Mob Rule Comes To 'Deadwood' City

November 2004
by Debra Opri - Attorney and Legal Analyst

Who would have thought that mob rule would leave the Old South and come West to Redwood City, California? Scott Peterson didn't. No one did. I certainly didn't. I imagine the billboard advertising the made for television movie about the murder of Lacy Peterson, with the tell all phrase 'Murderer' plastered across it, situated in a place where the jury pool would see it, was a telltale sign of things to come.

Having followed the trial closely, I was of the majority opinion that Scott Peterson was facing a hung jury. I was certain the elements of murder, in this overwhelmingly circumstantial evidence case, were not met and that a first degree murder conviction for the killing of his wife, Laci, and a second degree murder conviction for the killing of his unborn son, Conner, would be improbable and unlikely verdicts.

I was wrong. We all were. We were thinking clearly and according to the rule of law. The jury was not. It wasn't thinking. It was waiting and hating. It was emotional.

With the jury still out - that is, until it finishes its final duty of deliberating the penalty phase: the sentence of the death penalty or life imprisonment, only after which the jurors can be pooled and speak freely, we can only speculate as to the mob rule mentality that may have existed in the jury room. However, it was not difficult to glimpse the scathing animosity of the apparent lone holdout - the jury foreman - who was also a lawyer and a doctor. From what we now know, he wanted out. That is to say, he wasn't wanted in the jury room because of his 'tedious' infatuation with deliberations on all the evidence pursuant to all the elements of law. So what will the 'group' superimpose in a verdict from an airing of their initial 'feelings' in their deliberations? Will they really take note of the witnesses who will have testified for and against Scott, or are they already of the mind that he should get the worst possible verdict, since they really do hate him so much?

Well, now we have a verdict of guilty of 1st degree murder and 2nd degree murder, and a public display upon the reading of the verdict with an outcry of cheers for the verdict, and jeers for Scott Peterson and his family. What we had, as a public, was a taste of a feeding frenzy for media consumption.

In the days to come, I predict that the statistical leaning of a life imprisonment verdict will not materialize. Under that scenario, considering the prior five year history of this particular County, only two percent of the time the death penalty was given. Further, this is a circumstantial evidence case, wherein rarely is the death penalty given, let alone in a case where the murder weapon, cause of death, and connection to the crime scene were never proven but suggested. As well, this is a high profile case, with the eyes of the country upon it. Certainly, a jury would never consider ruling on its emotional hatred of a man, rather than on the facts and evidence and the law. Finally, wouldn't it be common sense to conclude that Laci's family would prefer Scott rotting and decaying for the rest of his life in a jail cell?

No, I will not follow the statistics in rendering an opinion. I won't even use common sense. I tried that in the guilt phase and my 'non-legal' friends & family scoffed and advised me, simply, "What are you thinking? The jury hates him!"

I have decided to follow the emotional leanings of the rest of the public in concluding that the jury will give him the death penalty, if for nothing more than because the jurors hate Scott Peterson.

In the end, who wins in this sad scenario? Not the family members of either Scott or Laci Peterson. Not the court system who spent 6 months trying one murder case at a cost of over 2.5 million dollars. Not the jury system, which is in more trouble today than ever before. And certainly not the public, who didn't need yet another murder trial to follow on television and in the newspapers.

The winner, again, is the media, who found and created a media superstar in Scott Peterson against a backdrop of a sensational murder he was accused of committing, and for which a jury of his 'peers' agreed. Now, just imagine our superstar on death row. The media will again be in a frenzy, fighting for that last interview of Scott Peterson. Who will get it? What will he say? Will he ever admit to killing his wife or will he proclaim his innocence to the end?

 

From the courtroom to your living room, this has been another edition of THE OPRI OPINION.