[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., NEB., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

August 8



ARKANSAS:

Appeals court orders new hearing for death row inmate


The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has again reversed a lower court and 
ordered another hearing on whether Alvin Jackson is sufficiently intellectually 
disabled to be disqualified for execution for the capital murder of prison 
guard Scott Grimes.

The court said the district judge who ruled against Jackson didn't have the 
benefit of a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decision on how to weigh the 
disability issue and it said Jackson should get a hearing on his challenge of a 
new diagnostic test. Competing experts testified, with the state's indicating 
Jackson's intellectual capacity hovered near the questionable mark.

Said the court:

We make no judgment as to whether or not Jackson is intellectually disabled, 
but find that the exacting review required in death penalty cases commands 
further consideration of this matter.

The decision was written by Judge Bobby Shepherd of El Dorado.

Jackson was sentenced to life in 1990 for the murder of Charles Colclasure then 
sentenced to death in 1996 for the killing of Grimes.

Jackson didn't have an execution date set.

(source:Arkansas Times)

**********************

Arkansas judge banned from death-penalty cases seeks removal of investigator in 
ethics complaint


An Arkansas judge who was banned from hearing execution cases after 
participating in an anti-death penalty demonstration is seeking the removal of 
an attorney investigating his ethics complaint against the state Supreme Court.

An attorney for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen said Tuesday the 
judge is asking the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission to relieve J. 
Brent Standridge of his duties as a special counsel investigating Griffen's 
ethics complaint. Griffen attorney Mike Laux claimed Standridge has gathered 
zero evidence to support or disprove Griffen's complaint that the court 
violated judicial ethics rules.

Justices disqualified Griffen from execution related cases after he was 
photographed lying on a cot outside the governor's mansion during an anti-death 
penalty demonstration. Earlier that day, Griffen blocked Arkansas from using a 
lethal injection drug.

(source: Associated Press)






NEBRASKA----impending execution

State officials released guidelines for the scheduled execution of Carey Dean 
Moore's on Aug. 14.


According to the death warrant, the execution may occur from 12:01 a.m. to 
11:59 p.m., but unless there is a stay or legal action preventing the execution 
from proceeding, it will occur around 10 a.m.

Moore was sentenced to death for the 1979 murders of 2 Omaha cab drivers, Reuel 
Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland . He has been on death row longer than anyone 
else in Nebraska. This would mark the state's 1st execution since 1997.

Public parking isn't permitted on penitentiary grounds or at Cornhusker State 
Industries. Members of the public will be allowed on penitentiary grounds no 
earlier than 8 a.m. and should only cross at the following locations, which 
will be staffed by Lincoln police officers:

South 14th Street

Pioneers and South 8th Street

Pioneers and Highway 2

Entry to penitentiary grounds is only available on foot at South 14th Street. 
All people entering penitentiary grounds are subject to person and vehicle 
search.

Upon admission, members of the public must identify as a proponent or opponent 
in order to be directed to the appropriate public area.

The following rules must be observed:

Remain within assigned areas as directed by law enforcement.

No weapons of any kind are permitted on the grounds.

No backpacks, gym bags or other bags are permitted on penitentiary grounds.

No coolers or chairs are permitted on penitentiary grounds.

Only handheld signs will be permitted. No signs will be allowed that are 
mounted on poles, sticks or other objects. No exceptions.

Do not cross barriers.

Do not approach the security fence.

Do not film the facility or inmates through the fence.

Do not film the front entrance corridor.

Failure to adhere to the guidelines or non-compliance with instructions from 
law enforcement officers and/or Nebraska State Penitentiary staff will be cause 
for removal from the premises.

(source: KETV news)

*********************************

Doctors voice concern over effectiveness of Nebraska execution drugs


As the date for Nebraska's 1st execution in 2 decades nears, medical 
professionals are voicing concern over whether the drugs the state intends to 
use will adequately anesthetize the prisoner.

Nebraska plans to execute Carey Dean Moore on Aug. 14, using a combination of 
drugs never before used in a lethal injection. The 4-drug recipe includes 
diazepam, which is Valium, and fentanyl, an opiate.

"The literature all shows that Valium is not strong enough to anesthetize a 
person," said Dr. Alan Kaye, chairman of the anesthesiology department at 
Louisiana State University and a professor of pharmacology. "If I were putting 
someone to sleep for surgery, I would never use Valium. It's just not potent 
enough."

Fentanyl is a opiate painkiller, responsible for many overdose deaths around 
the country in the opioid epidemic. It's possible that a large dose of fentanyl 
could prevent the prisoner from feeling pain during an execution, said Dr. 
Jonathan Groner, a pediatric surgeon in Ohio.

The other 2 drugs the state intends to use are cisatracurium besylate, a 
paralytic that has also never been used in an execution, and potassium chloride 
to stop the heart.

The Nebraska Department of Corrections has remained tight-lipped about why it 
intends to use these 4 drugs. A spokeswoman for the department did not return a 
request for comment Tuesday.

Those who study lethal injections believe the state chose these medicines 
because they were the only drugs it was able to acquire.

Most pharmaceutical companies oppose their drugs being used by states to kill 
people, and have enacted internal policies to keep states from purchasing them. 
States, therefore, often struggle to acquire lethal injection drugs.

"Nebraska has not explained why these drugs are necessary," said Robert Dunham, 
the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "They've not 
explained why these drugs are more efficacious than other methods. My suspicion 
is that Nebraska has chosen this protocol because these are the drugs they got 
their hands on."

If this drug protocol works appropriately, the Valium and fentanyl will put 
Moore into a state of unconsciousness, Groner said. After that, the 
cisatracurium besylate will paralyze him so he is unable to breathe. And, 
finally, the potassium chloride will stop the heart.

The final 2 drugs can cause extreme pain if the prisoner is not properly 
anesthetized. The paralytic could cause Moore to feel like he is drowning, and 
the potassium chloride creates the sensation of being "chemically burned 
alive," Dunham said.

Because Nebraska intends to use the paralytic, it will be impossible for 
onlookers to know if the first 2 drugs are doing their job, Dunham said.

"This execution may go off according to plan," Dunham said, "and it may not."

Moore, who was convicted of killing 2 people in 1979, has chosen not to fight 
his execution in court, meaning it will likely to proceed as scheduled.

Meanwhile, 3 Catholic bishops called on the state last week to halt the 
execution after Pope Francis announced opposition to the death penalty.

(source: United Press International)

**********************************

Nebraska Is About to Execute Someone With an Opioid. This Is a Huge 
Deal.----The state "has not explained why these drugs are necessary."


After Nevada's attempt to execute Scott Dozier using fentanyl failed last 
month, another state is going to try to use the powerful opioid for its own 
execution. On August 14, Nebraska is planning to put 60-year-old Carey Dean 
Moore to death using an untried 3-drug cocktail that includes fentanyl, a 
muscle paralyzer, and potassium chloride, which will stop the inmate's heart.

At a time when public support for the death penalty is diminishing, and drug 
manufacturers are refusing to sell their products to prisons that intend on 
using them in executions, states that want to put inmates to death are facing 
more obstacles than ever before. Some have simply stopped executions altogether 
while others, like Nebraska and Nevada, have turned to more extreme measures.

"Nebraska has not explained why these drugs are necessary," Robert Dunham, the 
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told UPI.com. 
"They've not explained why these drugs are more efficacious than other methods. 
My suspicion is that Nebraska has chosen this protocol because these are the 
drugs they got their hands on."

Deborah Denno, a law professor and lethal injection expert at Fordham 
University in New York, explained an additional problem with the plan to the 
Associated Press, "When states start experimenting with a new drug combination, 
it heightens the likelihood there's going to be some kind of error." "When 
states start experimenting with a new drug combination, it heightens the 
likelihood there's going to be some kind of error."

Carey Dean Moore, who has been on death row for 38 years for the 1979 murders 
of Maynard Helgeland and Reuel Van Ness Moore, will be the 1st person executed 
in the state since 1997, when Robert Williams was sent to the electric chair 
for 2 murders. He has had 7 execution dates; the most recent were in 2007 and 
2011. In 2007, his life was spared when the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that 
the electric chair was unconstitutional. It didn't happen in 2011 because 1 of 
his lawyers challenged the purchase of one of the lethal injection drugs.

Next week, Nebraska plans to execute Moore using fentanyl, diazapem, which is a 
sedative, cisatracurium, which is a muscle paralyzer, and potassium chloride, 
which will stop his heart. Before Scott Dozier's execution in Nevada was 
halted, officials had planned to use cistracurium before switching to a 
midazolam, another controversial sedative that has been blamed for several 
botched executions. As Dr. Joel Zivot told Mother Jones in July:

Medical experts are particularly worried about the effects of cisatracurium, 
the muscle paralyzing drug. When the drug is injected, Dozier will be unable to 
move any part of his body, including using his diaphragm to breathe. "He will 
be dying of asphyxiation," says Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist at Emory 
University. "These inmates are drowning in their own saliva, but because they 
can't move, they don't indicate that they're struggling."

Dozier's execution was halted hours before it was to take place, when the 
manufacturers of the drugs the state intended to use filed a lawsuit alleging 
that the state had purchased Midazolam from an unsuspecting intermediary. They 
stated that the intermediary would not have sold the drug knowing that it was 
going to be used in an execution. Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez from Clark County 
barred Nevada from using the drugs in question. In turn, Nevada filed a 
petition with the state's supreme court asking it to throw out the lower 
court's decision. The state supreme court has yet to decide on the case, and 
Dozier remains on death row awaiting his execution.

A similar challenge can't be mounted in Nebraska because the state has not 
disclosed its drug supplier, sparking criticism from the ACLU of Nebraska and 
local media outlets for its refusal. This has led to a tug of war over the last 
few months between anti-death penalty advocates and the state. The conflict 
began last December, when the civil liberties group sued Nebraska in a state 
court saying that the Department of Corrections was violating the state's 
public records act by not complying with the open records request it had filed. 
Danielle Conrad, the group's executive director said in a statement, they 
intended to "force the crisis-riddled department of Corrections to identify the 
supplier of recently obtained lethal injection drugs in compliance with our 
strong open records laws."

In March, the ACLU accused the state of illegally obtaining the fentanyl that 
will be used in Moore's execution and asked the Drug Enforcement Administration 
to look into the matter. After an investigation, the DEA said the state had 
legally obtained the drugs but did not disclose from where. In June, a district 
court judge ordered the Department of Corrections to release the public records 
regarding the state's lethal injection supply, a ruling that Nebraska is 
appealing, while the source of the drugs remains unknown.

The pending lawsuits did not derail the Nebraska's plans to execute Moore, and 
in July, the state issued his death warrant. "That an execution would be 
carried out when the governor, attorney general, and Department of Corrections 
have not honored open records laws and kept public records about the procedure 
secret from Nebraskans is incredibly troubling," Amy Miller, the ACLU of 
Nebraska's legal director said.

Independent state senator Ernie Chambers also urged the drug company Pfizer to 
mount a lawsuit against the state in order to halt the execution, but Pfizer 
said it had no records indicating that Nebraska had obtained any restricted 
drugs.

Despite the legal flurry surround the case, Carey Dean Moore, much like Scott 
Dozier in Nevada, has resigned himself to his fate. His twin brother, David 
Moore, plans to attend the execution. "If this happens it's a relief. Dean has 
almost been executed 6 or 7 times and each time you start preparing yourself 
for it," he told the Lincoln Journal-Star. "He would just like to die."

(source: Mother Jones)

***********************************************

Nebraska Supreme Court denies lawyer's motion to leave death penalty case


Nebraska's highest court has denied an attorney's request to withdraw from a 
case involving a death-row inmate who isn't fighting the state's efforts to 
execute him.

The Nebraska Supreme Court issued the ruling Tuesday after defense attorney 
Jeff Pickens argued that his duty to provide competent legal representation 
conflicts with his obligation to follow the wishes of his client, Carey Dean 
Moore.

Pickens says he could make multiple legal arguments to prevent the scheduled 
Aug. 14 execution, but Moore has ordered him not to file anything. Moore was 
sentenced to death for the 1979 fatal shootings of 2 Omaha cab drivers.

Replacing Pickens with another attorney likely would have delayed the 
execution. A key drug in Nebraska's lethal injection supply, potassium 
chloride, expires Aug. 31.

(source: Associated Press)

*************************************

Past executions in Nebraska brought demonstrations, and sober reality


A collage of photographs on the wall of Ben Nelson's home office shows him 
somber and stressed.

They were taken on the night of Sept. 2, 1994, as Nelson was waiting, as 
Nebraska's governor, to receive word that condemned killer Harold Lamont 
"Walkin' Wili" Otey had been executed.

"It was weighing heavily on me," said Nelson, a death penalty supporter. "It 
was no longer academic or political - it was real."

Nebraska's last executions came under Nelson's watch in the 1990s. For him and 
others, the memories of those sobering events are coming back as the state 
prepares to resume enforcing the death penalty.

Carey Dean Moore, convicted of killing 2 Omaha cabdrivers, Reuel Van Ness and 
Maynard Helgeland, 39 years ago, is scheduled to be executed on the morning of 
Aug. 14.

Barring a last-minute stay, it will be the state's 1st execution since 1997, 
and the 1st using lethal injection to carry out the state's ultimate penalty.

2 decades ago, when Nelson was governor, the state executed three convicted 
murderers: Otey, John Joubert in 1996 and Robert Williams in 1997.

Then, like now, the executions marked the resumption of capital punishment 
after a lengthy pause. Prior to Otey, Nebraska had not used the electric chair 
since 1959, when mass murderer Charlie Starkweather was executed.

Officials, prison employees and execution witnesses used words like "somber" 
and "solemn," "barbaric" and "God's will" to describe their experiences with 
the 3 executions.

The midnight execution of Otey, who attacked and murdered an Omaha woman in her 
Elmwood Park home, brought a loud, raucous and sometimes angry crowd of about 
1,000 to the State Penitentiary in Lincoln.

Some death penalty supporters carried signs or wore T-shirts reading "Fry 
Wili," "3 Jolts and You're Out" and "Nebraska State Pen 1st Annual BBQ." 
Capital punishment foes mostly prayed, lit candles and wept. One death penalty 
opponent burned an American flag; another reached across the snow fence 
dividing the 2 groups of demonstrators, grabbed a sign with a swastika on it, 
and tore it up.

Supporters, some fueled by alcohol, sang, "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye," 
when Otey's death was announced at 12:33 a.m.

The conduct, labeled inappropriate by some state officials including Nelson, 
later prompted Nebraska to switch to mid-morning executions, when most people 
were at work and the bars weren???t closing. Moore also is scheduled to be 
executed during the day, at 10 a.m.

Perhaps the most directly involved are the prison staffers who will carry out 
the upcoming execution.

An execution team, selected to accompany the condemned to the execution chamber 
and strap the person to the execution table, was selected weeks ago and has 
conducted several drills to ensure the execution is carried out in a 
professional, and dispassionate, way.

Larry Wayne, a former deputy state corrections director, said that in the 1980s 
and 1990s, those with fervent pro- or anti-death penalty convictions were 
usually not asked to participate. The task required personnel who could set 
aside any personal beliefs and carry out the law. Anyone who had reservations 
was allowed to opt out, he added.

"It's not an easy thing to take a life," Wayne said. "You don't take it 
lightly."

Brad Stephens, then a reporter and anchor at Omaha television station KETV, 
said he consulted an associate pastor at his Methodist church before serving as 
a witness at Williams' execution. He was morally torn: He supported capital 
punishment while his religion did not.

In the end, after researching the 3 violent slayings committed by Williams, 
Stephens, now a TV anchor in Kansas City, said he was able to nervously watch 
as the death warrant was read to Williams and 3 jolts of electricity rendered 
him lifeless.

"I thought, 'What if this guy did this to someone I loved? What would I want to 
happen?'" he said. "As a human being, I believe in my soul that if you take 
another person's life in a heinous fashion, you deserve to die."

The World-Herald reached out to several officials and others involved in the 3 
executions in the 1990s. Several declined to talk about it, choosing not to 
relive the difficult and stressful events. That included former Nebraska 
Attorney General Don Stenberg, a leading proponent of capital punishment who 
was relentless in seeking the executions, and Harold Clarke, then Nebraska's 
corrections director, whose job it was to impose the death penalty.

Some prison workers personally involved were reluctant to talk about their 
experience. They get to know the inmates, who often spend years behind bars, as 
people, not just as criminals who have committed horrific crimes, Wayne said.

Recently, 14 former prison administrators, many with firsthand experience in 
carrying out the death penalty, asked to intervene in a U.S. Supreme Court 
appeal by a death-row inmate in Missouri. They cited the emotional toll it 
takes on prison workers involved in the "face-to-face" duty as another reason 
to end capital punishment.

"Such executions do not serve the state's interests in finality or justice," 
their legal brief read. "Instead they make public servants parties to 
barbarism."

Brian Gage, a former Nebraska prison warden and Iraq veteran, compared the 
anxiety of participating in an execution to the post-traumatic stress 
experienced in military combat.

"Whatever they feel about the death penalty, they're kind of torn. Why is this 
person being put to death instead of someone else?" said Gage, who is now a 
community college instructor. "You try to separate yourself from it, 'Hey, 
you're not the one who made this decision.'"

Wayne said that despite his personal opposition to capital punishment, he 
agreed to serve on an execution team - an execution that was called off in 
1984. (Richard Holtan left death row in 1989 after being resentenced to life in 
prison for murdering an Omaha bartender in 1974.)

In corrections and law enforcement, Wayne said, your job is to carry out the 
law.

"Spiritually, as a Christian, I just don't believe in capital punishment - even 
Carey Dean Moore," Wayne said. "He was brought into the world as part of God's 
plan. When he goes out, it ought to be God's doing, not man's."

Not all agree. Jan Rowe's mother-in-law, Virginia Rowe, a Sioux Rapids, Iowa, 
farm wife, was 1 of 3 women brutally slain by Robert Williams. Jan Rowe said 
she had no reservations about accompanying Virginia's husband, Wayne, to the 
1997 execution.

Jan Rowe, who helped found a Christian school near her home in Freeport, 
Illinois, said that Wayne Rowe expressed relief after the execution, that a 
long series of appeals and stays in the execution was finally over.

She said the slaying changed the happy-go-lucky personality of her husband, 
Tom, and that her children and grandchildren never got a chance to know 
Virginia Rowe. The date of her murder, Aug. 12, is remembered by family members 
every year.

"It victimized all of us," Rowe said of the slaying.

As for the execution, "It was part of God's will," she said.

Eugene Curtin, a longtime editor and reporter for the Bellevue Leader, 
witnessed the execution of Joubert, an Offutt airman who abducted and murdered 
2 boys, ages 12 and 13, from that Sarpy County community. The process was 
clinical, professional and just, he said, and hasn't left him with nightmares.

"He committed some horrendous crimes. Our society decided they were so heinous 
that he forfeited his right to be among us. I have no trouble with that," 
Curtin said.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, the state's leading opponent of the death 
penalty, accompanied both Joubert and Williams to the electric chair. He said 
his experience steeled his resolve to end capital punishment.

"It had a bad effect on everybody who was even tangentially involved," Chambers 
said. Those guarding Joubert were "fidgety" and "very nervous," and Joubert was 
strapped so tightly to the electric chair that his hands turned blue. Williams, 
meanwhile, was nicked while being shaved in preparation for his electrocution, 
prompting the need for first aid, which Williams found ironic, according to the 
senator.

"They took a man who had killed and multiplied that by however many were 
participating in the official state killing," Chambers said. "So multiple 
killers were there that day. And it was so pointless."

For Nelson, dealing with the death penalty cases was one of his most serious 
and tough tasks as governor. As a member of the State Pardons Board, he said he 
had to look Otey's mother in the eyes and reject her son's appeal for clemency.

"It was my responsibility to do what the law required," he said. "There were 
some people who didn???t accept that."

In the 3 executions in the 1990s, there was no doubt of guilt. Williams, he 
said, even wrote Nelson a letter, saying that he was "at peace" with his 
sentence, had found God and didn't blame Nelson.

"That made it harder in some respects," the former governor and U.S. senator 
said. "But it was some comfort to know that this person didn't think you were 
doing the wrong thing."

Nelson said he talks with the current governor, Pete Ricketts, from time to 
time, but the topic of executions has not come up.

"As it gets closer, it will get more real for an awful lot of people," Nelson 
said.

(source: Scottsbluff Star Herald)

*********************************************

Death penalty fight will go on


Why have I so relentlessly fought against the death penalty for more than 2 
score years?

Were I the "black racist," as so many white Nebraskans aver -- why, rather than 
labor to save his life, would I not exult at the prospect of a white man being 
offered up by white people as a living sacrifice on the blood-drenched altar of 
capital punishment in a macabre experimental lethal injection?

If, as happens with experiments, who will be held liable and accountable? Will 
it be the attorney general, who managed to draw the Nebraska Supreme Court into 
the vortex of a violently swirling political maelstrom, the Supreme Court -- 
which ordered an experimental lethal injection comprising of a four-drug 
combination never before used and whose manufacturers strenuously object to 
their medicines being misused to kill -- or Corrections Director Scott Frakes, 
the designated executioner who has given assurances all will go well?

In the event of a botched execution, will the culpable minions of death attempt 
(as futilely as Lady Macbeth) to wash their hands of the guilty stain in the 
infamous manner of Pilate?

For me, this situation boils down to a matter of personal conviction based on 
unshakable belief in the intrinsic human dignity of every person, regardless of 
how far he or she may have fallen, which embraces a condemned prisoner like 
Carey Dean Moore -- so dispirited and dehumanized after decades of 
incarceration that he no longer believes in his own human dignity and worth as 
a human being -- who will submit meekly to being complicit in the state's 
macabre ritual of death.

The matter is summed up masterfully in John Dunne's famous transcendental 
homily that begins "No man is an island" and concludes "any man's death 
diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to 
know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Such principles being ingrained in my psyche, I am imprisoned in an 
escape-proof moral and ethical obligation to lend a hand to "the least, the 
last, the lost" even though they may not ask for it.

In conclusion, the Nebraska Supreme Court itself proclaimed in a 2007 opinion 
withdrawing a "prematurely" issued death warrant for Moore: "It is a natural 
reaction for some to wish to be rid of an admitted murderer who asks to be 
executed. We are nonetheless required to ensure the integrity of death 
sentences in Nebraska. ... We must adhere to our heightened objection to ensure 
the lawful and constitutional administration of the death penalty[.]"

Execution of a never-before-used, experimental lethal injection without factual 
or evidentiary bases on which to rest an assurance that a botched execution 
will not occur violates the court's self-imposed standard.

(source: Opinion; Sen. Ernie Chambers represents District 11, which includes 
portions of North Omaha, in the Nebraska Legislature----Lincoln Journal Star)






CALIFORNIA:

Scott Peterson's sister-in-law, Janey: 'We don't have justice yet; we're not 
there.'


Scott Peterson is guilty of adultery but not murder, his sister-in-law said in 
the family's 1st comprehensive video interview with The Modesto Bee since his 
pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, went missing nearly 16 years ago.

"We don't have justice yet; we're not there," Janey Peterson said. "We can't be 
content thinking we know what happened to Laci and Conner; we don't."

This week, Scott Peterson's lawyers are filing a final court document aimed at 
reversing the death-penalty verdict their client received in December 2004.

It's the last in a standard series of 6 written pleadings before the California 
Supreme Court hears oral arguments and decides whether the 1-time Modesto man 
will be executed for murdering his pregnant wife and their unborn son at 
Christmastime 2002.

The Supreme Court has overturned 10 % of the nearly 200 capital punishment 
verdicts it has reviewed since 2009. So far this year, the court has reversed 1 
of 16 death-penalty decisions.

Janey Peterson sat down with The Bee for a lengthy conversation 2 weeks ago, 
with his appeals milestone fast approaching.

Laci's mother, Sharon Rocha, has accommodated similar sit-down requests with 
The Bee, notably in January 2006 and in December 2007. She and others of Laci's 
loved ones over the years steadfastly have maintained their belief that justice 
was served at Scott Peterson???s trial. In April 2016, for example, Rocha 
summed up her thoughts: "Scott Peterson is guilty."

Scott, now 45, always has said he's innocent, and his family believes him. 
Janey Peterson's main message reflects the objective of 957 pages in his appeal 
documents, saying he is owed a new trial.

What about the 12 jurors who absorbed 6 months of trial and testimony from 184 
witnesses, and determined that he's guilty? Could all 12 jurors be wrong?

"I think the verdict they made," she said, "was an emotional verdict based on 
adultery evidence. The pile of evidence that showed Scott was an adulterer was 
used to convict him of murder."

Agreed-upon interview topics included major points raised in the appeals, most 
having to do with the 2004 trial itself - whether the judge, jurors and 
attorneys went astray enough to require a do-over. Some interview subjects were 
off limits, like Laci's family, and Amber Frey, Scott's lover when Laci went 
missing.

Janey Peterson talked a bit about her family, and also about her 
brother-in-law, providing a peek at his life in San Quentin State Prison.

The television in Scott Peterson's cell, for example, gets only major network 
channels and public TV, so he's missed most of the cable news shows about his 
case - 8 in 2017 alone - that have popped up in the past couple of years while 
the culmination of his appeals draws near.

2 1/2-hour "contact visits," in a cell with him, can be paid on Thursday, 
Saturday and Sunday; they can stretch it to 5 hours because most family members 
live in the San Diego area and must travel more than 250 miles. He gets such 
visits about every other week. Because he was convicted of murdering a minor - 
Conner, who Laci was carrying in pregnancy - Scott's nieces and nephews must be 
at least 18 to visit.

Near the end of the blockbuster 2004 trial, defense attorney Mark Geragos 
glumly shared with jurors a vision of a prison guard someday knocking on 
Peterson's cell to say his mother had died, followed later by more knocking and 
news that his father had died. Jackie Peterson, Scott's frail mother who used 
an oxygen tank in the courtroom audience, indeed died in 2013, but notifying 
Scott didn't happen that way; Janey was scheduled to pay him a visit that day, 
and broke the news in person.

"It was a hard day," Janey said. "Visiting in the cell, with people around you 
360 (degrees), it was not a private place at all. I didn't let myself get 
emotional on the way up. When I told him, the next couple of hours we really 
restrained ourselves. For him, it was something we didn't want to deal with in 
a public way. That was very hard to do."

Asked how his father, Lee Peterson, is holding up, Janey paused 35 seconds, 
gathering herself before answering. On the witness stand, Lee had described 
Scott as his best friend.

"I don't know if you can understand how Lee is holding up unless you understand 
the (gravity) of this injustice. As much as us kids feel it, I don't know if I 
can put myself in Lee's shoes as a parent, or in Jackie's shoes. Or in Sharon's 
shoes," she said. "I just can't even comprehend it."

Janey spoke to The Bee in a reception area of the crate-building shop Lee 
established in 1975 when Scott was 3, in Poway, near San Diego. It's a family 
business, employing several kin including Janey and her husband, Joe, Scott's 
brother. Scott spent untold hours here as a youth and young man, working in the 
manufacturing area, moving among offices and delivering custom-built wood 
crates to clients needing protection for airplane parts, machinery and the 
like.

A small office lacking air conditioning serves as a legal strategy room, 
containing reams of information on the case. Some walls are covered with 
FBI-type timelines pinpointing Scott's known actions on the day Laci went 
missing, juxtaposed with what the family believes Laci, 27, was doing, with a 
neighborhood map reflecting reported sightings of Laci walking the couple's 
dog. Boxes of notes line the walls. In a finished wooden cupboard - handcrafted 
long ago by a young Scott Peterson - are binders filled with 45,000 pages of 
evidence, plus others with transcripts of the 6-month trial.

"Over the years, everything we've learned either further exonerates Scott or 
takes us one step closer to finding out what happened to Laci and Conner," 
Janey said.

Like Laci, Janey is a Peterson by marriage. She spoke briefly of her 
sister-in-law.

"We watched (Scott and Laci) grow up when they were first dating, and watched 
that progression of life, them starting to plan a family - that's why they 
moved to Modesto (Laci's hometown), to start a family. To see them own a home, 
the love they put into ... that home, and preparing for Conner. You could see 
who she was in all those things."

On Christmas Eve 2002, Scott left home to fish in San Francisco Bay, hauling a 
recently purchased 14-foot aluminum boat. Authorities believe he also hauled 
Laci's body, weighted with homemade concrete anchors, dumping her in the water 
near where the remains of mother and son washed up nearly 4 months later.

His family believes, and Geragos argued to jurors, that unknown abductors put 
Laci's body exactly where the whole world knew Scott had been fishing.

Jurors didn't buy it. Whether the Supreme Court does isn't really the question; 
it's whether Supreme Court justices find that enough went wrong in the trial to 
warrant a new one.

The original trial judge, Al Delucchi - who died of cancer in 2008 - once mused 
that both sides would have much to argue over in the appeals process. "With all 
the issues that have been raised," Delucchi said in October 2004, "if there is 
a conviction in this case, it will be an appellate lawyer's petri dish."

Now that the appeals are here, what's growing in that petri dish? Janey 
Peterson addressed a few points she hopes will resonate with the Supreme Court.

Neighborhood sightings

Several people reported seeing a pregnant woman walking a dog in the couple's 
neighborhood or nearby East La Loma Park that morning. If true, Scott must be 
innocent, his camp says, because it all happened after he left the home on 
Covena Avenue about 10 a.m. on Dec. 24, 2002.

Geragos did not call those people to the witness stand, presumably because none 
fit in a timeline established when neighbor Karen Servas found the Petersons' 
golden retriever, McKenzie, in the street with a walking leash attached to its 
collar, and put the dog inside the Petersons' gate at 10:18 a.m. Scott later 
told police he found the dog in the yard, leash still attached, when he 
returned from fishing.

Was it a mistake not to explore these witnesses' testimony at trial?

"You've got to say 'yes' to that; look where we're at," with Scott on death 
row, Janey said. "The jurors need to hear from those witnesses. And the jurors 
need to decide the credibility of the sum total of all witnesses in the case."

Burglary

A home directly across the street was burglarized, also after Scott left. 
Prosecutors said the crime was unrelated to Laci's disappearance, but Scott's 
attorneys realized too late that they should have done more verifying.

One of the burglars, imprisoned for that crime, later told people that he 
verbally threatened Laci Peterson when she confronted him that morning.

And a mailman told police that the Petersons' dog did not bark and that the 
gate was open when he delivered mail after Servas encountered the dog, 
suggesting Laci and McKenzie had gone on a walk after all.

"The one scenario that all these eyewitnesses fit is the 'Scott is innocent' 
scenario. That's the only answer," Janey said. "They all have to be wrong: the 
mailman has to be wrong, the (burglar confrontation) tip has to be wrong, the 
inmates on the phone have to be wrong, all the people who say they saw Laci 
walking her dog have to be wrong" for prosecutors to be right, she said.

Dogs

Attorneys on both sides had lengthy arguments over whether scent-dog tracking 
evidence should be admitted at trial. Delucchi disallowed almost all at the 
Peterson home and at Scott's warehouse in west Modesto, where he had hitched up 
the boat trailer. But the judge decided to allow testimony that a dog 
indicated, 4 days after Laci vanished, detecting her scent at the Berkeley 
Marina, where Scott had launched the boat.

Geragos must have been proud at having persuaded the judge to exclude most of 
the dog-tracking evidence. But jurors latched onto the marina alert, some later 
saying it was critical to the guilty verdict. Scott's appellate attorneys now 
argue that the marina alert also should have been tossed, because scent 
tracking is an imperfect science and dogs and handlers make mistakes.

"It was prejudicial against Scott," Janey said. "At the time, it was not real 
common for dog handlers to testify as to what the dog was thinking or doing. 
The science behind dog handling doesn't meet the threshold (for) a jury in a 
courtroom."

Boat

Before trial, Scott's defense team videotaped a re-enactment showing a man 
Scott's size trying to shove a dummy about the size of Laci's body out of a 
floating boat similar to Scott's, swamping the boat. Geragos wanted to show the 
video to jurors, but Delucchi said "no," reasoning that the boat was not 
exactly the same and prosecutors weren't present at taping to verify 
conditions, essentially preventing them from cross-examining the video.

But Delucchi let prosecutors re-enact a pregnant woman about Laci's size 
fitting in a large toolbox in the bed of Scott's pickup, which authorities 
think he might have used to transport the body, Janey noted. And the judge also 
allowed prosecution testimony about stability experiments on the same boat 
model performed in a freshwater swimming pool in Indiana 25 years before the 
trial.

Why didn't Geragos accept Delucchi's offer to let the defense team redo another 
re-enactment with the actual boat, with authorities watching?

"That would be a constitutional violation of Scott's rights," Janey said. "It's 
not a part of what a defense should have to do."

Jury selection

Choosing a jury before trial became a nearly 3-month ordeal. Both sides and 
Delucchi worked through nearly 1,000 questionnaires of prospective jurors, and 
questioned hundreds before agreeing on the final panel.

Scott's appellate lawyers now contend Delucchi erred when he excused 30 
prospective jurors based solely on their written answers, where they professed 
opposition to the death penalty. Each should have been orally questioned to see 
whether they might set aside personal opinions to apply the law in some 
circumstances, the appeal says.

"That's an example of error," the kind that requires redoing the trial phase 
where jurors decided he should be executed, Janey said.

Is it really a big deal?

3 weeks ago, the California Supreme Court cited the same reason in reversing a 
death penalty verdict for Steve Woodruff, who killed a Riverside police 
detective in 2001. That judge had improperly excused one prospective juror, 
justices found.

Would Scott's family be satisfied with a retrial of just the penalty phase?

"No," Janey said. "Scott needs a new trial from the beginning. That's just 1 of 
the issues in appeal."

Richelle Nice

Another juror, Richelle Nice, did not reveal that her then-boyfriend's ex had 
threatened them when Nice had been pregnant, before the trial.

"That woman spent time in prison, or jail. That would have been something the 
defense should have had a right to know, and excuse her as a juror," Janey 
said.

In September, Nice told The Bee that the woman spent a week in jail for 
vandalizing the boyfriend's car and the door to their home, not for murdering 
two people. She didn't include the information on her pretrial questionnaire 
because it didn't seem remotely similar, Nice said.

Appeals process

Death row inmates pursue 2 appeals handled by 2 sets of attorneys.

One questions fairness in the trial, including a judge's alleged missteps. The 
other, called a habeas corpus petition, typically attacks the performance of a 
defense attorney, in this case Geragos, and can focus on new evidence, such as 
the revelations about Nice's past.

In both sets of appeals, the inmate begins by filing an opening brief. It's a 
misnomer; Peterson's 1st was 470 pages. The state attorney general's office 
responds with a written brief on behalf of prosecutors, followed by the 
inmate's final reply. That's 3 briefs for each appeal, or 6 in total.

The only written step left in Peterson's case is this week's final reply on the 
habeas track. All then will wait for the Supreme Court to schedule oral 
arguments, which could take 3 or 4 years, followed by more years of appeals on 
other levels, if warranted.

"The justice system doesn't always get it right," Janey said, referring to the 
initial trial, moved from Modesto to Redwood City because of prejudicial 
saturation here.

"We're still in the appellate part of the justice system," she continued. "So 
we have to still have hope and faith in our justice system, that they'll get it 
right."

(source: modbee.com)