(NewsNation) — What does a juror who sat in on Scott Peterson’s 2004 murder trial think of the Los Angeles Innocence Project taking on the case?
Mike Belmessieri says he supports the review.
“I’m glad that this group is taking up the Peterson case and investigating it,” Belmessieri said Thursday on “CUOMO.” “Because if there’s new evidence that suggests he’s innocent, then he’s innocent.”
Peterson was convicted by a San Mateo, California, County jury in 2004 of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son.
Peterson has maintained his innocence ever Laci vanished from their Modesto neighborhood Christmas Eve two decades ago. Her body was later found in San Francisco Bay, near where her husband said he went fishing. Peterson was sentenced to death, and later resentenced to life in prison without parole.
For years, his defense attorneys have asserted that the wrong man is behind bars, that Peterson was convicted by a biased jury, and that there is enough new evidence to prove it.
Belmessieri defended the jury’s conviction, saying they came to their conclusion based on the evidence presented at trial.
“Five and a half months with a trial, about a hundred witnesses, testimony and evidence. That’s why Scott Peterson is in San Quentin (prison) now, and there’s no other reason,” Belmessieri said. “During that deliberation — I heard it said many times: What purpose will it serve to convict Scott Peterson of killing his wife and child if he didn’t do it? He’s already had a great loss.”
Laci Peterson’s family and prosecutors said Peterson was a cheating, “evil” husband who wanted to get rid of his wife. After several hearings in 2022, a judge denied Peterson’s request for a new murder trial.
The Innocence Project said in a statement Thursday that it is investigating Peterson’s “claim of actual innocence.” In a court filing, lawyers are seeking evidence from a burglary that took place on the same day his wife went missing, as well as documents from interviews with witnesses.
Peterson was originally given the death penalty after he was convicted of the 2002 killing, but the state Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that Peterson’s jury was improperly screened for bias against the death penalty. Prosecutors opted to settle for life without parole in a resentencing.
Mark Geragos, one of the lawyers who represented Peterson at his trial, said Thursday on “CUOMO” that there is “no way” Peterson killed his wife.
“This made no sense whatsoever,” Geragos said. “We knew what we were up against, but at the same time, if you’re like me and (have) great faith in the system, you think that you can overcome that. You think by testing each witness, by basically dismantling the prosecution case that that would have been enough, and clearly it was not enough, and that’s what haunts me.”
Like the Innocence Project, Geragos pointed to the burglary, which police said happened two days after Laci went missing.
“It did not,” Geragos said.
A retrial would have wide-ranging implications, including for Belmessieri.
“If he is found innocent, or not guilty, that’ll open up an entirely different emotion,” he said, “because here we would have a man who has spent 20 years incarcerated for something he didn’t do.”