Peterson Jury Selection Moving Slowly

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Jury selection continues to move slowly in the double-murder trial of Scott Peterson.

Of the 1,000 people summoned to court to begin the screening process of filling out an extensive questionnaire, only 48 people have made it into the potential juror pool.

The judge wants 70 to 80 potential jurors to be named before the defense and prosecution begin the process of agreeing on the final panel of 12 jurors and six alternates.

Peterson was arrested April 18, 2003, near San Diego, three days after the bodies of Laci Peterson and her fetus washed ashore along ......

Excerpt: (FYI: More news online outlets are having ya registar to read articles, and the San Jose Mercury News is just another one!)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REDWOOD CITY - Lawyers for Scott Peterson continued today to work with a judge on issues surrounding evidence a week after defense attorneys blasted prosecutors for meddling in their case.

Mark Geragos and Pat Harris met privately with Judge Alfred Delucchi for about an hour before emerging to begin another day of jury selection.

Geragos declined to tell reporters what was discussed, saying only that it was related to evidence discovery. Delucchi asked Geragos to have an order surrounding the issue ready for him to sign Thursday.

Prosecutors were left outside the meeting, possibly meaning Geragos was discussing a defense theory that could be floated at Peterson's upcoming trial. They are not allowed to hear details of such defense practices.

Last week, Geragos told Delucchi that prosecutors were using his requests for specific evidence as ways to shore up holes in their case. They began retesting blood stains found inside a brown van only after the defense asked to run their own tests, he said.

Geragos has openly theorized that two people or even a group of people could .........--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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REDWOOD CITY - Lawyers for Scott Peterson continued Wednesday to work with a judge on issues surrounding evidence a week after defense attorneys blasted prosecutors for meddling in their case.

Mark Geragos and Pat Harris met privately with Judge Alfred Delucchi for about an hour before emerging to begin another day of jury selection.

Prosecutors were left outside the meeting, possibly meaning Geragos was discussing a defense theory that could be floated at Peterson's upcoming trial. Prosecutors are not allowed to hear details of such defense practices........----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only one person was chosen as a prospective juror and 10 others were excluded because they oppose the death penalty, have already concluded Scott Peterson is guilty of killing his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son, or wouldn't get paid for the duration of the trial.

The woman selected was a retired ``hearing official'' who used to preside over informal hearings on labor disputes in the ocean freight-liner industry. When acquaintances tell her they think Peterson is guilty, she tells them, ``You don't know until you've heard the full story,'' she said.......

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REDWOOD CITY -- Scott Peterson's defense attorney, Mark Geragos, is again complaining about the prosecution's slow pace in handing over evidence.

This time, Geragos has issues with reports provided by prosecutors about DNA tests performed on blood samples found in a brown van that the defense has previously tried to link to Laci Peterson's disappearance.

Judge Alfred Delucchi last week ordered prosecutors to give the defense daily reports on the status of the blood testing. Last year, after federal law enforcement authorities impounded the van, prosecutors announced they believed it had no connection to the case.

But prosecutor David Harris told the judge prosecutors recently ordered the testing because they believed Geragos might use the van while making his case, according to wire reports. Prosecutors handed Geragos a one-page report Tuesday, which evoked the complaint. .....

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Here is the latest on another sicko released from Cali and ready to reak havic up here in Oregon Convicted serial child molester back in custody 06:33 AM PDT on Monday, April 19, 2004 From NWCN.com Staff KGW Edward Stokes talks with an officer as he sits in a patrol car after his arrest.

GRESHAM, Ore. - Police caught and arrested a convicted child molester at a Gresham, Ore., laundromat Sunday morning, authorities confirmed.

Edward Stokes, who has confessed to molesting more than 200 victims, was wanted by Washington and Oregon law enforcement authorities for providing a false address to obtain a Washington state driver's license in Hazel Dell. A tipster alerted officers Sunday morning that Stokes was inside the laundromat. His rented Ryder van was parked outside.

"There is a mattress in the back of the van, we don't know what that has been used for, but that will be processed," said Ofr. Grant B. McCormick of Gresham Police.

Officers also reportedly discovered pornography inside. Among the most disturbing evidence police found with Stokes was a fully-equipped ambulance he bought in the Oregon town of Boring the day before his arrest.

In the past, Stokes has lured young victims by posing as an authority figure. Video Tricia Manning-Smith reports

"The only conclusion I can draw from that is that once again he was going to go on the road, live in the ambulance, not have to register and to use the ambulance as a means to prey on street children," said Susan Stokes, Edward's sister.

"We know he uses handcuffs, drugs, alcohol. It's my understanding that the ambulance was going to be used for that. It's very similar to what he did back in the '80s, using the red lights," she said.

In 1980, an officer pulled Stokes over near North Bend to discover a young hitchhiker handcuffed inside. Stokes had mounted stolen emergency lights on his car, and passed himself off as an official.

Susan Stokes sighed with relief Sunday after her brother was taken into custody.

Stokes has confessed to molesting more than 200 victims. He was released from prison about two weeks ago in Orange County, Calif., after his last conviction was reversed due to a technicality in his trial.

Under Washington state law, serial sex offenders can be civilly committed to McNeil Island Treatment Center, but only if a jury find they?ve committed a ?recent overt act? that endangers public safety.

John Barnett, a lawyer for Stokes, said his client did not have to tell California authorities where he was going because the latest conviction was overturned, freeing him from a life prison term. California?s 4th District Court of

Appeals ruled last fall that Stokes should not have been convicted because he was unable to confront his accuser, Blue Karak, a teenager he met in Seattle. Karak committed suicide before the case went to trial. ?

Aside from the victim?s testimony, little evidence existed to support the charges against the defendant,? the ruling stated. Karak, who was 16 at the time, told investigators he was a runaway when

Stokes met him in a Seattle coffeehouse in 1996. Stokes lured him to Disneyland, forced him to consume tequila and LSD in a room at the Little Boy Blue Motel in Anaheim, Calif., and sexually assaulted him. Depressed since the episode, Karak committed suicide in Colorado in 2001, several months before Stokes went on trial.

Stokes, whose parents owned a house in south King County, often cruised the streets in the Pacific Northwest in search of street youths and other vulnerable teenagers, according to court records.

He had been arrested at least five times in Washington and Oregon on sex charges dating from 1974. In July 1995 he completed a three-year sentence in Oregon for sex abuse and sodomy. In a letter to a therapist in the early 1990s, Stokes said he had molested 212 victims and felt like a monster. ?

I am angry at myself and others, but I still seek out the weak and the unsuspecting as my victims,? he wrote then.

On Sunday, officers arrested Stokes on a Clark County warrant for giving a false address on his driver's license. His sister fears that warrant will not keep Edward Stokes in jail long.

"He's going to be released, unless someone steps forward that he's come in contact with and says he molested me, raped me, abused me," she said. Susan Stokes is convinced her brother has again molested since his release, but no one has come forward making allegations.

Although Stokes was arrested in Oregon, he will have to go to Clark County Washington to appear in court. Susan Stokes said she and her brother were both adopted as infants. She does not know who Edward Stokes' birth parents are.

Their adoptive parents are both dead, and buried in Renton.

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