said: “The Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP) represents Scott Peterson and is investigating his claim of actual innocence.”
Laci Peterson was 27 years old and eight months pregnant at the time of her death in December 2002. She and Peterson had been married for five years.
According to prosecutors, Peterson dumped his wife’s body in the Berkeley Marina on Christmas Eve of that year and attempted to make it seem as if she had gone missing.
After her body later washed ashore, Peterson’s lawyers argued that she was murdered after she came upon a burglary.
In 2004, Peterson was convicted of murder, and he was sentenced to death in 2005. The sentence was overturned in 2020 by the California Supreme Court.
He was resentenced in 2021 to life in prison without the possibility of parole and moved off death row in October 2022.
Peterson was denied a new trial two months later.
The decision came more than a year after the California Supreme Court ordered Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo to review if juror misconduct led to Peterson getting an unfair trial.
His legal team argued that juror seven, a woman called Richelle Nice, had not been telling the truth and had concealed information regarding her private life which they claimed was conflicting.
