[Caliente]

Scott Peterson sentenced to death

12:29 PM CST on Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Associated Press

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Scott Peterson was sentenced to death Wednesday for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, more than two years ago.

Judge Alfred A. Delucchi denied a defense request for a new trial before upholding the jury's recommendation that he be sentenced to death, calling the slayings of Laci and her fetus "cruel, uncaring, heartless and callous."

"The court is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Scott Lee Peterson, is guilty of first-degree murder" and second degree, Delucchi said.

Peterson, shackled at the waist and wearing a dark suit, was escorted into court under heavy security. He will be sent to death row at San Quentin State Prison outside San Francisco, the infamous lockup that overlooks the same bay where Laci Peterson's body was discarded.

Peterson, 32, was convicted Nov. 12 of two counts of murder in the deaths of his wife and her fetus. The jury recommended the death penalty a month later.

In court papers unsealed Monday, Peterson's lawyers requested a new trial. Among the claims made by defense lawyer Mark Geragos was that Peterson's telephone calls to Frey should not have been used at trial. He said Peterson never implicated himself in the crime during the calls and that authorities should not have tapped his phone.

Geragos also said prosecutors withheld evidence that a state prison inmate claimed he heard that Laci Peterson had interrupted a burglary at a neighbor's home in Modesto on Dec. 24, 2002, the day she was reported missing.

Scott Peterson claims he went fishing that day, and Geragos says the tip "points to the conclusion that Laci was alive after Scott left for the day."

But prosecutor David Harris said the burglary happened two days after Laci Peterson's disappearance. He said the evidence would not have changed the verdict.

Geragos said he became aware of the tip about six weeks before the verdict and later discovered "a small notation in hundreds of pages of tip sheets" provided by prosecutors before the trial.

He said it took several weeks to investigate and prison tapes that would have confirmed the tip were no longer available.

"If the evidence were presented at a retrial, it is highly probable a different result would have occurred," Geragos wrote.

Harris said the tip was provided to defense attorneys a year before the trial started. "His claim is reminiscent of the 'boy who cried wolf,"' Harris said.

The motion for a new trial, filed Feb. 25 in Redwood City, also claimed the judge erroneously dismissed two jurors, and erred in denying Geragos' motion for a second change of venue.