I was watching a show on TV about the horrible murder of laci and the unborn child. It ended with Scott being sentenced to death. I understand that an appeal is being mounted; does anybody know:
-who is paying for this? After paying atty. mark gerago’s (substantial) fess, I doubt that Peterson’s parents have anything left
-on what basis is the appeal being based? (pre-trial publicity?). i thought the trial was conducted with great attention to fairness.
Anyway, how realistic is it to suppose that peterson will be executed? Still, life on death row can’t be fun-has he had any change of heart? :eek:
I can’t speak for California exactly but some states give an automatic appeal to people sentenced to death. It is paid for by the state plus whatever any outside parties want to contribute to help the cause. It would be very rare anywhere in the U.S. for someone to to be put to death without an appeal provided one was desired by the accused.
See the following thread on the Crime and Justice forums.
Not as current as I thought, but it does take the process up to July of this year so it’s udeful for background. (He said, unconvincingly.) 
In California, Death Penalty convictions are automatically appealed… can be paid for my the defendent or the State… often take 5-10 years to exhaust… and usually uphold the original sentencing. The execution, on the other hand, can take many more years to carry out. Right now all executions in California are on hold because of a constitutional issue with the lethal injection procedure. Once that’s sorted out they should start up again… but the waiting list is pretty long! :rolleyes: