Judge hands down death sentence

REDWOOD CITY - Scott Peterson should be executed for murdering his pregnant wife and unborn son, a judge ruled this morning at the Modesto man’s formal sentencing.

After rejecting Peterson’s request for a new trial, Judge Alfred Delucchi upheld a jury’s December recommendation that the fertilizer salesman die by lethal injection.

Scott Peterson showed no emotion during the morning's proceedings other than to shake his head two to three times as Laci Peterson's family spoke.

Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson's mother sobbed and trembled from a podium as she lashed out at her former son-in-law.

"You decided to throw Laci and Conner away, dispose of themlike they were just a piece of garbage," she said. "You werewrong; dead wrong."

Dabbing at her eyes with tissues, she called him "an evilmurderer."

"The fact that you no longer wanted Laci did not give you theright to murder her," Rocha said. "She was my daughter ...I trusted you, and you betrayed me ... You betrayed everybody."

Several members of Laci Peterson's family and her closest friends attended the hearing. They sobbed during Rocha's statements.

Lee Peterson, Scott Peterson's father, objected to some of Brent Rocha's comments. He was warned by Judge Alfred Delucchi to not make any comments.

Peterson and his wife, Jackie, left the courtroom while some of the Rochas were speaking, apparently in protest.

Death sentences are automatically appealed. An exhaustive appeals process often stretches well more than a decade.

Peterson, 32, strangled or smothered Laci Peterson and used a Christmas Eve 2002 solo fishing trip as cover to dump her body in San Francisco Bay. The remains of mother and son washed ashore nearly four months later near his boating route.

Defense attorneys had argued that someone framed Scott Peterson by depositing his wife’s body in a spot corresponding with his well-publicized alibi.

The judge, during Peterson’s 6 1/2-month trial last year, already ruled on most arguments raised recently by Peterson’s attorneys in his new-trial motion. Delucchi opted against revisiting those points and rejected defense attorney Mark Geragos’s claim of having uncovered "new evidence" suggesting that Laci Peterson interrupted a burglary after her husband left to fish.

Delucchi also refused to exercise his option of reducing the jury’s death sentence to life in prison without parole. Peterson will be transferred to California’s notorious Death Row at San Quentin Prison overlooking the bay.

A complete report on today’s ruling will appear Thursday at this Web site.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

This story was originally published March 16, 2005 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Judge hands down death sentence."