I was browsing to see the current status of convicted murder Scott Peterson in the appeal process. Appeal Information
He was convicted in 2004, but his direct appeal was not even filed until 2012. Then the State responds to the Petition in 2015. Peterson files his reply a full six months later. A decision is still pending.
Why does it take eight years to file an initial appeal? Why does the state have more than two years to respond?
I’m not saying I believe Peterson is innocent, but lets assume that a grave injustice were done; a person has to wait 13 years and counting before the first California court looks at it? That’s insane.
Well, if he (and his lawyers) took eight years before they got the first appeal in, then part of the fault is right there. (Is he being represented by public appellate counsel or is he paying his own lawyers?)
I think a lot of states are in the same predicament when it comes to very complex and difficult cases. For example, here in Kansas the cases of the Carr brothers have been winding through the courts for as long as Peterson’s case. Jonathan Carr filed a motion to docket an appeal of his death sentence in February 2003, but his public defenders filed twenty-one motions for extension of time before finally getting his brief filed in 2009; the State of Kansas then filed “only” nine motions to extend time before getting their reply brief filed in 2012. Then we had a couple of rounds of supplemental briefs, a hearing, motions to supplement oral argument, etc., before the first appellate decision in 2014. The state then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision, but the case is back in the Kansas courts for a ruling on some secondary issues, and they’ve had a few rounds of supplemental briefs therein, with another decision expected sometime.
This is a big case, though; death penalty cases always are. One or more lives hinge on the outcome, and everybody wants to get it right. A more “ordinary” criminal case would be State of Kansas v. Ritz, which is a felony murder case but does not involve the death penalty. Ritz docketed his appeal in July 2014; the Kansas Supreme Court issued its ruling last week.
From the appeal :
According to a declaration which the state itself prepared, several weeks after
Laci’s disappearance, Lieutenant Xavier Aponte – a guard at the California
Rehabilitation Center in Norco, California – reported a call he had monitored between
inmate Shawn Tenbrink and his brother Adam Tenbrink. During the call, Adam said his
friend Steven Todd admitted Laci saw him burglarizing the Medina home on December
24, 2002. (20 CT 6433-6434.) Aponte said he taped this conversation, but then lost it.
(20 CT 6434, 6435.) Of course, if Lt. Aponte was correct – and laci saw Todd
burglarizing the Medina house after 10:30 on December 24 – then Laci was alive when
Scott left that morning and he is innocent.
Pretty compelling. So there’s no tape. But there is a witness statement. If Laci was alive at that point in time, there is a complete timeline of evidence between that moment on Dec 24 and the moment Scott reported his wife missing.
So as I understand it, in order to find the defendant guilty, you must be certain beyond a reasonable doubt that this witness is mistaken or lying.
I wouldn’t find guilt if I were on the jury. My threshold is 95% - and I think there’s more than a 5% chance this account is true.