Scott Peterson Won't Get the New Trial He Sought

It's life in prison for good for Scott Peterson, who was on Tuesday denied a new trial in the death of his pregnant wife, Laci, which occurred almost exactly 20 years ago. NBC News reports Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo was tasked by the California Supreme Court with determining whether Peterson was denied a fair trial due to juror misconduct. His legal team had argued that Juror 7, who later identified herself as Richelle Nice, was biased because she was a domestic violence victim. She did not disclose during jury selection that she sought a restraining order while pregnant in 2000 due to threats from her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, or that her boyfriend beat her in 2001 while she was pregnant with another child.

She testified in March that she was not biased, and said her recollection was that she had struck her boyfriend, not the other way around. Massullo wrote in her ruling that while a number of the answers Juror 7 gave in her juror questionnaire were false, Massullo found those "responses were not motivated by pre-existing or improper bias against Petitioner, but instead were the result of a combination of good faith misunderstanding of the questions and sloppiness in answering." The state Supreme Court overturned his death sentence in 2020; he was sentenced to life without parole the following year. (More Scott Peterson stories.)