State Supreme Court throws out Scott Peterson’s death sentence

Convicted double-murderer Scott Peterson had his death sentence reversed Monday but his convictions upheld by a unanimous California Supreme Court that ruled his San Mateo trial was tainted by the exclusion of jurors who opposed the death penalty.

Peterson was convicted of first- and second-degree murder for killing his pregnant wife and unborn son at their Modesto home and dumping their bodies in San Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve in 2002.

The high court ruled Peterson deserves a new penalty determination because the late Alameda County Superior Court Judge Alfred Delucchi erroneously dismissed more than a dozen prospective jurors based solely on their written questionnaire responses expressing opposition to the death penalty. The excused jurors gave no indication that their views would prevent them from recommending death if it was warranted, and they were never asked if they could set those views aside, states the 103-page opinion, authored by Justice Leondra R. Kruger. People v. Peterson, 2020 DJDAR 9221.

"We are certainly grateful for the California Supreme Court's unanimous recognition that if the state wishes to put someone to death, it must proceed to trial with only a fairly selected jury," Cliff Gardner, Peterson's lead appellate attorney, said in an email Monday.

Gardner said he looks forward to the high court's review of "new forensic and eyewitness evidence of innocence presented in Mr. Peterson's separate and still pending state habeas petition." In re: Scott Peterson, S230782.

According to the court's opinion, Delucchi "made a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection that, under long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent, undermined Peterson's right to an impartial jury at the penalty phase," Kruger wrote. Witherspoon v. Illinois , 391 U.S. 510 (1968); Wainright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412 (1985).

Because the court and prosecution failed to develop a sufficient record to support excusing the jurors, "the penalty phase in this case was over before it ever began," Kruger added.

Prosecutors in Stanislaus County, where the case originated before a change of venue, can seek a new death penalty trial or agree to re-sentence Peterson to life in prison without the possibility of parole. District Attorney Birgit Fladager did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Peterson was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to death in 2005 for killing his wife, Laci, and his unborn son, Connor, at their Modesto home in 2002. Their bodies were found a day apart in 2003, washed ashore in San Francisco Bay nearly a mile from where Peterson said he went fishing the day they went missing.

Peterson's trial was moved to San Mateo County after pretrial surveys showed most prospective jurors in Stanislaus County had been exposed to pretrial publicity. Surveys conducted in San Mateo County after the change of venue also showed that 96% of prospective jurors had been exposed to pretrial publicity and nearly half said they thought he was guilty, court records show.

Out of nearly 1,500 prospective jurors, Peterson's attorneys pointed to 13 who were excused without further questioning after expressing some degree of opposition to the death penalty.

Peterson's trial attorney, Mark Geragos of Geragos & Geragos, consistently resisted the dismissal of the 13 prospective jurors during voir dire, records show.

In an interview Monday, Geragos said he "always thought that the reason they sought death in this case was to get jurors who were predisposed towards guilt."

Geragos said he welcomes the reversal of the death sentence but disagrees with the high court's reasoning that "somehow you can parse the fact that the penalty phase was flawed but that didn't impact the conviction. Everything that happened in this case was an injustice."

He said he doesn't expect prosecutors to retry the penalty phase and said he's confident that Peterson's pending petition for habeas corpus will result in an exoneration. "The way I view it is one down, one to go," Geragos said.

The case was argued before the high court in June, nearly a decade after Peterson filed an appeal.

Supervising Deputy Attorney General Donna M. Provenzano argued the excused jurors were substantially impaired in their ability to consider the death penalty and that Delucchi reasonably dismissed them.

But the high court agreed with Peterson's attorneys that Delucchi skirted long-standing precedent requiring trial courts to probe jurors' views on the death penalty to determine if they are substantially impaired in their ability to consider it. The questionnaire answers alone, Kruger reasoned, were not sufficient to show the prospective jurors were unfit to serve.

A spokesman for the state Department of Justice on Monday did not comment on the ruling, instead saying it would "speak for itself."