Posted on 11/30/2004 10:26:51 AM PST by J. Neil Schulman
CONVICTED BY SUSPICION -- WHY SCOTT PETERSON MAY BE INNOCENT
by J. Neil Schulman, guest contributor.[November 30, 2004]
[HollywoodInvestigator.com] Scott Peterson may or may not have murdered his wife, Laci, and their unborn child. But the Redwood City, California trial that has just convicted Peterson of murdering Laci with premeditation was a kangaroo court in which none of the elements necessary to achieve a murder conviction were offered, much less proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
The first element that needs to be proved in any murder trial is that a murder has occurred. There was never a determination by any California medical examiner that the cause of Laci Peterson’s death was homicide. No medical examiner was able to determine the cause of Laci Peterson's death, nor even prove to a medical certainty in what week beyond her disappearance on Christmas Eve that she died.
A thorough examination of the residence where Scott and Laci Peterson lived together, by teams of detectives and forensic experts, uncovered no evidence whatsoever that a crime had occurred there.
No crime scene was ever found.
No forensic evidence was found in the Petersons’ motor vehicles lending any foundation to the suspicion that she had ever been transported in one of them -- alive or dead -- to the place where, months later, her body was found.
No weapon was ever produced with any evidence that it had been used to cause Laci Peterson’s death.
No witness was produced who had seen or heard Scott Peterson argue with Laci near the time of her disappearance, much less any witness who had seen Scott Peterson fight with his wife or kill her.
The only forensic evidence produced in court that even presumptively linked Scott Peterson with the death of his wife was a strand of hair that DNA analysis showed to be Laci's, in a pliers found in Scott Peterson’s fishing boat. A police detective interviewed a witness who had seen Laci in the boat warehouse where Scott stored that boat. Even in the absence of this witness statement to a police detective, the rules of forensic transference indicate that transference of trace evidence between a husband and wife who lived together is common, and not indicative of foul play.
No witness ever saw Laci in that fishing boat, nor did any witness ever testify to seeing Scott Peterson bringing a corpse-sized parcel onto his fishing boat. Thus, the fishing boat never should have been allowed into evidence, nor should prosecution speculation into his dumping her body using that boat have been permitted.
Nor was any evidence offered in court showing that Scott Peterson had engaged in any overt activities in planning of a murder. He was not observed buying, or even shopping for, weapons or poison. Police detectives found no records in his computer logs that he was spending time researching methods of murder. No evidence was offered that he ever considered hiring someone to kill her.
No evidence was offered in court indicating that Scott Peterson had any reasonable motive for murdering his wife, such as monetary gain, or to protect great marital assets that he’d lose as an adulterer in a divorce in California, a no-fault community-property state, or because Scott had some basis to believe he had been cuckolded.
So in a case without an ME’s finding of homicide or a known time of death;
without a single witness to a crime having occurred;
without a crime scene;
without a murder weapon;
without any indisputable forensic evidence linking the defendant husband to his wife’s death;
without an obvious motive;
without the prosecution presenting conclusive direct or circumstantial evidence overcoming every single exculpatory scenario by which Laci Peterson might have otherwise come to her death;
in summation, without the prosecution demonstrating that Scott Peterson and only Scott Peterson had the means and opportunity to murder his wife and transport her alive or dead to the San Francisco Bay in which her body was found ... how is it possible that Scott Peterson has just been convicted of a premeditated murder with special circumstances warranting the death penalty?
It comes down to this: Scott Peterson was having an adulterous affair at the time of his wife’s disappearance, and Scott Peterson is a cad and a bounder.
Scott Peterson repeatedly lied to everyone around him – including his new mistress – to further the pursuit of this affair. This pattern of lying was established by audio tapes of his phone conversations with his mistress that were played in court. But these tapes were played before the jury without any foundation for their playing being offered, since their playing spoke to no element required for conviction in the crime with which he was charged. And these tapes -- which were more prejudicial than probitive -- destroyed Scott Peterson's credibility to appear as a potential witness in his own defense. They served only to make the jury hate Scott Peterson.
Scott Peterson found himself at the center of a media circus, and his attempts to change his appearance and escape being followed can equally be interpreted as either avoidance of the media who were stalking him or avoidance of police who were tracking him.
The bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn child were discovered in close proximity to the location where Scott Peterson said he had been fishing at the time of her disappearance. But those bodies were found after months of all-media publicity in which Peterson’s alibi was broadcast and published, and if Laci had been murdered by some third party, the murderer would have easily had both means and motive to dump her body at that location to convict Scott and end pursuit of themselves for that murder.
In any case where more than one explanation of a fact can be offered, the judge’s charge instructs the jury that the explanation suggesting innocence is the one they are legally required to adopt in their deliberations.
Scott Peterson was convicted at trial of murder possibly leading to a death sentence in which the trial judge allowed prosecutors to speculate in front of a jury on how Scott Peterson might have murdered his wife. Anyone who’s watched a single episode of Perry Mason or Law & Order knows the judge is charged with forbidding such speculation unless there is a foundation of facts in evidence.
No such foundation was presented indicating a method of murder in the murder trial of Scott Peterson.
In other words, Scott Peterson looked and acted guilty, and in the age of 24-hour -a-day TV news networks that have to fill up those hours with ratings-producing subjects, Scott Peterson’s trial and conviction was the perfect storm of Guilty by Suspicion.
Scott Peterson may very well have been convicted of a murder that he committed. If so, he was convicted in a case that under our system of justice – in which the presumption of innocence may only rightfully be overcome by evidence that is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt – never should have been allowed into court, much less handed over to a jury.
The jury that convicted Scott Peterson was a lynch mob inflamed by prejudicial testimony and their conviction of Scott Peterson qualifies as a hate crime. The verdict needs to be overturned on appeal. The judge brought out of retirement to preside over the case needs to be retired again. The prosecution needs to be brought up on civil rights charges to make sure this behavior is punished.
May God have mercy on Scott Peterson’s soul if he is, in fact, a psychopath who spent Christmas Eve murdering his pregnant wife so he could avoid the inconvenience of a divorce.
And may God have equal mercy on the prosecutors, judge, and jurors who have taken away Scott Peterson’s life – whether through a sentence of life imprisonment or death by lethal injection – if they have allowed their disgust for a deeply flawed man to whip them into a passion in which suspicion in the absence of any proof was sufficient to convict him.
Copyright © 2004 by J. Neil Schulman. All rights reserved.
J. Neil Schulman's book, The Frame of the Century?, presents as strong a case for a suspect other than O.J. Simpson in the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson as was presented to convict Scott Peterson in the murder of Laci Peterson. Our sister publication, the Weekly Universe, has previously reported on Schulman's 'Vulcan Mind Meld with God' and his discovery of an eye drop that cures cataracts.
That is extremely close minded and prejudicial of you. It may be proof of littering; of abuse of a corpse; an environmental pollution crime; or even of an attempt to defraud, by a mortuary illegally disposing of a body after taking fees for burial; but, is hardly rises to the level of proof the person was murdered.
Just the mention of "cement anchors" is inflammatory, as it brings to mind the alledged use of "cement overshoes" by supposed "gangsters" to allegedly dispose of bodies.
It may also have been the result of a bizarre suicide with the intent of framing someone for murder.
Why, it could even have been an attempt gone awry of a deranged person attempting to prove their faith via the miracle of walking on water, while wearing cement overshoes.
We must keep an open mind to the point all reason falls out, according to Mr. Schulman
That he is not required to testify is correct and the jury is not to judge the fact he did not in their deliberations.
"Prosecutors are human. To include, wanting to take the easy way out, tunnel vision, and having their own agendas"
Prosecutors are human?!? What kind of gratuitous remark is that? Of course they are. Who in their sane, right mind would want to execute an innocent man? I happen to believe their whole professional and personal lives depend on 'DOING THE RIGHT THING'
As citizens, what purpose would it serve to deliberately prosecute an individual if there was substantial evidence of his/her innocence and the murderer was left to roam &kill again in their neighborhood?
The jury looked at all the exibits, listened to all the evidence presented, heard from all those who testified and saw them face to face, judged it all as a whole and found Scott guilty..
I only read the transcripts and listened to the tapes, viewed his interviews..I agree with the jury.GUILTY
I wasn't at the trial. But I would think that a peson totally innocent would be a bit upset, or shaken if a jury convicted him of murder. Apparently he was cool as a cucumber.
"Maybe if Richardson..."
This is what gets to me about people who support knee-jerk, situational ethics when applied to people you "feel" are guilty or even not guilty, for that matter.
You can't get past your emotions long enough to even get the guy's name straight but you think you know enough to send the guy to the death chamber.
And the poor bastard was tried by twelve people just like you.
Gratuitous? I don't think so. It's a simple fact that too often, folks ignore. Just like you apparently do.
I only cross-posted my article a few hours ago, so you'll forgive me if I didn't join the discussion instantly.
In general, I cross-post my articles published on the web to Free Republic because I have lots of friends who read here.
Moving to several of the comments in specific:
First, it was Hollywood Investigator who published the link to my book. I simply copied the HTML which included that link.
Second, this is my first article for that publisher. I didn't write the article about n-acetyl-carnosine eyedrops. My mother and I were interviewed in one of their articles, describing my mother's use of them.
Third, there are repeated references in the comments to Laci Peterson having been weighted down by anchors. No anchor attached to her body was ever offered as evidence, nor were any cement anchors recovered from the bay where her body was found ever entered into evidence. Laci Peterson's body having been weighted down by anchors of the type Scott Peterson made was simply more prosecution speculation without any evidentiary foundation whatsoever.
Fourth, while I have more than one residence, the state in which I vote, register my car, own land with a house, have my driver's license, and operate my business isn't California but Nevada.
The point of my article isn't my personal opinion as to whether Scott Peterson murdered his wife and unnborn son. My point is that when inflamed prejudice replaces reason in criminal trials, the system is broken and criminal justice appropriate to a free and civilized society is replaced with the law of talon.
Those of you willing to abandon that for the momentary rush of seeing a nasty man burned at the stake are not celebrating American principles. You're celebrating Soviet, Nazi, and Taliban-style "justice."
JNS
You went berserk over one misspoken name...that's mature.
You also are guilty of inaccurately describing Scott Peterson as a poor bastard.
As I remember it - his parents are legally married and could be described financially as middle class. ($10k in cash ain't broke).
I don't see what the freshwater/saltwater tackle thing proves at all since the guy was an admitted first-time fisherman who bought his gear in Modesto - where most shops would have no use for saltwater gear.
Besides, I use hand-grenades for fishing and they work great in any water!
The type of gear he used is utterly meaningless since the guy was not experienced. Frankly, an experienced guy would not have taken a 14ft boat out on the Bay in December.
You might recall the police initially called him a liar about being on the Bay that day because it would have been dangerous for him to be on the Bay in that boat in the weather conditions that day. Now they contend he was not only in the Bay with that boat but that he did so and dumped a body over the side in treacherous conditions without getting swamped.
Show me an EXPERIENCED guy who can do this in the same conditions and I'd be damnably impressed.
"You went berserk over one misspoken name...that's mature."
My mistake. I guess I didn't hear him.
You made a sweeping generality about a group: "PROSECUTORS" and assigned to them a very low level of integrity.
In your rebuttal to me you proceeded to dispense with a jury and its deliberation...followed by a derogatory comment about my ability to reason.
Please review your first and follow-up comments. You are quite deranged you know. That is not a generality or a stereotype. I am referring only to you DK Zimmerman.
Yup - I thought I had you figured out - I was right - I win.
Total agreement. Good for you!
A grand jury I was on had the facts of a case presented where someone was out joy riding with an overcrowded pick up (something like 5 folks in the front seat and another 5 or so in the bed). The driver reportedly said something like "watch this" before crossing the dividing line in front of a little old lady, only to veer back into his own lane.
Unfortunately, said little old lady had gone into his lane to avoid him, only to "meet" him. Prosecutor wanted murder as I recall. I inquired as to the elements of the crime. Pointed out that his desire was problematic on two points: a) he was in his own lane when accident occurred (right of way, etc - HE had it) and b) veering back suggested he had no intent.
Rest of grand jury ignored my points, gave the prosecutor what I felt was way too high a charge. Only afterwards did one of my "fellows" come up and mention she was at the scene and police had made those exact points.
"Jury of peers" is supposed to represent a reasoning, reasonably intelligent group of folks that understand their responsibilities AND are willing to work to meet them. Unfortunately, that is too often not the case.
"Quite deranged?" I dispensed with a jury? I fear only your responses call your ability to reason or not into question. Not I. Never did.
Must be difficult to live with - that no-one agreed with you.
Tough
The jury looked at all the exibits, listened to all the evidence presented, heard from all those who testified and saw them face to face, judged it all as a whole and found Scott guilty..
I only read the transcripts and listened to the tapes, viewed his interviews..I agree with the jury.GUILTY
So she stayed under water for weeks how exactly?
If Scott didn't commit this crime, he sure went out of his way to make himself look guilty.
If he was framed, whoever framed him owes Scott a lot of thanks, for assisting him.
Maybe Scott should have been found innocent and released, so that he can join forces with O.J. Simpson as he scours the golf courses of America, searching for the real killer. As a twosome they would have two heads and four eyes, the better to search the rough, the sand traps and ninteenth holes, in pursuit of the "real" killers.
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