Two decades after Scott Peterson was sentenced to death for the murder of his pregnant wife in a high-profile trial, the Los Angeles Innocence Project said this week that it had taken up the case.
The development marks a significant breakthrough for the 51-year-old, who has long maintained his innocence and has claimed he received an unfair trial.
In court filings this week, which were first reported by ABC News, the project, which seeks to exonerate those who have been wrongfully convicted, argued that new evidence supports Peterson’s “claim of actual innocence” and “raises many questions into who abducted and killed Laci and Conner Peterson”.
It is unclear what that newly discovered evidence is.
The non-profit said that it was taking up Peterson’s representation and was “investigating his claim of actual innocence”.
The case gripped America, drawing national attention almost immediately. Peterson’s wife, Laci Peterson, went missing from her home in Modesto, California, on Christmas Eve 2002, when she was eight months pregnant. The remains of Laci and her unborn child were recovered in April 2003 in the San Francisco Bay.
Law enforcement officials quickly homed in on Peterson. It was revealed he had engaged in multiple affairs. One woman he had an affair with came forward publicly, saying Peterson had claimed he was a widower before his wife’s disappearance. It would became a central part of prosecutors’ case.
During the closely watched trial, the prosecution argued Peterson smothered his wife around Christmas Eve in order to be with his mistress, and transported her body into a newly purchased fishing boat before dumping her into the bay.
Peterson said his wife was alive when he left to go fishing in Berkeley on the morning of Christmas Eve. His defense team argued that Laci was kidnapped and Peterson was framed for the killing.
Prosecutors had little forensic science evidence but were able to convince the jury with a wealth of circumstantial evidence. A jury sentenced Peterson to death after 12 hours of deliberations.
The California supreme court overturned that sentence in 2020 after it found that potential jurors were erroneously dismissed for saying they objected to the death penalty, but ultimately upheld the conviction. Peterson was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
In 2022, a judge rejected Peterson’s request for a new trial. Peterson had alleged that his trial was tainted by a juror who lied about her history of abuse.
In the court filings this week, the Los Angeles Innocence Project said it was seeking evidence from the 2004 trial that it was unable to find among trial files from Peterson’s former counsel.
“In the course of LAIP’s review and after some preliminary investigation, it became apparent to me that numerous items referred to throughout the police reports in Mr Peterson’s case were not included in the discovery that was provided to the defense at the time of trial,” Paula Mitchell, director of the Los Angeles Innocence Project, said in the court filing.
