The jury has decided on the death penalty for Scott Peterson. Is there a lesson in this? In my opinion, yes. Having served on two juries, I have come to the conclusion that, sometimes, it is in a defendant’s best interest to forgo the jury trial.
Here’s the deal, when it finally gets time to deliberate, jurors are ready to get the hell out of there and go home. When it gets to that point, jurors tend to give expediency preference over deliberation. And in Peterson’s case, it seems that the jury also interjected emotion into the equation.
In this instance, a jury gave a defendent the death penalty for killing his wife and unborn child, but yet, no one knows how the wife and child were killed. Without that specific knowledge, how could a reasonable jury give someone the death-penalty without basing their decision on nothing more than emotion? Death-penalty cases are reserved for premeditated 1st degree murders. Was it premeditated? No one knows. Did the killing qualify as 1st degree? No one knows.
For those reasons, I believe that the judge will overturn the death-penalty conviction, and give Scott Peterson life without the possibility of parole.
He killed them. This is a fact (as far as the legal system can establish fact). The verdict was murder in the first degree, which makes Peterson liable for the death penalty. And they found the bodies, and it was determined that Laci was strangled or smothered. So the decision to impose the death penalty is based on a good deal more than “emotion”.
The death penalty may or may not be a mistake by the jury, but it isn’t for any reason you have listed. Exactly what information do you think was lacking to justify the DP?
Had I been on the jury, he would have gotten life since I would under no conditions vote for the death penalty. That being said, I have issues with these portions of the OP:
The method of murder was not important, the pertinent fact was this jury found that Scott caused these deaths.
Again, who cares how they were killed? And what evidence is there that only emotion came into their decision? Listening to the three that spoke, they were all articulate and somber and appeared to take their responsibility most seriously.
The jury found that it was.
Again, the jury found that it was. I personally think that it was- this was not the kind of guy that would kill his wife in a burst of anger, he is the cold calculating type. If he is cold enough to dump the bodies from a boat and lie about going fishing, and if he is cold enough to sell her car within weeks of her murder then I believe he is certainly cold enough to have premeditated this crime.
Aren’t jurors screened beforehand to make sure that, since the case carries the possibility of the DP, they WILL vote for it if they think it’s right at the end? It would color the whole case if somebody was sitting there for six months determined never to administer one of the punishments the state allows.
As far as I know, the cause of death was never determined.
Not without a known cause of death. Maybe it was an argument. Peterson pushed his wife, she fell and struck her head. In a panic, he tried to cover it up. Who knows?
Because nobody knows how she died.
The information lacking was the manner of death. As for emotion being interjected into the decision, what else explains why Scott Peterson gets the death penalty, while Susan Smith, the woman who locked her kids in the car and rolled it into a lake, gets life.
Some jurors have stated that Scott’s silence, his emotional detachment and sociopathic demeaner are what swayed their decision.
However, the DP in Cali is a bit of a joke, since it’s rarely carried out and always dragged on for eons, resulting in death by old age before the sentence can be delivered. Jurors know this, so it’s far easier for them in their conscience to levy the heaviest penalty. It’s alsmost like saying “you deserve it” without having to be morally resposible for delivering it.
Cause of death was NOT determined. Let’s not get the fact confused.
I was surprised at the sentence, too. All the evidence is circumstantial, which should leave some element of doubt. I will be surprised if this sentence stands up to appeal.
And as others have noted, he’s unlikely to be executed. In the paper this morning, it was noted that there are over 100 people on CA death row and we execute one of them approximately every 3 years. SP will be, for all intents and purposes, at the end of that line.
Well, if some jurors actually stated that the defendant’s silence swayed their decision, then that, alone, would be grounds for appeal if not mistrial.
A defendant’s silence is not to be taken into consideration when deciding either guilt or innocence. It’s that darned 'ol Fifth Amendment thing.
If the jury had thought about their decision, they should have recommended life without parole. It would really be the death penalty, but carried out much swifter than if it had been done through the formal process.
The prosectutions case was weak at best. The only thing that they proved was that Scott Peterson was a cheat and an arsehole. But the jury bought that so the death penalty was the next logical step.
First, the 1st degree murder verdict occurred prior to the sentencing phase, and the jury knew that if they found Peterson guilty of first degree murder, they would have to come back for the sentencing phase. Thus, if they wanted to just “get the hell out of there,” they would have found Peterson guilty of second-degree murder (if available) or just acquit him.
Second, your problem appears to be with the first degree murder conviction, not the imposition of the death penalty. At the time of the sentencing deliberations, the issue of premeditation is no longer on the table - it’s been established. At that point, with that established, the death penalty is not unreasonable.*
I thought this as well, but I haven’t seen any mention of it elsewhere. The jurors seem to be saying quite clearly that they took his demeanor in court into account when making their decision.
If they said, “We think he’s guilty because he refused to take the stand and testify”, that is a violation of the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights, and is grounds for appeal.
If, on the other hand, they said “We think he’s guilty because, when all the testimony was given he didn’t react, he just sat in silence”, that is an assessment of the defendant’s demenor, a fact the jury is entitled to take into account during their deliberations.
Not necessarily, it would depend on how the jurors were voting. A 8 to 4 vote for 1st degree murder could sway the 4 to go ahead and change so they could “get the hell out of there”.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the crux of it. Personally, I don’t understand how the jury could arrive at a conclusion of 1st degree murder without knowing the cause of death.
And without knowing the cause of death, how could the determination of premeditation be made?
Well, all cases leave SOME doubt, circumstantial cases in particular.
But if circumstantial cases were never sufficient, they would all get turned over on appeal.
In this case, the circumstances were:
The mutilated bodies of the wife and unborn son of a man who is cheating on her (and lying to his girlfriend about her very existence) wash up in the far-from-their-home location he declared as his alibi for the time of her disappearance. He is then found to be doing what he was unable to convince anyone was something other than attempting to leave the country under a false identity with large piles of untraceable cash.
Doesn’t take Einstein to figure that one out, although the defense apparently put forth a valiant effort to introduce reasonable doubt.
I personally think that the state should not be in the business of dealing death, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think people do things worthy of a swift demise. Scott Petersen is a textbook example of this. I’d be happy if someone killed him, I just don’t think the ability to do so should be built into the state’s powers.
I would be in favor of putting him in a public stockade and seeing what happens.
The difficulty being [ul][li]It was established beyond a reasonable doubt that Laci and her unborn child were murdered []It was established beyond a reasonable doubt that Scott did it []It was established beyond a reasonable doubt that Scott killed them with premeditation []It was established to the jury’s satisfaction that the murders fit the definition of “murder in the first degree” []It is the duty of a jury in California to determine if a first-degree murderer should be imprisoned for life, or executed [*]The jury decided Scott Peterson should be executed.[/ul] Whether or not Scott strangled her with his hands, used a necktie, or smothered her with a pillow is not really relevant. The manner of death was “homicidal violence”. The jury’s verdict was that Scott did it. [/li]
Maybe he cut her throat with a beer opener, and they couldn’t tell because she had been in the water too long. It isn’t relevant. She’s dead, and he killed her, and he planned it ahead of time. First degree murder - Q.E.D.
Mothers who kill their children rarely get the death penalty. Women in general rarely get the DP. One of the stronger predictors as to whether or not a given murderer will get the death penalty is if the victim and killer knew each other, or not. Stranger murders sometimes get the DP, acquaintance murders much less often. I suspect the fact that the victim was pretty, white, pregnant, tipped the balance in this case, even though the murderer and victims knew each other.
You can certainly call that “emotion”, but so too could you call sympathy for a half-crazed woman who drowns her children.
Which is not to say that the sentence will not be changed. The murderer is white, middle class, and the trial heavily publicized. I am sure lawyers could find something there to argue for life, and they will certainly try.
The legal system does not bar juries from convicting soley on circumstantial evidence. Once a jury has convicted, the presumption is that their verdict is correct and the defense has a heavy burden to prove otherwise.
Wholly different type of trial though. Didn’t that mother use and insanity defense? That would have a totally different guilt effect on the jury than Peterson’s non-emotional detachment.
Why does the death sentence take so long to carry out in California? (I’m assuming here the process is much slower than in states like Texas but please correct me if I’m wrong). Is it politically inspired? Does California have more appeal stages? As an Englishman I’m not well-informed of these matters but it seems incredible that it might take decades (according to some reports) to run through the whole process.