[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- CALIF.

[Joerg Sommer]

death penalty news

July 16, 2004


CALIFORNIA:

Police: No Evidence Against Peterson Found

Scott Peterson's defense attorneys continued to pick apart the murder case 
against him as an exhaustive search for hard evidence that has turned up 
nothing incriminating.

Attorney Mark Geragos launched a barrage of insinuations Thursday that 
authorities abandoned reason in their zeal to get Peterson.

At nearly every turn of his cross examination, Geragos forced Modesto 
police Detective Henry Hendee to acknowledge that searches of San Francisco 
Bay yielded nothing to link Peterson to the killing of his pregnant wife, Laci.

Geragos attacked the prosecution's theory that Peterson crafted homemade 
cement anchors to sink his wife's body in San Francisco Bay.

On Wednesday, prosecutors showed jurors pictures of a wooden flatbed 
trailer inside the warehouse where Peterson stored the boat authorities 
allege he used to ferry his wife's body onto the bay.

A white powdery substance covered the trailer in patchy spots. Hendee 
pointed out five circles in the dust, voids in the powder where Peterson 
allegedly placed molds to make the anchors. The circles were barely 
distinguishable.

"It looks like a triangle to me," Geragos said, pointing with a long stick 
to the large display screen.

"If you look carefully," Hendee replied.

"How carefully am I supposed to look?" Geragos retorted. "Is that a 
circular pattern there? How about over there? ... Is this one of those 
circles right there, the one with the square edges?"

Geragos continued over repeated objections from prosecutors.

"Sustained, sustained, sustained," Judge Alfred A. Delucchi said.

Geragos then began to attack each piece of evidence authorities collected 
in their search of Peterson's home and warehouse - from stained boots to 
black maternity pants to a boat cover.

"And what did you find?" Geragos asked repeatedly.

"Nothing," Hendee replied.

Prosecutors allege Peterson murdered his wife in their Modesto home on or 
around Dec. 24, 2002, then drove to the bay and dumped the body.

Peterson acknowledges being on the bay that Christmas Eve day, but said he 
went fishing alone and returned to an empty home. Geragos asserts that 
someone else abducted and killed Laci Peterson, then framed her husband.

The remains of Laci Peterson and the couple's fetus washed ashore just two 
miles from where Peterson claims he was fishing.

Peterson, 31, could get the death penalty if convicted.

The trial resumes Monday.

(source: AP / Wilmington Star)