REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – A woman accused of keeping secrets about her past while being chosen as a juror in the Scott Peterson murder trial two decades ago will be offered immunity to testify – a twist that could lead to a new murder trial in one of California’s most notorious cases.
If “Juror No. 7” accepts immunity — presumably from perjury charges — she is expected to take the witness stand in a Redwood City courtroom Feb. 25 to explain why she didn’t reveal that she had been the victim of domestic violence while she was pregnant.
Peterson, now 49, was convicted in 2004 and later sentenced to death in the killing of his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, and the unborn son they planned to name Conner. His death penalty was overturned late last year when a judge ruled that potential jurors who disagreed with the death penalty but were willing to impose it were improperly dismissed from the jury pool. Now, Peterson’s lawyers are seeking to overturn his murder conviction as well, claiming the juror’s lack of transparency denied him a fair trial.
“I don’t think you can make a cogent argument that somebody who is pregnant and has been the victim of violence can go into a trial and at the very least not feel some bias towards a circumstance where a victim is a pregnant woman who basically had violence occur,” Peterson’s lawyer Pat Harris told reporters after the Monday morning hearing.
In a 2017 interview with the Modesto Bee, Richelle Nice denied the allegations. “I did not lie to get on this trial to fry Scott,” she told the Bee. “I did not.”
Nice and other jurors would go on to write a book about the trial.
Peterson, who was moved from San Quentin to the Redwood City jail, appeared in court Monday in a red jail suit and shackles and a boot on his foot that his lawyer said came after a “slip and fall.” He and Harris – one of the two lawyers who represented him in the initial trial – spoke quietly during breaks in the hearing.
Peterson’s wife disappeared from their Modesto home on Christmas Eve 2003. She was eight-months pregnant. When Peterson knocked on neighbors’ doors looking for her that night, he told them he had spent the day golfing. He told police later, however, that he had been fishing off the Berkeley Marina. After a storm, Laci’s body and that of her unborn son washed up separately along the Richmond shoreline in April 2003. The trial began in June 2004.
Nice failed to mention her past either on a jury questionnaire or during questioning by prosecution and defense lawyers.
She didn’t disclose that in 2001, her boyfriend beat her while she was pregnant, Harris said, and was ultimately charged. She also didn’t reveal Harris said, that while pregnant with another child, she filed a restraining order against her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. Nice had said in court documents that without immunity, she would plead the Fifth Amendment and remain silent. David Harris, a Stanislaus County assistant district attorney who also was involved in the Peterson case two decades ago, said in court Monday that his office had decided to grant Nice immunity.
“She has two choices,” Peterson’s lawyer, Pat Harris, told reporters. With immunity, “she will either answer the questions, or if she chooses not to, she can be held in contempt and you can actually go to jail.”
The Peterson case received global attention, drawing scores of media and legal pundits who recounted every twist and turn of the trial on cable news each night. Because of pretrial publicity in Modesto, the trial had been moved from Stanislaus County in the Central Valley to Redwood City.
When Peterson was convicted in November 2004, throngs of spectators gathered outside the courthouse and cheered.
A week-long evidentiary hearing is expected to begin right after Nice’s planned Feb. 25 testimony. Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo will then determine whether Peterson should be granted a new trial.
If so, Harris said he believes that 18 years later, “it will be a very different atmosphere.
“I know that there is still a wide swath of the public that believes he’s guilty, but I don’t think you have the hysteria you had last time,” Harris said. “I think the chances of getting a fair trial are much greater.”
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