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Scott Peterson: Sentenced!


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Yes, after a long trial and debate, Scott Peterson has been sentenced. To death.

 

Original story from cnn.com

 

'You're going to burn in hell'

Peterson sentenced to death; wife's family explodes in courtroom

 

 

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Posted: 1:43 PM EST (1843 GMT)

 

REDWOOD CITY, California (CNN) -- Calling the deaths of a pregnant wife and her fetus "cruel, uncaring, heartless and callous," a California judge Wednesday sentenced Scott Peterson to die by lethal injection for the crime.

 

San Mateo Superior Court Judge Alfred Delucchi noted that the couple's unborn child never had a chance to draw a breath. He made the remarks as he denied an automatic motion to mitigate Peterson's sentence.

 

Delucchi also denied a motion filed by defense attorney Mark Geragos seeking a new trial for Peterson.

 

Members of Laci Peterson's family addressed the court before Delucchi formally imposed the sentence.

 

"You're evil and still have the readiness to commit evil," brother Brent Rocha told Peterson. "How does it feel to be a baby killer?"

 

Rocha said that every time he comes to court, "I think that my sister's head is probably rolling around in the bottom of the bay."

 

He called Peterson "arrogant" and said it was time for him to face reality for his actions.

 

Other family members, such as Laci's father and stepfather, used profanity in addressing Peterson, resulting in an admonishment from Delucchi. In addition, after an outburst from Peterson's father, Lee, Delucchi threatened to have him removed from the courtroom. Lee Peterson had shouted at Brent Rocha that he was a liar.

 

"I never liked you," Dennis Rocha, Laci's stepfather, told Peterson. "You're going to burn in hell."

 

Laci's mother, Sharon Rocha, told Peterson he was "stupid, stupid to think you could get away with murder" and told him he had "no love, no feelings, no heart, no soul."

 

"You're selfish, heartless and self-centered," she said. "You're a coward and an evil murderer ... You're a coward and an evil murderer."

 

In imposing the death sentence, Delucchi followed the recommendation of a jury last December.

 

Delucchi had the option of reducing his sentence to life in prison.

 

Earlier Wednesday, Peterson was brought into a California courtroom shackled at the waist, according to The Associated Press.

 

The former fertilizer salesman was escorted into San Mateo County Superior Court under heavy security, wearing a dark suit and handcuffs chained to his waist, the AP reported. Additionally, 10 of the 12 jurors who sentenced him to death in December sat in the jury box Wednesday, the AP reported.

 

Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant when she was reported missing on Christmas Eve 2002. Scott Peterson told police he had launched his boat at Berkeley Marina, about 80 miles from where the couple lives in Modesto, to fish in the bay that day.

 

Her body, and that of the fetus she carried, washed up separately on the shore in April, near where Peterson said he was fishing. A definitive cause of death was never determined.

 

Prosecutors said Peterson killed his wife in the couple's home on December 23 or 24, 2002, with an absence of blood in the house pointing to strangulation or smothering. They said Peterson -- who police learned was having an extramarital affair with massage therapist Amber Frey -- wanted to continue to live life as a freewheeling bachelor.

 

Peterson, 32, had the option of speaking on his own behalf during the sentencing. He has maintained his innocence in his wife's death. He is currently being held in the San Mateo County Jail in Redwood City, but will be moved to San Quentin State Prison if sentenced to death.

 

Last month, Peterson's defense attorneys filed a motion requesting a new trial on several grounds, including what they called newly discovered evidence.

 

That evidence stemmed from a telephone conversation involving an inmate at a California prison. The inmate's brother told him that Laci Peterson had walked up on a man who was burglarizing the house next door and that the man had verbally threatened her.

 

In their response, however, prosecutors claimed that evidence was not newly discovered, but that defense attorneys had known of it but failed to check it out properly.

 

"This is, once again, an all-too-familiar tactic on the part of the defense to twist the truth and make false claims," prosecutors said. "The defense conveniently fails to provide any admissible evidence on this point and instead relies on rumor and innuendo."

 

Prosecutors said the man who allegedly conducted the burglary was available to testify, but was not called to do so.

 

In his motion for a new trial, defense attorney Geragos claimed that Delucchi committed an error by dismissing two jurors during the trial. Three jurors were dismissed in all. Prosecutors, in their response, said the issue had already been handled during Peterson's trial and the defense claim was "a rehashing of prior arguments."

 

Geragos said in his 135-page filing that jurors were allowed to conduct their own unauthorized experiment with Peterson's boat. Prosecutors said the so-called experiment, in which the defense claimed two jurors got in the boat and one "jumped up and down," does not amount to the taking of new evidence.

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He probably won't die for a year+ and that's good. Why? The longer he has to live with himself the better.

 

Yes with the time given he does have chances to appeal the death sentence down to a life sentence term in prison, as much as he deserves it I do stand against the death penalty because it is statistically proven the death penalty increases crime rates while in states it has been abolished in have had declining crime rates, anyways until they abolish it there, let him fry, as the bible states its a eye for and eye.

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I thought revenge was a sin?

 

Anyway, death sentences are automatically appealed due to its extreme nature and can take years before it's actually carried out. But unless his butt is heavily protected, he's going to get raped and killed in prison long before that. Even regular criminals have a code of justice, and for what he did, odds are the other prisoners will kill him for what he did.

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