REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Scott Peterson’s lawyers made their final appeal in court Thursday to convince a judge that his conviction for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and unborn son two decades ago should be overturned because a “feisty” juror with a history of domestic violence was biased against him from the start.
But Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo appeared skeptical that they had made their juror misconduct case, suggesting during questioning from the bench Thursday that perhaps it was Peterson’s lawyers, not the juror, who had messed up from the start.
When Peterson’s lawyer Cliff Gardner said that juror Richelle Nice lied when she testified earlier this year that she was the aggressor, not the victim, during a fight with her boyfriend two years before she was chosen for the Peterson jury, the judge asked why Gardner didn’t call the boyfriend to the stand to refute her.
When Gardner suggested that the juror had concealed her true bias against Peterson on the original jury questionnaire, especially when she failed to mention a restraining order she filed against a woman she feared threatened her own unborn child, the judge turned the tables once again.
Massullo asked why Peterson’s original lawyers appeared to ignore one of Nice’s key answers on the questionnaire: When Nice was asked whether she could put aside past biases and judge the case fairly, she had written “no.”
“I assume the parties thought it was a mistake,” Gardner said.
From her perch behind the bench, the judge rolled her eyes.
“It seems astonishing to me,” Gardner continued. “I don’t think there was any follow up on it.”
Shouldn’t Peterson’s lawyers have asked back then, Massullo asked, whether Nice’s answer was a mistake?
“Isn’t that what lawyers are supposed to do?” she asked.
“I wasn’t there,” Gardner said.
Gardner’s legal partner, Pat Harris, however, who sat beside Peterson during Thursday’s hearing, was also part of Peterson’s original legal team in 2004. In the courtroom hallway during a lunch break, Pat Harris said it was his original co-counsel, Mark Geragos, who had questioned Nice back then.
Whether Massullo was merely playing devil’s advocate with the lawyers remains to be seen. She asked prosecutors a number of questions, but far fewer.
Massullo has up to three months to rule on whether Peterson should be granted a new trial — a replay of the notorious trial in 2004 that captivated Americans shocked that a handsome, seemingly charming young man who played golf and sold fertilizer in Modesto could have killed his vivacious pregnant wife and thrown her body into the San Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve.
The bodies of Laci and her unborn son washed up separately several months later along the Richmond shoreline. Peterson had told neighbors he was playing golf that day but told police he had been fishing in the bay.
Peterson’s lawyers have said they never would have chosen Nice as a juror if they knew her past. They tried to prove that Nice, nicknamed “Strawberry Shortcake” during the original trial because of her dyed fuschia-colored hair, kept her past history of domestic violence secret because she was on a mission to get on the jury so she could punish Peterson. They also said she appeared inordinately fixated on the death of Laci’s unborn son, whom she called “Little Man” in a series of handwritten letters she sent to Peterson while he was on death row.
Peterson’s lawyers also pointed out that Nice wouldn’t testify without an immunity deal from Stanislaus County prosecutors, whose case was moved from Modesto to Redwood City 18 years ago because of pretrial publicity.
Prosecutor David Harris, who helped put Peterson behind bars, defended Nice in court Thursday, saying that she should be believed when she testified that her past altercations with her boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend “never crossed her mind” when she was asked whether she was a crime victim. At the same time, however, he said that Nice was not good at “filling out forms” and said she had likely made a mistake when she answered “no” on the questionnaire to whether she could be a fair juror.
The prosecutor also said that Geragos, Peterson’s original lead defense lawyer, actually pulled Nice back to the jury box after the judge had originally dismissed her, believing she wouldn’t be able to afford to miss work during the long trial.
“He wanted her there with her bright pink hair, who had a mother in methadone treatments and a brother in San Quentin for a drug conviction,” David Harris said.
Peterson, now 49, appeared in court Thursday in a red jail suit and shackles at his waist as he has throughout the on-again, off-again evidentiary hearing over juror misconduct that started early this year. Laci Peterson’s mother and brother, as well as Scott Peterson’s relatives, attended Thursday’s hearing. Keeping their distance from the Peterson family, Laci’s family was seated separately in the jury box.
Peterson had been on San Quentin’s death row until last year when the state Supreme Court overturned his death sentence. The high court found that the original judge erred when he dismissed potential jurors who morally opposed the death penalty but said they could impose it to follow the law.
After Thursday’s hearing, Scott Peterson’s family was still holding out hope.
“My brother-in-law was convicted of murdering his wife and unborn son, and Nice was a victim of domestic violence while she was pregnant, and also a victim,” Janey Peterson, who is married to Scott Peterson’s brother, said after the hearing. “She filed a restraining order while pregnant. And that’s information that should have been disclosed on her questionnaire.”
