REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Scott Peterson’s lawyers rested their case Tuesday without calling the former fertilizer salesman to testify on charges that he killed his pregnant wife and dumped her body in San Francisco Bay.
The defense called just 14 witnesses over six days.
“The defense case was a huge disappointment,” said trial watcher and former prosecutor Dean Johnson. “None of the promises made by (defense lawyer) Mark Geragos during opening statements have been fulfilled.”
Judge Alfred Delucchi said the prosecution would call eight rebuttal witnesses beginning today. Closing arguments are to begin Monday, and jurors should get the case by Nov. 3.
Prosecutors rested their case Oct. 5, presenting 174 witnesses over 19 weeks, including Peterson’s former mistress Amber Frey.
Prosecutors allege Peterson killed his pregnant wife, Laci, on or around Dec. 24, 2002. The remains of Laci and her fetus washed ashore about four months later a few miles from where Peterson claims to have been fishing alone the day his wife vanished from their home in Modesto.
Peterson is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of his pregnant wife and fetus. If convicted, he faces the death penalty or life without parole.
Defense lawyers claim someone else abducted and killed Laci.
Geragos highlighted the lack of physical evidence – no murder weapon, no bloody crime scene, no cause or time of death and no direct witnesses to the killing.
Geragos added that he could prove Peterson didn’t kill his pregnant wife because the fetus was born alive. If that were the case, given Laci’s Feb. 10 expected due date and the intense media coverage and police surveillance of Peterson after she vanished, he couldn’t have killed her, Geragos said.
But a key defense witness, Dr. Charles March, came under heavy attack from prosecutors when he testified that the fetus probably died on Dec. 29, 2002, at the earliest.
“He promised to show the baby was born alive, and there’s been no evidence of that,” said Johnson, the legal expert. “He promised to show that Peterson was ‘stone cold innocent,’ and he hasn’t done that, so this is now a case that’s going to come down to reasonable doubt.”
The final witness was Modesto police officer Michael Hicks. Defense lawyers used him to imply that burglars who robbed a neighbor’s home around the time Laci Peterson vanished may have been involved in her death – a recurring defense theme.
Hicks interviewed one of the suspects who admitted to the burglary, but waffled on the date, first telling police it occurred on Dec. 27, 2002, and later acknowledging it had happened a day earlier. Geragos suggested the man couldn’t be trusted.
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