Scott Peterson May Get a New Trial - A Look Back at the Case： A ＂True Crime Christmas＂ Special ｜ Ep. 975
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 8 minutes
Words per Minute
177.74496
Summary
Scott Peterson has been on trial for the murder of his pregnant wife, Lacey Peterson, and the disappearance of their unborn son, Connor. But a new piece of evidence emerged this week that casts new doubt on the outcome of the case and calls for a retrial.
Transcript
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We like to walk that fine line between techno thriller and romantic comedy.
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Live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and the conclusion to our True Crime Christmas series.
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Today we're looking at the Scott Peterson case, which we've covered on the show before,
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And an effort underway to get the man convicted of killing his pregnant wife, Lacey, and their
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Joining me today, our pal, Matt Murphy, former California prosecutor and district attorney.
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We like to walk that fine line between techno thriller and romantic comedy.
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NCIS Tony and Ziva, now streaming on Paramount+.
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The more I hear about this case, the more it feels like Scott Peterson actually has a shot
00:02:31.860
But since you're a prosecutor and you're from California, I'm going to play devil's advocate
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here and I will try to make the case on his behalf, okay?
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So he's just been given wide access to a whole new host of discovery that he says he was entitled
00:02:53.660
to in this case, which my understanding is the judge had earlier said, you're not getting
00:02:59.220
But now he is getting access to a bunch of new evidence that would support allegedly this
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whole theory that what happened on the day Lacey Peterson went missing and was murdered
00:03:11.780
was not that Scott Peterson killed her and then disposed of her body and that of their
00:03:17.120
It was that she witnessed a burglary across the street from where they lived.
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She either tried to stop it, which is what Scott Peterson says he believes, or she was
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just an eyewitness and therefore became a target.
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They then drove around with her body for some sort of period.
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And then when the police made clear that Scott Peterson was believed to have been at this
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harbor, this marina on the day that Lacey went missing, they thought, aha, this is our chance.
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We're going to dump the body over there so that he will be blamed for this crime.
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And it does appear like this judge has at least opened up discovery again for him to start probing
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When women who are seven and a half months pregnant go charging in to stop burglaries and
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then burglars who are there to steal drive around for days and days with a dead body in
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their car of somebody that they killed just because apparently.
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And then they get really smart at that point and decide that they're going to drive to probably
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a marina that will have more law enforcement witnesses and everybody else because the attention
00:04:44.720
given this case back in the day, and they're going to take the body out and go to pretty
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much the exact same place that Scott Peterson was fishing, according to him, and dump the
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And not to help you out because, yeah, I'm supposed to be taking the other side.
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But the other piece of that story that's just so nonsensical is if that's what they wanted
00:05:08.520
to frame him, why would they weigh down the body in the ocean with a bunch of anchors?
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Why wouldn't they just throw the body on the shore or go out in the middle of the night
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and dump it overboard so it would float back in?
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Because burglars go and make fake anchors with cement that they purchase all the time.
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It's like this is this is one of this is the latest case in a few of these that are
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going on right now where it's kind of like, you know, a couple of decades have gone by
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and everybody has forgotten the overwhelming evidence against Scott Peterson.
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And this guy, look, this is a domestic violence murder.
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And I don't have to say alleged because the guy is convicted right now of it.
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So, you know, everybody forgets Amber Frey and all of the stuff regarding the affair and
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the fact that he dyed his hair and had $15,000 and was down in San Diego and looked like he
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Menendez Brothers is another one right now where everybody forgets.
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And then all of a sudden, you know, hey, the L.A.
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Innocence Project is on there, which is a misnomer if there's ever been one.
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I mean, look, they they they did some really good work back in the day when right when DNA
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became ubiquitous in in when CODIS went online and every state joined it and right when they
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were using modern cofiler and profiler DNA kits, which are way easier than the old RFLP
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to understand that that's the the gel, you know, that they used to inject.
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So they they found they found some people that were wrongfully convicted.
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I sit on a board with Purdue University where that's our sole task is trying to trying to
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But since that initial flurry of kind of glory, if you call it that, where they're they're doing
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good work, you know, finding people that were wrongfully convicted, they've it seems like
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they've really settled more into stuff like this high profile stuff that that gets a lot
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And then as soon as you all your all your viewers have to do is just read the Wikipedia on this case,
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the California Supreme Court affirmed this conviction seven to oh, they reverse the
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they were first the death part because of the some irregularities during jury selection.
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And another term that we keep hearing, there's a Newsweek article on this.
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And it, you know, the defense alleges it was circumstantial evidence.
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Like you see Starsky and I mean, I'm going to date myself here.
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And we we have this concept and it's a myth that circumstantial evidence, quote unquote,
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And that's exactly the way Newsweek wrote their article on this that I read this morning.
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Case based on circumstantial evidence, according to L.A.
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It's like every single domestic violence, murder guys in America and in the world throughout
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history involves some degree of circumstantial evidence.
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Direct evidence just means a witness comes into court and they say they saw something.
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Circumstantial evidence is pretty much everything else.
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It's like, you know, this guy had every poker tell that you could ever want during this
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investigation, including refusing at one point to communicate with her family, refusing
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He told his his his paramour mistress, whatever we want to call Amber Frey, that Lacey was
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He bought this boat two weeks before she disappeared.
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He bought cement, which is consistent with the way her body was found.
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And they believe that the coroner testified at the time that it was consistent with with
00:09:18.440
And circumstantial evidence is that good old fashioned common sense stuff like somebody running
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away from a crime scene, somebody in possession of stolen property from a recent burglary that
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that happened down the street from that, like circumstantial evidence is the bread and butter
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of every domestic violence murder case in the history of justice.
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And that really is the right word for it is justice, like holding people accountable for
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The evidence against this guy is is laughably overwhelming.
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And they come in, they get the headlines, Ellie, Ellie Innocence Project, and then everybody
00:09:57.200
And it's like, ooh, there was a van down the street with a mattress in it.
00:10:02.280
And essentially, that's what the current legal action is about.
00:10:05.860
They want to test a mattress that was found in some burnout van somewhere in the neighborhood
00:10:15.140
OK, so, you know, if if they get in there and and I can already already tell you what
00:10:20.660
the argument is going to be, the mattress, which they say has blood on it, but that the
00:10:26.700
Then the second test done by the officials suggested it was inconclusive, not clear whether
00:10:33.760
What they're going to if they get that thing, they're going to they're going to swab it.
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And modern modern genetic and DNA testing is so sensitive, I can virtually guarantee you
00:10:46.620
And the next thing that the Innocence Project is going to do is they're going to say, aha,
00:10:54.080
But without a link to Lacey Peterson, it is it is literally meaningless.
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And and look, we see that all the time in a lot of cases.
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Like like I said, there are cases where DNA has legitimately freed people that didn't
00:11:17.420
Like but there's also a lot of these cases, Megan, that and this is something that drives
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me crazy, where you'll have, you know, something that happened, maybe say a rape
00:11:28.820
OK, and somebody will have been convicted of rape murder, the jury who, in my experience,
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I've done a lot of cases like this, which are bifurcated murder trials.
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The judges tend to be the most experienced and the best.
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The detectives tend to be the most experienced and the best.
00:11:51.960
So then a couple of decades later and and and say it's a homeless drifter.
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OK, and that guy is convicted and maybe he's got some some sex offenses in his past.
00:12:01.520
And the way it works over and over again is he'll say, hey, it was consensual sex.
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She I understand that she's a stockbroker and I was living in a tent.
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And so that's why my sperm was found all over the place.
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But somebody else came along later and killed her.
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And that will be the absurd, ridiculous defense that they will run and the jury will reject
00:12:27.760
And then what happens is that, you know, that the DNA comes back like 20 years later, 30 years
00:12:34.260
later, and they'll test the scrapings under her fingernails or they'll test some object
00:12:40.660
And, you know, if she pat if she patted a little boy on the head that day or if she shook hands
00:12:47.160
with her mailman or something, you can discover unknown male DNA that has no link whatsoever
00:12:54.720
But the standard on appeal is could a jury could a reasonable jury have found differently?
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Essentially, could they have could they've come to a different result based on that new
00:13:06.520
And the answer under those circumstances is, yeah, if they didn't consider that, maybe
00:13:14.140
Then so the case comes back for a retrial and Aunt Millie, who worked in the evidence
00:13:19.180
room, put it in the wrong box or the evidence got washed away in the great flood of 82 or
00:13:24.040
and they can't redo it or the or the critical witnesses have died.
00:13:27.960
The investigator necessary to lay the foundation for that evidence has has passed away.
00:13:32.500
Like you can have this entire host of problems that can afflict a case like that 30 years
00:13:41.760
And then what happens is you've got people like Barry Sheck in front of the cameras going
00:13:45.840
another innocent man exonerated, which is the term they love, exonerated from DNA evidence
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They were they were granted a new trial and the prosecution couldn't proceed.
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And then that guy goes out and this has happened over and over and over again in America, because
00:14:08.140
They'll get settlements for a couple million bucks and then they get caught for doing it
00:14:18.960
I mean, if he were to get out, I think he would pose a danger to other women and other
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Like, obviously, it would take the most stone cold sociopath in America to murder one's eight
00:14:33.380
month pregnant wife and one's unborn child with your bare hands and then dump them in
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the ocean like they were trash while you're talking to your lover with these nonsense claims
00:14:47.480
while you're actually we actually have this queued up because it's just so amazing while
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you're actually at the vigil for your missing wife and child talking to your lover.
00:15:03.580
And at this point, the reason it's on tape is because when she saw his picture all over
00:15:07.360
the news, she called the cops to say, holy cow, I'm dating your suspect.
00:15:12.320
Um, and so she got him on tape and he's claiming he's in Paris on New Year's Eve while Lacey's
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And he's talking to the lover about the fake Paris fireworks.
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Now, Matt, I want to ask you a couple of things.
00:15:46.540
So first of all, you meant the, I, I understand there is a distinction between the innocence
00:15:54.100
Um, I don't know about this LA innocence project because I, in my experience, the bar is a little
00:15:59.340
high for the innocence project to take on your case.
00:16:05.260
There's like a cleavage there, uh, in the reporting about these two.
00:16:10.220
Secondly, um, the judge did say before she ordered all this discovery of all this extra
00:16:16.520
stuff, like the van and things around the van, we'll get to the specifics.
00:16:21.520
She did say, um, you can go back and do DNA testing on the duct tape that was found on
00:16:29.560
When they found her body, there was still some duct tape wrapped around her from whoever
00:16:36.880
That could be one of those situations that the results of that are under seal, but that
00:16:40.700
could be one of those exact situations you just mentioned where maybe they won't find
00:16:45.180
Scott's DNA on that, but maybe they'll find the DNA of the guy who worked at the Lowe's
00:16:53.940
Now, if they found DNA that matches the DNA of one of the two burglars, although they're
00:17:04.500
But let's just say they found DNA that matches one of the two burglars that she allegedly caught
00:17:13.600
So far, he's still sitting in prison and there's no retrial.
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So I'm guessing they didn't get that on the DNA return.
00:17:22.260
And then the second thing I wanted to point out is you mentioned the absurdity of him
00:17:31.200
He takes his boat out on the, on the water Christmas day, um, just for the very first time
00:17:38.880
And, uh, he initially when asked, where were you while your wife went missing and the dogs
00:17:45.960
running around the neighborhood and all this, he's initially said he was golfing and then
00:17:52.860
To make it fishing, presumably because he realized they had something that could prove he was in
00:17:59.720
And not only, not only did he say he was golfing too.
00:18:03.040
He said that in front of neighbors, whoever heard it, he said that about a dozen times.
00:18:08.260
So it's not like one person might've misrecollected.
00:18:14.380
He didn't want anybody knowing that he was there apparently.
00:18:17.560
And, you know, I mean, look, this is, you know, when you see enough of these, it's like
00:18:31.540
And that like in any murder case, there's a quality of the way people behave.
00:18:35.960
And, and the, if the truth is you didn't do it, you don't build a ladder to the truth
00:18:41.980
And yeah, he said, he, he said he was golfing, you know, there, there, you know, he bought
00:18:49.400
And here's another thing that, again, it's like, I shout at my TV when I see this come
00:18:53.160
on, they found her hair in pliers inside the boat.
00:18:57.500
You know, they, they, they matched it with mitochondrial DNA, that's hair, teeth, bones,
00:19:04.920
It's not like one in octillions, but it's Lacey Peterson's hair in a pair of pliers in
00:19:09.700
the boat, which is totally consistent with him dumping her body and using that tool as
00:19:17.640
There's so many individual small points of corroboration with the prosecution's theory that
00:19:24.680
You know, it's when, when you, when you put it together, every one of these cases,
00:19:28.540
Megan is like a collage, you know, each piece it's, it's like, where does this fit in the
00:19:34.120
And sometimes like a mattress down the street, it probably has no part of it in any way.
00:19:39.080
But, but when you start putting little pieces together, you start to see the big picture
00:19:44.080
and here, you know, you've got Amber Frey saying his wife is already dead.
00:19:48.500
He buys the boat two weeks before he's actually in the Marina, you know, in this, in this
00:19:53.520
place and left her a voicemail saying, Hey, beautiful, I'm back from the Marina, which
00:19:57.040
is also odd because he left his house in where they live, which is not super close to the
00:20:10.480
He's calling her two 30 saying, Hey, beautiful, I'm on my way back.
00:20:13.660
So he goes fishing by himself on Christmas day.
00:20:16.200
And he, what, how much time is there to launch a boat that he probably isn't that skilled
00:20:21.080
He goes and fishes for 30 minutes, you know, like, and he never used a single lure.
00:20:29.260
And then when he's arrested, he's in San Diego, he's changed his appearance.
00:20:32.980
He's got $15,000 in cash and he's got survival gear in a car and he's got two different IDs.
00:20:43.200
Each one of those things is something that a jury gets to weigh and consider and on determining
00:20:50.620
And so you have these, there's always a burglary down the street.
00:20:58.200
But now, now this is where I'm going to try to defend the defense theory because it's
00:21:02.160
really Scott Peterson's sister-in-law who has been his biggest advocate.
00:21:06.480
She's married to his brother and she's been, I mean, all over this, like white on rice,
00:21:11.020
like to the point where she went to law school much later, long after he was convicted, not
00:21:16.860
necessarily to try this case for him or to, you know, pursue, but because she was so immersed
00:21:23.900
So then they get innocence project involved or LA innocence.
00:21:27.560
So here are some of what they say are the facts that suggest he didn't do it, that they
00:21:36.700
should have been able to argue all of this to a jury and that they weren't given full disclosure
00:21:43.160
by the prosecution of what the prosecution had done on some of these leads.
00:21:49.940
First of all, there's a neighbor, a neighbor named Diane Jackson who claims she saw three
00:21:57.040
men and a van in the neighborhood at the time Lacey went missing.
00:22:03.280
So Diane can presumably place a van and three men in the neighborhood when she went missing.
00:22:10.660
That's a piece that the defense would like to argue.
00:22:13.500
Then there is this guy named Tom Harshman who claims he saw a pregnant woman being forced
00:22:23.940
into a van, Matt, and called in a tip, but it was never followed up in on.
00:22:30.480
He called back to say, I'm telling you, I saw, I think it was this guy who called back in
00:22:36.620
any event that he had seen this and in this discovery, I'm sorry, in this Peacock channel
00:22:43.100
show called face to face with Scott Peterson, where they got Scott Peterson on camera and
00:22:58.400
We'll drop it in, but he sounds a little drunk to be perfectly honest.
00:23:03.660
I, his words are kind of slurry, Matt, but he does say he saw a pregnant woman being forced
00:23:10.000
I mean, those two things alone, yeah, you got to admit as a defense attorney, you, you'd
00:23:15.280
like to know about those and you would certainly be arguing to the jury.
00:23:18.120
Let me tell you what that van did to Lacey Peterson.
00:23:21.340
We seen a girl and she was pregnant and she was in a van.
00:23:31.980
So they took her over to a fence and then said, forced her back in the van.
00:23:47.320
She says, if they're bad people, they don't hurt you.
00:23:53.940
So number one, passionate belief, Megan, as, and look, we see this all the time.
00:23:59.040
We see this politically in our country on both sides.
00:24:02.720
Passionate belief has no necessary connection to the truth.
00:24:08.020
Just doesn't like you can, you can have a sister-in-law who's banging the drum and, and
00:24:12.120
absolutely, I'm sure she personally believes this, but that doesn't equal evidence.
00:24:19.460
So it's also very important to remember that Lacey Peterson and, you know, again, I don't
00:24:26.480
want to age myself here, but I remember this case very well when it happened, as I'm sure
00:24:31.920
You're way younger than me, Megan, but look, she was missing.
00:24:37.080
And when it comes, when you prosecute cases like this, um, when somebody is missing before
00:24:42.280
the body's found, those are the ones that, that get all of the national media.
00:24:47.460
It's like my Samantha Runyon case back in the day, a little five-year-old girl that
00:24:52.840
The president of the United States was talking about that because that catches the headlines.
00:24:56.940
My Tom and Jackie Hawk's case, that couple was missing.
00:24:59.580
They were the ones tied to the anchor and thrown overboard, right?
00:25:02.220
Those get overwhelming media wise because it, it captures the public public's attention.
00:25:07.420
This was an absolute run-of-the-mill, bread-and-butter domestic violence murder in almost every way to
00:25:18.480
But for the fact that Lacey Peterson was pretty, she was pregnant and she was missing.
00:25:27.240
So what happens that, and I can tell you this from personal experience, good, you know, good-hearted,
00:25:34.220
well-meaning members of the community, people, neighbors, and complete strangers come out of
00:25:40.760
So when you talk about this guy, um, you know, Tom Harshman, you know, that, that is something
00:25:46.180
that the, this was the, the biggest case in the world for the period of time that she was
00:25:55.800
So this was something, there's been movies made out of this.
00:25:58.940
So well-meaning people come out of the woodwork.
00:26:01.040
And I'll tell you what, you know, when you talk about another big thing that the defense
00:26:05.600
has raised is one of the arguments they made in their court documents that I read was, look,
00:26:10.460
if there, there are all these neighbors that say they saw her, you know, after she had died
00:26:15.460
and all these people, and if even one of them is right, that means Scott Peterson couldn't
00:26:21.780
There were just, just to be clear, just to be clear.
00:26:24.460
That's because the, the defense would like to say Scott Peterson left the house early
00:26:31.260
And so if Lacey Peterson was out and about walking around after Scott had left the house,
00:26:40.040
So it's essentially, it's like a retroactive alibi, you know, Hey, if that person, okay.
00:26:44.700
So, so here's, here's something for you just to keep in mind.
00:26:47.800
There were 74 officially reported sightings of Lacey Peterson in 26 different States and
00:26:55.620
overseas during the time that she was missing 74.
00:26:58.860
Those are regular folks who were like, Hey, I saw, I think I saw her.
00:27:02.980
I think I saw her in, you know, um, Amagansett, New York.
00:27:12.060
It's like, how many, everybody's like, I saw her here.
00:27:18.720
And the thing is, some people really want to help.
00:27:21.500
And also I can tell you again, from personal experience, every wackadoo comes out of the,
00:27:28.840
And what happens when you get like, like it's, and I don't want to criticize the defense too
00:27:33.720
It's, it's their job to raise issues, you know, especially at the trial level.
00:27:38.920
But my problem is sort of the public's willingness to indulge nonsense, you know, in something
00:27:47.520
This woman was seven and a half months pregnant.
00:27:52.500
The California Supreme court, which is absolutely not.
00:27:55.340
I can also tell you not a rubber stamp for, for criminal convictions.
00:27:59.400
The California Supreme court upheld this seven to zero, you know, and they, again, they reverse
00:28:05.640
the death penalty part for reasons unrelated to the guilt of Scott Peterson seven.
00:28:10.100
Oh, it was because the judge on the jury selection said to the jury, could you, if he's
00:28:16.420
found guilty, could you impose a sentence of death potentially?
00:28:19.020
And he said, if you can't, then you can't sit on this case, something like that.
00:28:27.040
And the thing is, if they just, it was a, it was kind of an innocent way of, I don't
00:28:32.260
know if that judge hadn't done enough capital case litigation.
00:28:34.660
Essentially what was happening was when jurors were saying, um, I, I do not believe in the
00:28:47.380
And the vast majority of the time they say, no, I actually had a woman who voted death
00:28:52.320
on a case who said, I'm, I'm religiously against it.
00:28:55.300
I believe the death penalty is murder, but I could follow the law.
00:28:57.660
So the judge, and I kept her on and she imposed the death penalty.
00:29:06.380
Like you simply because somebody's opposed to it politically, religiously doesn't mean
00:29:14.360
So we are talking, I mean, the common use of that or the common term would be, that's
00:29:18.820
not only a technicality, that's kind of a hyper technicality.
00:29:21.800
I don't disagree with the California Supreme court's decision on that.
00:29:25.980
This is why Scott Peterson's death sentence was reversed and commuted to life in prison.
00:29:31.300
But now obviously they're seeking much, much more than that on team defense.
00:29:35.500
And I've also, I read one article where it's like the, the way they wrote it was so disingenuous.
00:29:40.420
It's like the, the California Supreme court has already had reservations.
00:29:48.540
I want to, it's like, I, it drives, this drives me crazy.
00:29:52.000
They're reversing, but let me keep going with the, with the evidence that Scott and his
00:29:57.200
sister-in-law and his defense team say warrants a retrial or the reopening of this case.
00:30:03.240
Um, now there was a man named Xavier Aponte, who I think is a prison guard who came in with a tip
00:30:13.580
claiming that he heard something that would exonerate.
00:30:26.520
This one says a tip came in from Xavier Aponte late in the trial that claimed Lacey had confronted
00:30:31.220
the burglars, which could have led to her murder.
00:30:35.300
And, um, the defense claims we were never given this information, even though the, the
00:30:39.260
police invest, uh, talk to this guy, the prosecutors claim that the statement was recanted.
00:30:44.640
But again, this, uh, peacock piece face to face has an interview with Xavier where he denies
00:30:52.260
Um, it appears that he may have overheard a prison conversation to this effect.
00:30:58.160
And he says, I didn't recant it, but apparently he admits that it was like a rumor he was hearing.
00:31:08.260
I was a correctional officer at the California rehabilitation center in Norco.
00:31:14.560
In January, 2003, one of the correctional officers responsible for monitoring inmate calls overheard
00:31:24.220
There were rumors on the street that Lacey Peterson had walked up and interrupted a burglary down
00:31:36.080
I contacted the Modesto PD's tip hotline because somebody might want to follow up on it.
00:31:43.780
At no time, uh, have I ever recanted my statements.
00:31:49.580
What I did say is that his conversation seemed to be, uh, hearsay from the talk on the street.
00:32:00.680
Like, I understand how you and I are like, oh, come on.
00:32:04.640
But if you're Garagos, right, who was his defense lawyer at trial, you want all of this because
00:32:11.580
now you're like, okay, that is supportive of my theory.
00:32:17.680
We know there was a burglary across the street from Lacey.
00:32:20.760
Um, we have a witness who says they saw three guys and the van.
00:32:25.920
And then we have another witness who says he saw a pregnant woman being forced into the van.
00:32:30.600
Now you have this guy who says Lacey confronted the burglars.
00:32:36.060
You can see a defense lawyer trying to drive a freight train through that in front of a jury
00:32:41.060
that may or may not be gullible or susceptible to this kind of argument.
00:32:50.720
Let's just stop before we get to the watch with Xavier Aponte and this alleged claim that
00:33:03.440
I mean, look, it's like with, with a cape on another thing to keep in mind on that is that
00:33:08.140
remember all the neighbors that came out because, because his dog was running around.
00:33:12.580
Remember this, this, this is nine 30 on Christmas, Christmas day.
00:33:16.160
So this is a, uh, like every neighbor on that street, it seems like saw their dog.
00:33:23.120
Remember they all came forward and, or heard Scott talking about how you went golfing.
00:33:27.240
So there are people out and about, this is not, this didn't happen at three o'clock in
00:33:35.520
Um, and literally, and one of the neighbors actually, it was seen by multiple neighbors
00:33:40.120
that it was important for establishing the timeline.
00:33:43.120
And one of the neighbors actually went and put the dog in the backyard with them.
00:33:50.520
So it's like, everybody sees the dog, but nobody sees Lacey getting forced into a van on
00:33:54.500
their street on Christmas day at nine 30 in the morning when everybody's out and about,
00:33:59.360
Like, are, are, are we really having this conversation?
00:34:05.700
So you've got three guys in the van coming through, like, are they ninjas?
00:34:10.200
Are they invisible, you know, like, you know, and so some dude, um, is, is interviewed 20
00:34:16.600
years later who said, yeah, well, I heard a rumor in jail, which, and this is another
00:34:23.260
Sorry to rant here, but jailhouse informants have are bad, right?
00:34:28.960
Like I thought, I thought rumors in jail, we weren't supposed to rely on them.
00:34:32.160
And I, look, I never used a jealous informant in my entire career because of all the inherent
00:34:37.140
problems with a criminal, who's going to try to throw somebody else under the bus and say
00:34:44.980
And that's something that I have to agree with a lot of public defenders about.
00:34:48.480
Like I, that was something that there was a big scandal in orange County about it.
00:34:51.460
Like, like they're inherently unreliable, but now there's a rumor in a jail and this
00:34:57.820
This is the, this is the key to the whole thing.
00:35:03.500
We did cases together and I got to say, Mark is an outstanding lawyer and Scott Peterson
00:35:13.940
Like you want the defense to have everything, you know, and if the, if the prosecution sat
00:35:19.620
on that or didn't provide it, that's an issue under Brady for potential.
00:35:27.740
It's not just that the prosecution wants them to have it.
00:35:29.720
It's that they have a constitutional right to it.
00:35:33.160
And they should, and they should, but it, but there are also limits there.
00:35:36.780
There have to be rational limits to what is, what is provided to them.
00:35:42.740
So if, if, if, if, if the investigatory team speaks with some random guys, like I saw a van
00:35:51.860
And they're like, Oh my Lord, like, let's say they can, this is hypothetical.
00:36:10.620
And I don't know, I don't know, you know, part of this is we've got allegations from essentially
00:36:21.260
So I don't know the reasons if I haven't read that report.
00:36:24.880
If there's something like that, yeah, they should turn that over.
00:36:27.300
Like when I, when I went through training, I had a guy that, um, Chris Evans was his name.
00:36:33.360
He trained us when we were baby DAS and his philosophy on discovery is give the defense
00:36:37.940
absolutely everything and then just beat them with it.
00:36:39.920
So the prosecution shouldn't be, um, they shouldn't be deciding what's relevant or not.
00:36:47.120
But under Brady, it, there is, there are limits to what are called Brady events.
00:36:52.960
And that's the prosecution's obligation to discover it.
00:36:55.920
And that is, is it, you know, is it reasonably likely to, um, you know, lead to, uh, you
00:37:03.580
know, corroborative of a defense or reasonably likely to help the defendant in their claims?
00:37:08.380
And, you know, that's, there's, there's gray area there.
00:37:16.360
Cause you mentioned the eyewitnesses in the neighborhood on the timeline.
00:37:20.340
So the, you know, loosely the timeline by the prosecution was,
00:37:25.240
that morning by 10 30, she was missing and Scott had left to go to either golfing or the
00:37:35.540
And that's in fact, where he was, um, there was an issue about the dog because the dog
00:37:41.600
was found running around in the neighborhood with its leash on.
00:37:45.280
I think you and I believe, and the prosecution argued, like, I believe Scott let the dog out.
00:37:52.500
It was like, this is part of creating his story that somebody got her.
00:37:55.820
Somebody abducted her in broad daylight on Christmas Eve.
00:38:00.220
And, um, there was a question about whether, well, like what time the dog was returned by
00:38:05.840
a well-meaning female neighbor who found the dog, knew it was the Petersons and opened up their gate
00:38:11.220
and put the dog back into the backyard as a good Samaritan.
00:38:15.060
And, um, if it was early, I'm trying to remember how it went down, but basically there's a mailman
00:38:22.620
who is saying that when he dropped off the mail, the dog wasn't there.
00:38:29.120
And he came a little later in the morning and, um, he always got barked at by the dog.
00:38:36.000
But this day when he dropped off the mail around 10 30, there was no barking.
00:38:39.820
He doesn't believe the dog had been returned to the neighborhood.
00:38:44.140
And therefore Lacey must've been out walking the dog at 10 30.
00:38:50.680
And therefore Scott could not have committed this murder because Scott was already gone.
00:38:54.400
The defense wants Scott gone as early in the, in the day as possible and Lacey running into
00:39:00.820
trouble as late in the morning as possible so that Scott couldn't have done it.
00:39:05.400
And they want to rely on this mailman as proof.
00:39:09.920
The dog had not yet been lost or returned to the backyard.
00:39:17.140
I, if the, why, if the viewing, I mean, if the listening audience could just see Matt's face,
00:39:21.640
it's worth watching this on YouTube just so you can see.
00:39:33.800
Yeah, no, it's, it's, there's any irregularity.
00:39:38.700
We're talking about human beings and we're talking about the frailty of human recollection.
00:39:44.080
I mean, you, you see your neighbor's dog walking around.
00:39:48.120
Well, you shouldn't be reopening a case on that.
00:39:50.500
And, and, and we're talking 20 years later and it's like, oh yeah, I think I got there
00:39:54.040
on my route, you know, about 10 30 based on the following.
00:39:57.420
And, but also it's so, there's so much inherent speculation and supposition like, well, the
00:40:06.580
And it, but the thing is also, there's, there's a thing in, there's an instruction regarding
00:40:11.860
circumstantial evidence and it's two reasonable interpretations.
00:40:15.600
So that it, it, there's an instruction that every jury is provided about, um, whether there's
00:40:20.560
one reasonable interpretation or two, one pointing towards innocence, one point towards
00:40:24.400
And the problem is, is that, you know, when you, when you have to jump through a million
00:40:29.280
different speculative hoops about, well, so the mailman remembers the dog barking.
00:40:36.120
Um, but that's also consistent completely with the idea that the dog got out when he is,
00:40:42.500
when he's loaded his dead wife into the boat and somehow he leaves a gate or the garage
00:40:49.220
open up long enough for the dog to get outside and, and leaving at nine 30.
00:40:53.780
And that just means the dog is running around the neighborhood at the time.
00:40:57.420
You know, that, that is not one of those things that you can say, aha, it's totally.
00:41:01.860
Well, and by the way, if your dog's not barking, it could mean your dog has found a bone.
00:41:07.100
Your dog has found something more interesting than the mailman.
00:41:10.840
Your dog is asleep or the dog just got out when he left at nine 30 and the mailman comes
00:41:16.060
and the dog's not barking because it hasn't been returned yet because the neighbor doesn't
00:41:22.760
You know, you know, there's the other thing is to your, to your point, Matt, when I, when
00:41:25.940
I was, um, a young lawyer myself, um, I practiced law with this very smart woman and she told
00:41:33.520
me this amazing story about when she was in law school at the time she was a nurse.
00:41:41.580
And, um, her teacher came in late one day, her professor, a law school professor came
00:41:47.520
in late one day, was all huffing, huffing and puffing.
00:41:53.140
Got almost got run off the road, like a road rage situation, but sorry, I'm fine.
00:41:59.400
Two minutes later, the guy with whom he had the road rage confrontation comes banging on
00:42:05.860
the door to the classroom and the teacher's like, Whoa.
00:42:10.920
And the guy comes in and starts threatening the professor and everybody's like, Oh my
00:42:26.600
Cause my friend Sandy, who was, you know, like some people are good in a, in a panic situation
00:42:34.760
The way she explained, there were all these big burly men who ran for the door.
00:42:40.880
They weren't going to protect any of the people who were exposed in the classroom.
00:42:43.580
And then there's Sandy, my like very small boned nurse who was like, get the guy in the
00:42:53.320
You make sure whatever it's like, she took control.
00:42:56.260
Of course, you know where this is going because you're a prosecutor.
00:43:00.040
10 minutes later, five minutes later, the professor comes back into the classroom.
00:43:05.480
And he admits to the class that this was an exercise.
00:43:09.920
And he says, take out a piece of paper and a pen.
00:43:14.220
And all I want you to do is write down a description of the man.
00:43:21.900
You know, one person said he was in a neon orange jacket.
00:43:27.900
One said he had full body pants and arms covered.
00:43:30.880
And of course, the whole exercise was an attempt to show how unreliable eyewitness testimony is,
00:43:37.020
especially when there's any sort of adrenaline involved or high stakes involved.
00:43:44.640
So the example that we would always give for in explaining that concept to a jury is if a clown came running through the courtroom and bopped somebody on the head with a rubber hammer, you know, some people might remember the red floppy shoes.
00:44:03.500
But if somebody didn't remember one of those things, it doesn't mean if the issue is what was the clown wearing.
00:44:09.640
If the issue is, did somebody come in and get bopped, bop somebody on the head with a hammer?
00:44:13.440
If that's what the jury is, is that if that's their task to figure out that happened, then those types of details don't remember, don't matter.
00:44:21.780
And the adrenaline in that situation, there's a whole other thing called weapons focus, where I guarantee half that class got everything wrong because they were just wide eyed at the gun.
00:44:33.300
You probably couldn't do that in law school today because everybody would get sued for the trauma.
00:44:37.960
And I can tell you, again, from personal experience, it's funny that you say nurse because we used to joke about this.
00:44:45.240
Nurses are the best prosecution jurors of any potential profession because they are in the real, real world and they don't like falling for BS.
00:44:55.580
So it doesn't surprise me a bit that your friend and nurse is the one that took control.
00:45:00.960
Yeah, and by the way, today, depending on where you went, like you do that south of the Mason-Dixon,
00:45:04.940
you're going to get shot by one of the good guys with the gun in the class.
00:45:08.300
So for all sorts of reasons, it wouldn't happen now.
00:45:10.860
So if the question is, did somebody, was the professor, did somebody point a gun at him if that's the issue?
00:45:20.480
Then it doesn't, like all of those details that everybody got wrong doesn't matter because they're still, they're being honest.
00:45:27.140
They just recollect different components of it.
00:45:29.520
And sometimes they'll get something completely wrong.
00:45:32.100
You see that a lot with facial hair, interestingly enough.
00:45:34.520
So what you see the defense doing in things like this case is they're going, well, wait a second.
00:45:42.600
And yeah, maybe she couldn't see that well with her glasses.
00:45:45.220
But she insists that the man had a bright red cape.
00:45:51.340
So he's entitled, even though his DNA was found, and even though there's a manifesto about how he hated everybody that cut him off in traffic and like all of these evidence.
00:46:01.600
But wait a second, she insists there was a red cape.
00:46:07.060
That's kind of what we're seeing over and over again with with cases like this, especially in the modern era.
00:46:12.280
And especially with, you know, I think this is I'm a huge proponent that kind of the interest in true crime is a good thing.
00:46:21.460
But there's also like, you know, there's there are downsides, too.
00:46:25.000
And that is, you know, people kind of believe some of the things that they see that can be very skewed and one sided.
00:46:33.540
And it's it's presented like I work for ABC News.
00:46:36.700
I'm I'm a firm believer in the professionalism of a lot of the media organizations that cover true crime when it's done right.
00:46:45.180
But still, it's not it's not presented in the legal context.
00:46:49.520
And another thing to remember, you know, this, Megan, because you want you're an attorney.
00:46:53.120
Our law is based on what's called stare decisis.
00:46:55.820
And what that means is we're different than a lot of other legal systems in the world that is Napoleonic or code based.
00:47:02.420
It's called civil law, where essentially a legislature sits down and they write a rule.
00:47:07.840
OK, our law is based on common sense and wise decisions based on real situations involving real people that have tested that have withstood the test of time over the years.
00:47:19.140
So when you're talking about the legal application of instructions, those instructions essentially reflect 500 years of wisdom of real people and real human frailty and real misrecollection.
00:47:32.920
And and when a jury applies those laws, as they did in the Scott Peterson case, in my experience, ninety nine plus percent of the time they get it right or they get it pretty close to right.
00:47:46.800
Sometimes that the right, quote unquote, is is an acquittal.
00:47:54.320
The jury in this case got it right based on the law, in my view, based on on all of the evidence that was presented, not fanciful.
00:48:02.620
And now it's hard to go back and in a quote documentary and second guess them.
00:48:07.660
And they did just get this favorable ruling and all this new access to discovery.
00:48:14.880
Innocence Project is a retrial for Scott Peterson.
00:48:17.520
So you you can't rule it out, especially in California.
00:48:25.180
This is actually something that I didn't know about, but consistent with this whole lane that the defense is trying to open the van, the bad guys.
00:48:33.380
I mean, it's really kind of crazy to me that they say it wasn't the two burglars who actually burglarized the house across from Lacey who killed her.
00:48:40.940
It was part of their gang because these two alibied out that the investigators did check out these two to say, is there any chance they abducted Lacey?
00:48:51.600
And they were apparently they're like on videotape with their families during the relevant time where they would have had to been doing nefarious things.
00:49:00.680
So then they expanded the theory to, well, it was their gang.
00:49:08.860
The other piece of proof that they mentioned in this documentary is her watch.
00:49:16.480
And the allegation is that this watch was offered up to a pawn shop on, let's see, a pawn shop claims that a lady came in to sell the watch.
00:49:28.960
I mean, about a week after Lacey went missing New Year's Eve from 2002 to 2003, and she had gone missing December 24th, 2002.
00:49:39.000
It wasn't clear if this was Lacey's watch or what happened to it after, you know, it was or whether, you know, it was sold, what happened to it.
00:49:48.960
But here is Scott Peterson from prison on that piece of jewelry.
00:49:52.800
It was missing, but the first time I heard that the police knew about it being pawned was well after I was arrested.
00:50:03.360
The police have to provide the defense with discovery when they ask for any sculpatory information.
00:50:13.620
And now I know why, because they covered it up.
00:50:19.500
OK, do you know how many pawn shops there were, like, around Modesto in this area?
00:50:27.200
I mean, like, if they cannot connect that watch to Lacey Peterson, it is a – like, if you don't have a serial number saying this is the one that was purchased, there's no – like, how wide does the prosecution detectives have to cast the net for the guy that's dyed his hair and has 15 grand and looks like he's about to split after – you know what I mean?
00:50:49.120
Like, compared to all the evidence against Scott Peterson, every pawn shop has a sparkly watch that's been – that's been gotten pawned or a ring or something else.
00:50:57.860
I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.
00:51:03.160
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00:51:11.200
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00:52:01.280
Another thing to remember, facts-wise in this, and you've got to keep bringing this case back to the facts.
00:52:07.020
When police searched the house, they found Lacey Peterson's purse.
00:52:12.180
So I guess the theory is she is out walking the dog with expensive, sparkly jewelry, but didn't take her sunglasses, didn't take her keys, didn't take her purse.
00:52:24.520
You know, so there's immediate problems based on the real evidence that was discovered.
00:52:30.560
And the idea that then they go, well, hey, there was somebody that pawned something in the central – in central California during the height of a methamphetamine epidemic where every car is getting broken into and burglies are happening all the time.
00:52:48.220
You've got two guys that are in a burglary gang, which, by the way, I've never heard of, and I worked in the gang unit, a burglary gang, okay?
00:52:57.660
So the burglary gang, somebody identifies them.
00:53:00.880
So if the thing is she jumps over a fence with her pregnant woman cape on and they kidnap her because of a burglary, but, oh, no, they didn't kidnap her.
00:53:10.520
The gang came in and kidnapped her because they weren't actually there and committed a murder because of an offense that you could – for a residential burglary back then, you might do a bullet.
00:53:23.240
You might do a year, county jail, maybe you get no time, maybe you get – you're going to get probation or low term.
00:53:28.700
No, let's murder a pregnant woman so that she can't identify the guys in our gang is laughably absurd.
00:53:37.380
Like, it's just – there's such a burglary gang, by the way.
00:53:46.480
It's like a burglary gang, like, you know, that they're going to go and commit a first-degree murder of a pregnant woman to help the guys that she saw is absolutely – it just – it is ridiculous.
00:54:02.180
And, again, going back to that instruction, reasonable versus unreasonable.
00:54:06.400
The jury is instructed to reject unreasonable interpretations of evidence.
00:54:11.260
You know, and that is a laughable sort of unreasonable in the courtroom.
00:54:16.400
And what I love, though, is the chutzpah of Scott Peterson, you know, saying, oh, the police withheld it.
00:54:23.460
That's another thing that we should probably dispel is the idea that the cops just want to make an arrest because there's – you know, they just want to make an arrest.
00:54:32.220
That by itself, like to any professional law enforcement officer, you look like a buffoon if you arrest the wrong person.
00:54:38.740
And if somebody murdered a pregnant beautiful woman like Lacey Peterson, you don't just arrest her husband so that you look good having arrested somebody and then you let the real killer stay free so he can, what, murder the next person, the neighbor down the street two weeks later.
00:54:59.220
They arrested Scott Peterson because of the overwhelming evidence that they accumulated against him and the way he behaved, the way he repeatedly lied to everybody.
00:55:10.400
And, you know, it's like that whole notion that it was withheld to frame him from him just kind of gets my blood boiling a little bit.
00:55:22.060
And the cops in the piece, they deny, they deny that they withheld, inappropriately withheld any evidence from the defense.
00:55:34.420
Scott Peterson, maybe he's been working on his acting skills.
00:55:38.840
He managed to work up a bit of emotion when he was on the phone in this documentary.
00:55:45.880
I mean, it was interesting because he didn't cry at all.
00:55:48.500
He showed no emotion the entire time she was allegedly, quote, missing.
00:55:53.880
I told you, at the vigil, he was talking to his girlfriend.
00:55:58.420
And he didn't even flinch when they found him guilty or sentenced him to death.
00:56:02.960
He explains that in this documentary saying, the media had been so horrible to me, I didn't want him to have his satisfaction.
00:56:09.240
But then they end the piece with Scott getting all watery-eyed over Lacey.
00:56:18.500
Is it easy to remember what life was like 20 years ago?
00:56:30.320
It smells and the light and the sound of what I say, goodbye to Lacey.
00:56:38.680
I drove away, expecting to come back that afternoon and have our wonderful Christmas together.
00:56:44.780
After we both had, you know, fun mornings and about, they were gone.
00:56:54.260
But there are certainly times that I become a wreck.
00:57:03.020
Try not to be, uh, too emotional out here in the day room with the prison.
00:57:16.720
Well, the problem, the problem with that, number one, look, anybody who would murder his pregnant
00:57:21.440
wife so that he can go continue his dalliance with a woman that he likes better, um, nobody
00:57:26.680
should be shocked that a guy who would do that would turn around and then lie about the
00:57:31.920
So for it, it, it always gets us, you know, when, when a grown man cries, you know, but
00:57:38.080
it's like the first time I saw, yeah, the first time I, the first time I saw a criminal
00:57:43.760
defendant lie and cry, you know, it kind of got to me.
00:57:47.180
And the second time I saw a murder defendant do that in the third, like it's, this is, it's
00:57:51.660
again, going back to the evidence here, the lead detective on the case, when they
00:57:55.760
interviewed Scott Peterson, he said he showed a shocking lack of emotion and a shocking
00:58:06.200
He didn't ask for where's the state of the investigation.
00:58:10.540
He didn't ask any of those things that you would expect from somebody that whose wife
00:58:15.840
Like this is that what your viewers just watched is the exact opposite of the way that he was
00:58:24.620
This was my Sam Lopez performance with my Kathy Torres case.
00:58:28.880
That was a boyfriend who murdered his, his girlfriend.
00:58:31.220
And she was also missing found a week later in the trunk of her car.
00:58:34.820
And we, we convicted him largely based on his interview where they, they often will play
00:58:40.740
Megan, the innocent husband, spouse, boyfriend, whatever will play the role of like, Hey, how
00:58:48.420
And they pretend like a bystander who has nothing to hide and no dog in the fight is who's calm
00:58:54.300
and collected and sort of like peacefully answering questions, respectfully going through it versus
00:59:00.120
a real husband who loved his wife, who's innocent, who would be losing his mind during all of those
00:59:07.020
Like Chris Watts, this is reminding me of Chris Watts too.
00:59:12.320
And look, people react to grief differently, but, but when you're, when you're cold about
00:59:17.520
it, it's totally inconsistent with what we just watched.
00:59:20.320
So if, so if Scott, remember, remember that one interview Scott Peterson gave to a reporter,
00:59:25.900
I can't, I don't think it was the Diane Sawyer one.
00:59:28.200
I think it was the local reporter who got great stuff from him.
00:59:31.420
And this was when the search was on for Lacey and Connor and the phone rang and he didn't
00:59:41.420
It was like, didn't happen to your point, to exactly the point you're making.
00:59:46.980
How would an innocent guy not know that that's, that that's the police going great news.
00:59:51.680
She was tied up in a, in a warehouse or, or like that's exactly what I'm talking about.
00:59:57.180
The thing is, Megan jury, when you take a jury, you have 512 deliberating jurors.
01:00:06.420
You have 500 years of collective common sense wisdom on that.
01:00:09.920
And they may not be experts on DNA or on the forensic processing of like cell phone data
01:00:16.320
or whatever it is, but I'll tell you, juries are very, very good at human behavior and how
01:00:21.320
somebody should act under, under certain circumstances and how they shouldn't.
01:00:25.480
And that jury, you know, they got all that evidence back then.
01:00:29.040
I don't know if they, I don't think they ever introduced that, that interview, but you
01:00:33.800
Like, how does he know if he's innocent, that that's not them saying great news or Hey,
01:00:40.300
Like when your wife is missing, you pick up the frigging phone, right?
01:00:47.220
And with Scott Peterson, when we're talking about the collage, that's one more piece of
01:00:52.940
And then you look at, you know, you put all of that together and you compare that and the
01:00:59.100
affair and seeing that she was going to die and the fact that he, according to his own
01:01:03.420
change story, but later admission, he went to from the Berkeley Marina, which is exactly
01:01:13.120
And the fact, again, her hair was found on flyers in his boat.
01:01:17.880
You put all that together versus, Oh, we've got a theory.
01:01:21.660
There's a drunk guy who thinks he saw a pregnant woman getting into a van, right?
01:01:26.420
Like, well, the other thing is Matt, and I know this isn't like, this is just anecdotal
01:01:30.800
between us, but his use of the term wonderful, we were going to have our wonderful Christmas
01:01:38.280
I'm sorry, but that's just not how real people in love talk.
01:01:46.640
Like a few years might, might've been as many as seven at the time he left this alleged
01:01:53.720
I mean, in my experience, like your man might call you like babe, honey, you know, it, I
01:02:04.180
Like somebody who's intentionally trying to insert these, you know, superfluous terms.
01:02:10.520
So to try to convince you that they're feeling something they're not.
01:02:21.460
I won't be able to get to the Villa farms to get that basket for Papa.
01:02:24.760
I was hoping you would get this message and go on out there.
01:02:31.760
And, and this is the golf slash of fishing trip, right?
01:02:35.340
The, the, like that, which had to be the shortest surgeon fishing trip in history, 90
01:02:46.540
They were all sitting there still in their plastic wrap in his boat.
01:02:52.460
When you actually do murder cases like this, you see, and look, the theory always on him
01:02:56.860
and what they convinced the jury of, this was a planned murder.
01:03:02.340
Um, they were never able to account for, uh, he made the anchors.
01:03:05.940
One, well, he, they, and they found one, but he had a 90 pound bag of concrete and they
01:03:12.580
And the theory always was the rest of it was attached to Lacey.
01:03:16.060
So there's a bunch of missing cement here too, guys.
01:03:18.380
Like there's, there's so much that, but you see that all the time because even dumb criminals
01:03:23.980
are smart enough to go, Hey, I, if I leave a false, you know, um, voicemail and, and look,
01:03:30.160
that's like my Daniel Wozniak case that there, that you see that all the time.
01:03:35.460
And especially in domestic violence cases, when the body is missing, it's like, Hey,
01:03:43.020
It's like, they've been married for a long time.
01:03:45.080
It's, and if he's so in love with her, like kind of weird that he's, I don't know that
01:03:49.780
he's, I would probably want to go fishing on Christmas day too, if I had the day off or
01:03:53.860
golfing, but it's, there's an, there's an inherent inconsistency with that.
01:03:59.700
And when you break it all down, that's why the, that's what it stinks.
01:04:08.000
That's why the California Supreme court affirmed the conviction seven to zero.
01:04:11.960
And that's why when you're, you know, with the defense running around going, wait, we
01:04:16.740
have a drunk guy who thinks he saw somebody get into a van.
01:04:21.860
So we, so in some, we do not believe it is likely that they get ordered a new trial.
01:04:28.180
Oh God, you know, in my fair state of California, Megan, I, I hope not.
01:04:36.400
I don't think the court should grant a new trial based on this, but also look, Brady evidence
01:04:41.460
is a tricky thing because Brady evidence has been an evolving area of the law.
01:04:45.680
And essentially the prosecution is obligated to turn over basically anything that can be
01:04:51.220
And there's been a lot of litigation, a lot of new cases in California, and you have to
01:04:57.440
So it, in my view, what the court does is going to depend on whether or not they find
01:05:03.020
that there was a Brady violation on this and a Brady violation, by the way, is not a statement
01:05:08.000
It's, it's, it is, it's a technical issue that, that would violate the due process rights
01:05:20.120
But, but where the parameters on that's kind of been a moving goalpost in the state of
01:05:25.380
So I, in my view, I feel very strongly that what the defense has come up with here is
01:05:29.940
laughably short of where I believe the standard should be on that.
01:05:33.020
Um, but you know, prosecutors also make mistakes, detectives make mistakes and you never really
01:05:39.680
So I, I, I don't think he should be granted any trial.
01:05:42.900
I really hope he's not, but if he is, I really hope that the Stanislaus County district attorney's
01:05:49.940
office approaches this case with as much vigor that first of all, they defend and they advocate
01:05:55.500
on behalf of their conviction, because look, this guy, in my view, not my case here, he's,
01:06:05.120
I believe the California Supreme court was exactly right for affirming it for all the reasons
01:06:09.940
And, um, hopefully if he is granted a new trial, he's retried properly and he's convicted
01:06:16.180
again, you know, that they take it seriously, that they don't, that they don't just go with
01:06:19.800
like, you know, the, the, the emotional public momentum, like we, like we're starting to see
01:06:30.140
Well, I mean, at least in Menendez, they have an argument that there was mitigating evidence,
01:06:38.980
Like that, that they had been tortured by their father.
01:06:41.440
Um, in this case, there's no such, there's no mitigation.
01:06:44.660
I mean, if you believe Scott Peterson did this, he's a stone cold psychopath who rather than
01:06:51.960
just getting the old fashioned divorce, decided to murder his own baby and beautiful young wife
01:06:59.960
with a loving family who had everything going for her, who truly believed she was married
01:07:06.380
The theory is that he looked that sweet woman in the eyes and strangled her to death on their
01:07:14.100
That sick effort should never see the light of day.
01:07:17.500
He should be on his knees every night, thanking God that the death penalty was reversed for him.
01:07:23.360
I mean, that's, that's the best victory he could hope for in my view, Matt Murphy.
01:07:31.440
And all week we are back on Monday live, looking forward to seeing and talking with you then.
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