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Verdict just came in.  Guily on both counts of First Degree Murder.

Personally, while I think he looked very guilty, I'd have been hard pressed to return a guilty verdict if I were on that jury.  Too many possibilities and unanswered questions.  Like the OJ trial, I just don't think the prosecution proved their case.

Bruce

Let's hope the next high profile trial is actually interesting.

I think there was a whole lot of stupid shit got thrown in by the defense just to try to weasel some reasonable doubt. I'm hard-pressed to think the man didn't do it, because his actions afterwards were just too bizarre.

I wonder why the second juror was dismissed.  Although I haven't had criminal law yet, the judge wouldn't be able to throw someone off who looked like they might cause a mistrial, could they?  They didn't give a reason and I did read somewhere that the judge really, really wanted to avoid a mistrial.

Usually only basis to throw off a juror is an unwillingness to deliberate. Certainly could give grounds for appeal.

Just a correction: First degree on Laci, Second degree on fetus.  

Death penalty is on the table.

Agreed. I'm glad he was found guilty. However I wonder about how solid the case is, simply because I would hate to see him win an appeal.

I also wonder about cases that rely so heavily on circumstantial evidence. It's sort of dumb, but after seeing "Twelve Angry Men" I always think that things might not truly be the way they appear at first.

Glad he is guilty though. Enjoy prison, murderer.

I'm forced to agree with Bruce.  No physical evidence and no witnesses makes a conviction a stretch, no matter how bad he looked afterwords.  And he looked real bad.

Other than the guy being a total sleeze and a massive lying bastard I have seen 0 evidence that he is guilty other than odd actions taken on his part after the trial.

But if you were a lying bastard who had lied so many times you can't keep your story straight, you have had multiple extra-marital affairs, you are in the middle of one right now that does not even know you are married and then suddenly your wife dissapears and starts being the only thing CNN is talking about you might act oddly as well.  Luckily I am NOT a lying bastard with multiple affairs and webs of lies, so it is just conjecture but it would explain his odd behavior as much or more than him murdering his wife IMO.

All they have is:
He bought a boat
He made a cement anchor for his newly purchased boat and left a lot of powdered cement around (hard to find time to clean up when leading a double life and holding down your own company)
His wife washed ashore in the same water he was fishing in.
ONE strand of hair was found a pliers on the boat.


I am sorry, but everywhere I go I bet you could find strands of my wifes hair.

Yeah, I THINK he did it.  But what I think and what the jurors think does not mean shit.  It is all about reasonable doubt, and there is a TON of that.  A very late term mother is a target frankly to weirdos who are desperate for children.

It is obvious to me that Alluvian's wife is the culprit!

I don't understand why it was 1st degree murder for the wife and 2nd degree murder for the baby.  It's not as if he didn't know she was pregnant.

Say what?
I have no idea what the case is about, but where's the evidence for this paranoia about kid stealing murderes of pregnant mothers?

That seems to be on line with the massive fear of a non-existing satanic conspiracy to sacrifice children, that a lot of Americans held.

We're currently fighting a war on the same basis of proof / circumstantial evidence.

I guess the judge threw one juror off because she was doing research on her own outside of the trial.

For some reason Im picturing this 60 yr old woman reading 'People' magazine and making notes..

As I understand it, the legal definitions of 1st and 2nd degree murder are pretty similar (both involve premeditation).  The main difference is in the severity of the sentence given.  Sounds like they didn't quite want to go the route of declaring that the fetus was "equal" to the mother in importance under the law, but they didn't want to let him off the hook either, so they compromised by making killing the fetus a slighter lesser crime than killing the mother.

It's not ike it's an epidemic, but he's got a somewhat valid point. In the last couple years there's been quite a few instances here in North Ohio of pregnant women being kidnapped and killed for their babies, some of which made he national news. The one that leaps to mind was the woman who was knocked out by a woman who'd spent the last 9 months pretending to be pregnant. The fake-pregnant woman had a car for sale, and when the real-pregnant woman came to look at it, it seemed like a great place to get a baby. Anyway, the fake-pregnant woman cut the baby out of the pregnant woman and then buried her in the garage. Then, when her husband came home she told him that she gave birth while he was at work.

It would be bad enough if it was an isolated incident, but it's not. I blame Catholicism and people being batshit insane. And maybe lack of sunlight. We don't get a lot of direct sunlight here.

Next time an innocent young woman and her unborn child are brutally murdered, we'll have to add some dancing monkeys and Paris Hilton for you.

Would you, sarge ?  I'd like that.

Holy fuck, that's seriously disturbing.  Though since I'm elsewhere, I get to shrug my shoulders and say 'phh, Americans, eh ?'

Being American has nothing to do with being batshit insane.

Looking at the circumstantial evidence alone, you would be hardpressed to find the man guilty. However, with the massive amounts of lying the man got caught in as well as his odd behavior, jurors couldn't believe a word of his defense. We weren't in that courtroom, but frankly, he had to have come off as having no viable explanation for why he didn't do it, or that someone else could have. Reasonable doubt doesn't exist in that case.

Either way, SNL Weekend Update was actually funny in their bit about the trial.

My my a leet speaker. Oh joy.

Look at the name. It's a joke. Get it? Joke.

My apologies, good sir, if my choice out of the almost infinite possibilites of number/character combinations for a username here at these Forums does not meet with your personal approval.

In the future, may I call upon you to please inform me if I am not performing up to your standards of Internet Conduct?  schild is correct in his analysis of the situation, as it is a joke, and in no way representative of how I actually will be typing while engaging in discussion with you or any of the other denizens found here at f13.

I would sincerely hope that I have proven that I have more than 3 brain cells, and as such, am not one of these "leet speakers" that you have a sense of mild disgust for.

For the love of Laci Peterson, can't we all just get along?  Think of the unborn babies!

If you've decided to hang around here, I would actually think just the opposite. ;)

It's related to the defferences between 1st and 2nd degree murder.  I caught a piece of this on an AM talk show the other night.

1st degree - basically requires the stipulation of premeditation

2nd degree - more related to the act of death through comission of a felony, or other 'negligent homicide' factors.

In other words, 1st degree for the premeditated murder of Laci.  2nd degree for Conner, since his death was the result of the first crime.

I don't think the whole 'when does killing a fetus become murder' aspect even comes into play for this:  a wise move on the part of the prosecution, who obviously didn't want to muddy the waters for the jury.

In order for the 1st degree murder to apply towards Conner, the prosecution would have to prove that Peterson planned and premeditated the murder of his unborn child.  All they could address was that he intended to kill Laci, and the fact that Conner would die in either case isn't really of interest, at least not legally.

Well that and certain key pieces of evidence.

Laci's hair was found in the boat in question, right? Correct me if I read some false info. That links her presence to the boat that Scott claimed she was never in.

So did the hair in the boat get there off of Scott? I would think it depends on how it was found. I could believe a strand of his wife's hair could stick to him and end up in the boat. HOWEVER, I would not believe that this hair would become snagged on something and caught rather tightly if it was simply stuck to Scott's clothing.

Anyone know how it was presented in court? I only heard about this hair, and never followed the case close enough to know.

While the rest is circumstantial (even if "good" circumstantial), this one fact really makes the case. All the odd behavior is validated as more then just "prosecution guesswork", with that bit of evidence.

Man, there you go again giving me such good straight lines that I have to pass up in the name of decency.

I knew that.  I was poking fun.  In the way that many outside America do now that we know exactly how dumb Americans are.

The first rule of Baby Snatcher's Club.  Don't talk about Baby Snatcher's Club.

The second rule of Baby Snatcher's Club.  Don't talk about Baby Snatcher's Club.

Does the 3rd Rule have something to do with Snatching Babies ??!

Maybe a dingo ate your baby.

Bruce

Leave the dingos out of this.

There have been two pregnant women (that I heard about at least) murdered in the city I live in during the same time this trial has been covered. A few years ago, a girl I've known since elementary school (wasn't really friends though), who was pregnant, was choked to death by her husband (EDIT: originally typed "shot" to death. I was wrong). I'm pretty sure a lot more cases like this happen across the country too, and the world.

My point is, it's not news. Not to this extent at least. Also, stop being a prick. Just because I'm not a voyeur doesn't mean I don't care about Laci Peterson's death. In fact, I want less Paris Hilton and less dancing monkies. I'm sick of the media obessesion with Scott Peterson, and glad it's over.

You just made Paelos cry.

When it comes to sensational crime, the media spotlight is more random than W's choice of vocabulary.  Here in Durham NC, we had a quadruple hit-and-run, where 4 different vehicles ran over the same woman without reporting it.  She died, of course.  I figured that one would make the national news.  Go figure.  Probably didn't help that she was a homeless black woman.

You know what bothers me most about this case ?  The thought of getting a conviction off a strand of your wifes hair.

My Wife Sheds EVERYWHERE.

If anything ever happens to her, it's gonna look like I killed her all over the shop.

:D

Just make sure you don't call your girlfriend on your cell phone from the back row of the candlelight vigil that is being conducted for your "missing" wife, as Peterson did.

In honesty, that could be tricky too.

<sniff> why, God, why? Monkies rule.

No.

Your monkey rules the others.  It's the dancing king.

The only reason it took the jurors so long to reach a verdict was because the foreman was an anal-retintive intellectual that insisted on sifting through his 9 notebooks of meticulous notes, which probably wasn't necessary in a 6 month long trial.  He asked the judge to be dismissed because the other jurors literally threatened to kick his ass.

Not all of the case was circumstantial -- it just wasn't stuff that you would want to sit through for hours on end.

Scott Peterson probably murdered his wife by stangling her.  He had stratches on his hands shortly after her dissapearence.

Perhaps the biggest blow to him was the feeble defense.  They weren't able to raise reasonable doubt.  Even Mark Garagos joked about how guilty Scott was before he decided to take the case (which didn't come out until after the verdict was reached).

Talk to me of this 'stangling'.  Sounds fun.

Is it like 'barroting' ?

Sarcastic Grammar Police strike!

*zing!*

Oh, and don't get caught headed for ol' Mexico with a shitty dye job, survival gear, and fifteen grand in escape funds.

Really, only thing missing was the white Bronco...

Xilren

If he'd had the white bronco he'd have been let off despite having left more blood trails than Jack the Ripper.