Judge calls Scott Peterson’s latest attempt for freedom ‘meritless’
On Monday, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge shot down claims, based on “new evidence,” that Scott Peterson, 53, received an unfair trial. The ruling withered his defense team’s continued efforts to set him free.
Peterson’s defense team, the Los Angeles Innocence Project, filed a habeas corpus petition in August alleging that new research and evidence proved his innocence and that Stanislaus County prosecutors violated Peterson’s rights to due process.
On Monday, Judge Elizabeth Hill disagreed. In her order denying LAIP’s nearly 700 pages of claims, Hill wrote that all of them were either “procedurally barred, meritless, or both” and there was nothing “new, admissible, nor material.” Procedurally barred is a term that means Hill found laws or statutes that prevent her from accepting the defense’s claims.
“The court finds that (Peterson) has not alleged facts sufficient to bring any of the procedurally barred claims within an exception for fundamental miscarriage of justice or actual innocence,” the order reads.
In a statement released shortly after Hill’s order, LAIP, which took on Peterson’s case in 2024, said it would appeal the decision to a higher judge. It said habeas rulings are “often misunderstood by superior court judges.”
“We disagree with and are disappointed by the court’s ruling on every level. The ruling demonstrates a profound misunderstanding and misapplication of the law applied to habeas corpus petitions,” LAIP’s Hannah Brown says in the statement.
LAIP maintains that prosecutors put forward “false scientific evidence” that was not available at the time of his 2004 trial or his previous 2015 habeas petition. So far, none of Peterson’s legal attempts for freedom have been successful.
Legal attempts
Since his trial for the 2002 murder of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner, Peterson has fought his conviction through multiple legal strategies.
Peterson originally was sentenced to death. That was overturned in 2020, and the next year, he was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
One reason his death sentence was overturned is that a juror on his original 2004 trial was accused of attempting to be on the case solely to convict Peterson. This argument was brought forth as a reason for a new trial in 2022. That effort was shot down by a judge the same year.
In 2024, LAIP took on Peterson’s case, attempting to have more items tested for DNA, citing recent technological advances in the process. All but one of the items proposed for new testing were rejected by a judge the same year.
LAIP submitted a petition in a state appeals court in April 2025 claiming he should be granted a new trial because of evidence and previously dismissed eyewitness testimony. The petition also included a 140-page declaration written by Peterson. Almost the entirety of that petition was rejected a few months later.
Laci Peterson, 27, was eight months pregnant when she vanished from the couple’s Modesto home on Christmas Eve 2002. The remains of her body and of her unborn child were found washed up on a rocky shore in San Francisco Bay in April 2003 by a woman walking her dog. Laci and Conner were found near where Scott Peterson had told police he had been fishing when his wife disappeared. Four days after the remains were discovered, Peterson was arrested for murder.
LAIP has no association with the New York City-based Innocence Project. Peterson is serving his life sentence at Mule Creek State Prison.
This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 3:42 PM.
