California court reverses death penalty conviction of Scott Peterson

California’s Supreme Court has reversed the death penalty conviction of Scott Peterson who murdered his pregnant wife and their unborn son 18 years ago. 

The state’s highest court on Monday overturned Peterson’s 2005 death sentence but upheld his murder conviction. 

Peterson was found guilty of killing his 27-year-old wife Laci Peterson in 2004.

Laci was reported missing on Christmas Eve in 2002 when she was eight months pregnant with their son Connor.  

Her husband led the search for her for months but was arrested for murder after her badly decomposed body washed up on a San Francisco shoreline in April 2003.  

In the ruling on Monday, the court said the death penalty was being removed because the trial judge made ‘clear and significant errors’ in jury selection that meant Peterson did not receive an impartial trial. 

The court agreed with Peterson’s argument that potential jurors were improperly dismissed from the jury pool after saying they personally disagreed with the death penalty but would be willing to follow the law and impose it. 

‘While a court may dismiss a prospective juror as unqualified to sit on a capital case if the juror´s views on capital punishment would substantially impair his or her ability to follow the law, a juror may not be dismissed merely because he or she has expressed opposition to the death penalty as a general matter,’ the justices said in a unanimous decision.

Peterson, who is now 47, contended on appeal that he couldn’t get a fair trial because of the massive publicity that followed, although the proceedings were moved nearly 90 miles away from his Central Valley home of Modesto to San Mateo County, south of San Francisco. 

Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager did not immediately say if she would again seek the death penalty. 

Peterson was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his wife and the second-degree murder of their unborn son.

Investigators chased nearly 10,000 tips and considered parolees and convicted sex offenders as possible suspects after Laci was reported missing.

Peterson was eventually arrested after Amber Frey, a massage therapist living in Fresno, told police that they had begun dating a month before his wife’s death.

She told authorities that Peterson had told her his wife was dead.

Investigators say Peterson dumped his wife’s body from his fishing boat into San Francisco Bay the night they were reported missing. 

Peterson also had contended on appeal that the trial court erred in deciding whether jurors and the defense were properly allowed to test whether Peterson’s new boat would likely have capsized if he dumped the weighted bodies over the side.