California Supreme Court Overturns Scott Peterson’s Death Sentence

Ruling in one of the most sen­sa­tion­al­ized tri­als of the ear­ly 2000s, the California Supreme Court has over­turned the death sen­tence imposed on Scott Peterson for the mur­ders of his preg­nant wife, Laci, and their unborn son in December 2002. The court upheld Peterson’s con­vic­tions for the two murders.

In an opin­ion authored by Justice Leondra Kruger (pic­tured), the court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that Peterson had been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death as a result of ​“a series of clear and sig­nif­i­cant errors in jury selec­tion that … under­mined [his] right to an impar­tial jury at the penalty phase.” 

The California high court found that Peterson’s tri­al judge improp­er­ly exclud­ed numer­ous prospec­tive jurors from serv­ing on the case based sole­ly on writ­ten respons­es to the jury ques­tion­naire in which they expressed per­son­al oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. More than a dozen of these jurors, Justice Kruger wrote, had indi­cat­ed in respons­es to oth­er ques­tions that they would be will­ing to impose the death penal­ty in some cas­es. Nonetheless, the tri­al court refused defense counsel’s request to ques­tion the jurors about their abil­i­ty to fol­low the law. 

The tri­al court’s actions, Kruger said, vio­lat­ed ​“long-stand­ing United States Supreme Court prece­dent” that jurors’ per­son­al views about the death penal­ty can dis­qual­i­fy them from serv­ing on a cap­i­tal case only if their views ​“would sub­stan­tial­ly impair [their] abil­i­ty to fol­low the law .… [A] juror may not be dis­missed mere­ly because he or she has expressed oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty as a gen­er­al mat­ter,” the court said.

Justice Kruger lament­ed that inad­e­quate ques­tion­ing of jurors has been a con­tin­u­ing prob­lem in California cap­i­tal cas­es, despite clear guid­ance from both the U.S. and California Supreme Courts. She crit­i­cized the tri­al court and pros­e­cu­tors for allow­ing the error to occur and wast­ing court and taxpayer resources. 

“Because the tri­al court failed to devel­op a record suf­fi­cient to sup­port excusal of jurors for cause, and because the pros­e­cu­tion did not speak up as these errors were occur­ring to ensure an ade­quate record, the penal­ty phase in this case was over before it ever began,” she wrote. ​“It is in no one’s inter­est for a cap­i­tal case to begin with the cer­tain­ty that any ensu­ing death ver­dict will have to be reversed and the entire penal­ty case retried.”

The lurid details of Peterson’s case attract­ed wide­spread tabloid and ​“true crime” atten­tion as the media chron­i­cled the events fol­low­ing the Christmas Eve ​“dis­ap­pear­ance” of Laci Peterson, who was near­ly 8‑months preg­nant. Four months lat­er, her body and the body of the fetus washed ashore, draw­ing fur­ther media atten­tion. Coverage also includ­ed exposés of Peterson’s secret dou­ble life, his attempt to alter his appear­ance appar­ent­ly to flee the coun­try, and his con­tin­ued protes­ta­tions of innocence. 

The mas­sive media cov­er­age caused the tri­al to be moved from Modesto, California to San Mateo County. Peterson argued on appeal that the tri­al should have been moved a sec­ond time to Los Angeles County because the respons­es to the jury ques­tion­naires showed that expo­sure to the media had caused hun­dreds of prospec­tive jurors to con­clude that Peterson was guilty. The court denied that claim and upheld Peterson’s convictions.

Prosecutors must now decide whether to pur­sue a sec­ond cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing tri­al or resolve the case with a sen­tence of life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.