Laci Peterson’s mother stood from the witness stand and with searing heat and a broken heart screamed at Peterson, “She wanted to be a mother. That was taken away from her!” Her voice trembling with rage and pain caused even the most stoic of jurors and hard-core media to suck up deeply disturbing emotions, bringing tears to many. Sharon Rocha cried, “She wanted to be a mother, divorce was always an option!”
Yes, divorce was always an option. To not kill was always an option. To let Laci Peterson live was always an option. To let his unborn son know the joy of life was always an option. The jury has found that Scott Peterson did not exercise those options, rather he premeditatedly killed his wife and caused the death of his unborn son with malice aforethought.
Yet, Scott Peterson, who sat there without any visible reaction, and his attorneys, have insisted on Scott’s innocence. Co-defense counsel Pat Harris told the jury that, while he may disagree with the jury’s verdicts of guilty, he “respects” their decision. I wonder if he had in mind Albert Camus’ statement that “… each man insists on being innocent, even it if means accusing the whole human race, and heaven.” As you may recall, Mark Geragos promised the jury that he would prove that others were responsible for Laci’s and Conner’s deaths; that he would show that transients in the neighborhood had abducted Laci and that Scott was framed; that he would show that Conner was born a month or two after Laci’s disappearance. Obviously, the jury rejected these theories.
But what is worse is the promises made to the jury that went unfulfilled, especially where regarded as fanciful, may undermine the credibility of the defense. And credibility is what the defense needs to save Peterson’s life. In death penalty cases, the defense must walk a very narrow path between the credibility of a rejected claim of innocence and their subsequent assertion that the defendant’s life is worth saving. That requires that the defense’s credibility is still intact.
No one in that court room, especially the jurors, will forget the fact that Rocha buried not the beautiful daughter she had loved with all her heart, but a headless corpse. No one, but no one, can know that kind of pain, despair and grief of burying a mass of tissue that was her unborn grandson. But, the jury will feel that loss in their own way. This is known as “victim impact” testimony, and Rocha’s testimony together with others that talked of the promise of Laci and her loving, innate goodness will certainly impact the jury’s decision to let Scott live or die.
The defense is saddled with a dilemma. Testimony from the defense that Scott Peterson was a happy little boy, growing up in a loving family that provided him with the nurturing and attention that many are deprived of might be used against him. Added to that, the good fortune that he reportedly was talented enough to play golf with PGA star Phil Mickelson for Arizona State University, and you have someone who appears to have had all the benefits of a good life. The more friends and family talk of how kind and gracious Scott was, the more one wonders, given his conviction for two horrible murders, what “seed” of evil prompted him to destroy two innocent lives and the families of all involved, including his own loving parents and siblings. There is none of the usual testimony we hear in death penalty phases such as the defendant was a toxic syndrome child, molested by strangers, addicted to drugs, beaten by foster parents, abandoned to an indifferent, uncaring, hostile world. No, none of that.
If anything or anybody can save Scott Peterson (aside from the obvious appeals), it will be Peterson’s mother, Jackie Peterson, who has suffered so much in her life. The jury learned that she was consigned to an orphanage for 10 years following her father’s murder when she was 3, her mother being unable to care for her. She was reunited with her mother as a teenager. The anguish this woman and her husband have endured will be felt by the jury. It has been reported that Jackie requires an expensive operation that the family cannot now afford and needs an “oxygen assist” to supplement her own breathing. The pain and grief of the Peterson family, also innocents, is palpable.
The question for the jury, apart from their consideration of the reprehensibility of the killings, and the defendant’s personal culpability, will be which mother will yet endure another endless, intolerable and mournful round of pain and “what ifs.”