Repelled by Scott Peterson's seeming lack of sorrow and remorse, a jury decided he deserves the death penalty for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, almost two years ago to the date.
A cheer went up outside the courthouse as the jury announced its decision Monday after 11 hours of deliberations over three days. Inside court, Peterson reacted with the same tight-jawed look that some jurors said turned them off after seeing little emotion out of Peterson since his wife's disappearance two years ago.
PHOTO: AFP
"I still would have liked to see, I don't know if remorse is the right word," juror Steve Cardosi said at a news conference following the sentence. "He lost his wife and his child -- it didn't seem to faze him. While that was going on ... he is romancing a girlfriend."
A crowd of several hundred gathered outside the courthouse for the verdict -- a scene reminiscent of when about 1,000 people showed up last month to hear the conviction. The San Francisco Examiner came out with a special edition within minutes of the sentence, with the giant headline "DEATH."
Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, cried quietly -- her lips quivering after the verdict was read. Scott Peterson's mother, Jackie, showed no apparent emotion.
In a brief news conference after the verdict, defense attorney Mark Geragos said he was "very disappointed."
"Obviously, we plan on pursuing every and all appeals, motions for a new trial and everything else," he said.
The jury had two options in deciding the 32-year-old former fertilizer salesman's fate: life in prison without parole or death by injection.
Judge Alfred Delucchi will formally sentence Peterson on Feb. 25. The judge will have the option of reducing the sentence to life, but such a move is highly unlikely.
If the judge agrees with the verdict, Peterson will be sent to death row at San Quentin State Prison outside San Francisco, the infamous lockup that overlooks the same bay where Laci Peterson's body was discarded.
But Peterson still might not be executed for decades -- if ever -- and it can take years for even the first phase of the appeals process to begin. Since California brought back capital punishment in 1978, only 10 executions have been carried out; the last execution, in 2002, was for a murder committed in 1980. The state's clogged death row houses 641 people.
The sentence marked one of the final chapters in a soap opera-like saga that began nearly two years ago with the Christmas Eve disappearance of Laci Peterson, a 27-year-old substitute teacher who married her college sweetheart and was soon to be the proud mother of a baby boy named Conner.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not