Scott Peterson's long-shot bid to upend his murder convictions just hit another wall. A California judge on Monday rejected Peterson's habeas petition, refusing to consider what his lawyers and the Los Angeles Innocence Project describe as new scientific evidence that could clear him in the 2002 killings of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, reports CBS News. Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hill ruled the claims were either blocked on procedural grounds or not persuasive enough to move forward.
Peterson, now 53, was convicted in 2004, after Laci vanished on Christmas Eve in 2002 and her remains were found months later in San Francisco Bay. He's serving life without parole after his death sentence was tossed in 2020 over jury-screening issues. The Innocence Project argues that Peterson's jury relied on faulty forensics and that key defense evidence was never heard, saying Hill's decision shows "a profound misunderstanding" of habeas law.
Peterson's team says that cutting-edge tech now offers a possible new timeline in which Laci Peterson may have been killed up to 12 days after she'd been reported missing, which would put Scott Peterson out of contention as having murdered her, per KTVU. Peterson's lawyers plan to appeal to a higher court, while prosecutors and investigators from the original case continue to back the verdict. KRON notes that Peterson has a separate case pending in front of the California Supreme Court over alleged juror misconduct that he insists denied him a fair trial.
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