notorious case that gripped the bay area and the entire nation for years. abc7 news has learned the los angeles innocence project is taking up the case of convicted killer scott peterson. the news comes nearly 20 years after peterson was found guilty in san mateo county court of killing his pregnant wife, laci, and their unborn son, who they were going to name conner. peterson who has maintained his innocence, is currently serving life in prison without parole. it all began on christmas eve of 2002, when laci vanished from their home in modesto. her disappearance sparked a massive search effort, with police and hundreds of volunteers trying desperately to find any trace of the expectant mom. scott even participated in the search >> checked with neighbors. checked with hospital, and then immediately, um, started searching

>> well, friends became skeptical after he sold laci's car and then admitted to having an affair. meantime, detectives quickly focused their investigation on scott, who claimed he was fishing 90 miles away at the berkeley marina at the time that laci disappeared. four months later, two bodies were found in the san francisco bay and were later identified as laci and their unborn child. on april 18th, 2004, police arrested scott. his trial began on june 1st, 2004. in redwood city. a change of venue due to the pretrial publicity there was so much of it, and then on november 12th, the jury convicted him on two counts of murder, first degree murder with special circumstances for killing laci and second degree murder for killing their unborn son. >> we, the jury in the above entitled cause, find the defendant, scott lee peterson. guilty. >> so happy right now. finally, after all this time, some justice for laci and conner.

>> a month later, the panel sentenced peterson to death. a decision later reaffirmed by the judge following years of motions. in august of 2020, the california supreme court upheld peterson's conviction, but overturned his death sentence in december 2021. the san francisco county superior court judge sentenced him to life in prison for lacey's murder without the possibility of parole. he was later moved off of death row. today's news is just the latest twist in a crime that ignited a nationwide media frenzy and inspired countless books, movies , documentaries and tv specials. so today, we want to dive into this new development in the peterson case from every angle. joining us live now are laura yeritsyan, los angeles criminal defense attorney who was on peterson's defense team, and tony brass, a former prosecutor and criminal lawyer. laura. and also tony, thank you both. i know it's a busy day. thanks for

making time. >> thank you for having me. >> laura, i'm going to start with you. yeah. so, laura, i'll start with you because you've been on his defense team. what's your reaction to this huge development today? i think it's great news. >> it's positive. step forward since there's an interest in his case and the los angeles innocence project has seen it has seen it as it is seeing it as a case that is worth their time and their effort. and usually they only take cases where they think that someone is wrongfully convicted or they have a strong belief that someone's been wrongfully convicted and they're going to be using all of their resources to help. scott peterson, an individual who for years has maintained his innocence. he did not get a fair trial, i can tell you that for sure, because i saw the frenzy, i saw the media frenzy, i saw the palpable hatred towards him because of the affair. um, i mean, it was a case that was notorious. it got nationwide, if not worldwide attention. and despite the change of venue, uh, clearly he, uh, it wasn't enough. uh, he was

convicted even though he was innocent and he still is innocent. >> all right, that is what he maintains. i mean, in the filing today, 1500 pages from the innocence project. let's talk about that. and what gets them moving on a particular case. right. so in this case, i understand that typically they only take post-conviction cases in which dna testing can prove innocence. and here scott peterson is saying that newly discovered evidence that was not presented to the jury at my trial supports my claim of innocence. what is that evidence? what might it be? >> well, by reading the document, at least initially scanning it and perusing it, you can tell that they're asking for a number of items to be tested for dna, including items, um, in an orange van that the that the defense didn't have at the time, and it was an orange van that was burned and there was a mattress in it. and there were burnt pieces of that mattress, and there was some dna

potentially on the mattress. so they're taking that. they're also having certain items that were found near the bodies of laci peterson and baby connor, uh, including, uh, duct tape and a twine and all sorts of, uh, items that were found and a target bag that were found near the bodies. and items taken from the medina's house. the medina's were the neighbors of the petersons. they lived across the street and there was a burglary at their house, and, uh, one of the contentions, one of the, uh, theories, has always been that these were the burglary occurred on the day of lacey's disappearance. and, of course, there was a dispute about that during the trial. and i believe there may be some evidence to show now, additional evidence that may have come forward to show that it did, in fact, happen on the day of lacey's disappearance, on the morning on the 24th of december in 2002. so there are certain items that they've also, uh, picked. it's it looks like from their home, things recovered after the burglary that are going to be tested. so the logical, uh,

conclusion would be that they're trying to connect that the burglars to, uh, lacey's and connor's murder all right, tony, i want to bring you into this discussion. >> you having been a prosecutor in the sf da's office, right, for many years, you also see the other side of it. does it seem like. i mean, as scott peterson claims, that, uh, that this was not properly exploredee wasn't , that, for example, the, you know, the van and the burglars who later said they had nothing to do with her killing, but that there was this mattress and there was maybe blood on it. um, what do you make of it? >> well, it's a very high standard to get, uh, third party culpability evidence. uh, as as grounds for appeal and even to get it to be admissible. it's not enough to say someone else had a motive or someone else was possibly culpable for this. you have to be able to make a case that they had the opportunity, that there's some connection circumstantially or directly, some evidence that connects the

person you're pointing the finger at to the crime. now that may be there, that may be in the in the dna. and look, there are rules for convicting someone and having them serve a life sentence. and the court, the prosecutor and the police have to follow those rules. and if the evidence wasn't processed correctly, it certainly it certainly should be. um, uh, but that's not to say that it's just finding one small flaw or one other possibility, or one better way of handling the evidence that that's going to lead to scott peterson being free. uh, it takes more than that. there really has to be a case, and it really has to sort of overwhelm, uh, the evidence that is already has already been presented, assuming. of course. yeah. go ahead. >> pardon me. i was just going to say i wanted to ask both of you what you think that threshold needs to be like now that the innocence project is, is in this, now that they're asking for, uh, you know, accessibility to more evidence,

more dna testing, possibly. what is the threshold? what would be the thing that would make this thing turn around and say, okay. yep. nope. he's you know, he's he's a free man. >> that's not an easy answer, but i can tell you, if there's some dna, um, that is found, uh, that once tested, once these items are tested, and if the dna found near the bodies or on the bodies is, um, can be connected to that orange van and to dna left on certain tools, a hammer or whatever it is that was found at the medina's house, then i think that's a pretty strong evidence that the burglar were, in fact, the ones involved. and i'm sure there's more than just what's being requested here in this particular motion. this you're just seeing one little bit of what they're doing, what the innocence project is doing. there's more evidence, uh, that probably there's a reason why they're requesting this. right.

so there's got to be more evidence. and i'm assuming once you put the, you know, the results of the dna testing together with other evidence that they have, then you might you will have a very strong argument that mr. peterson, scott peterson is innocent. >> look. and in the filings today, peterson also mentioned the prosecutor called over 150 witnesses in the guilt phase of my trial, but presented no physical, forensic or direct evidence linking me to the deaths of my wife and son. uh, tony, how typical is a conviction minus those things? >> very. i mean, circumstantial evidence can be very compelling, and many cases are built on circumstantial evidence. um, and sometimes all it has to be is that there is no other reasonable explanation, given the state of the evidence. and in murder cases where you don't have a victim who can talk about what happened, they are frequently built on circumstance evidence. so it is common in all right. >> don't go away. there's a lot

more to talk about with laura and tony, who are both going to stick around as well. we'll take

scott peterson, the los angeles innocence project is taking up the case nearly 20 years after a san mateo county jury found peterson guilty of killing his pregnant wife, laci, and their unborn son, connor. we're back now with laura yeritsyan los angeles criminal defense lawyer, who is on peterson's defense team and tony brass, a former san francisco prosecutor and now criminal defense lawyer, to talk about the different aspects of this. look, before we continue on with the details, i just want

to ask you, this was definitely a huge case that captured the nation's attention. peterson, you can argue, was one of the most hated men in america, broadly believed. and you know, convicted as a wife and baby killer, having that affair with amber frey. um, do you think the public perception is at play here at all? >> uh, as far as the public's perception today or before, obviously before he was hated, uh, it would have been almost impossible to find one individual, uh, who believed that scott was innocent. this is when we first had the trial, right? even though the jurors all claimed that they could be fair. but the public perception of the case was that he was guilty and pretty much he was convicted before the trial. now, things of him has changed in i believe i believe that now things have changed a little bit. now again, you still have a lot of people who believe, uh, what was presented earlier in the first trial and they believe

that he's guilty. but there's plenty of others who believe in his innocence. so the public perception has changed a little bit. and i think if allowed to have a new trial today, we've said this before for, um, that scott has a very good chance that he could be acquitted because there is evidence that's going to exonerate him. and i'm hoping through what the los angeles innocence project is doing, we will get to that point, hopefully without even maybe we won't even get to a trial. we'll see. but the bottom line is, i think if this case is tried today, he will be acquitted. >> laura, you were also part of the 2022, i think, when he tried to get a new trial or there was, you know, he said that the juror number seven had lied to get onto the jury panel, that she didn't disclose her abuse, that she had suffered. and is that something, of course, that, you know, the judge did not agree, but is that something that normally could lead to a different outcome or, you know, in this case, it could have

obviously, if you have a juror who's a self juror or a juror who is decided even before getting on the on the on the jury panel, on the jury, who, who truly believed he had committed this crime and was going to convict him, had an agenda to then then of course, he was going to be convicted. >> i mean, it's very clear the jury was hung up until this last juror number seven got on that jury. and once the, uh, individual who was basically hanging that jury was, uh, pushed off the jury, she goes in and very quickly, he's he's convicted. so we know what the impact of her involvement or uh- presence on that jury was. it was a conviction. so if you get fair jurors who are willing to listen to the case, listen to the evidence presented by both sides and decide it really, truly based on the evidence, even when the case was tried in 2004, he he should have been acquitted. but the problem was

this there was this dark cloud over the entire trial. people believed he'd done it. you had the amber frye thing. you had him, you know, lying to her on the tape. they played those tapes. it was all about just character assassination. and with zero forensic evidence, there was no forensic evidence in this case. they were claiming he killed her at night on the 23rd of december. transported the body, dumped the body at the marina where he was on a boat where everybody knew he was going to be. i mean, it wasn't it was easy to prove that he had been there. so. and then there was no forensic evidence tying him to it. but but as tony mentioned, oftentimes people are convicted with circumstantial evidence. >> and, um, you know, that doesn't have to be a part of it. but, tony, what do you think will happen here? what do you hope to see? and is your mind open? >> well, i look at it like this. the innocence project taking the case is obviously compelling. uh, they see something that we don't see and, and, uh, of course not, because i'm not involved in the case. i wasn't a lawyer in the case. and when you

are a lawyer in the case, you have an insight into the actual evidence. you have insight into the strength of the evidence that someone like myself, who's just a legal analyst making a commentary based on what i read in the news, it's impossible to have the same insight as an attorney who's been involved, or as someone who's reviewing it with a very technical eye toward an appeal and a new trial. so i think this i think that, like it or not, jurors decide cases based on the evidence. there may be some forces that are more emotional that sway jurors when the when the call is really close. but the fact is, jurors really do look at the evidence and the jury instruction and try to follow them. if there is a compelling trail of evidence that should have been explored that wasn't we may have a different result here, but if there isn't, if it's just another possibility, another possible explanation won't cut it. it has to be another reasonable explanation. >> we've got to go. but real quickly, what is the success rate of the innocence project

when they open up a case, how often does it lead to a different outcome? >> i mean, mainly my oh i'm sorry, go ahead. i would assume it's a pretty high rate because they're not going to take the case unless they have, uh, evidence and somewhat some proof that that the individual involved the defendant involved is not guilty or is innocent. >> they're not taking on a million cases. i looked at the website for the la, uh, innocence project, and it doesn't look like they've had a lot of, uh, clients. so i'm guessing they only take on cases that they truly believe they can help the client and exonerate the defendant. so i'm assuming in this case, it's a high probability. and i would hope so for scott's case. i would hope so. i would hope that one of these days scott is able to walk out and be free, which is what he deserves. he did not kill, uh, laci. he he loved her. there was no evidence whatsoever that there were any marital issues between them other than the affair that they had. there were

there was nobody saying he was mistreating her or hated her, wanted to divorce her. nothing there was even evidence that she was alive after he left the house. >> well, we'll have to leave it right there because just because of time. but i do appreciate both of you for your insight and really how considerate you've been to each other, sharing the time and whatever people say. stereotypes about lawyers. i think we're just kibosh that. uh, so lara yeritsyan and also tony brass, thank you both so much for coming on today. thanks for having us on. >> thank you for having us on. >> all right. when this news broke this morning about the peterson case, we sent out a push alert on our abc seven news app to stay on top of every development and other news as it breaks. you can download the app and enable push alerts. and for even more on this case, stay tuned for abc seven news at four. because i-team's reporter dan noyes, who broke this news, has spent the day digging through the records and calling all those involved. he will join us with what new developments he has learned coming up at 4:00. all right. up next, live video cameras in san francisco helping

to catch crimes in progress. our media partner, the san francisco standard, will join us next to talk about why this may work next results or just rhetoric. californians deserve a senator who is going to deliver for them every day and not just talk a good game. adam schiff. he held a dangerous president accountable. he also helped lower drug costs, bring good jobs back home, and build affordable housing. now he's running for the senate. our economy, our democracy, our planet.

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april to september last year. officers carried out 46 live monitoring operations, netting 65 arrests. that includes for crimes ranging from drug dealing to pickpocketing. our media partner, the san francisco standard, is digging into these numbers a little more and theogn this new article, michael, thanks for coming on the show. >> hey, thank you for having me. >> so tell us about these. okay. this was part of a pilot program, right? >> yeah. so this is a pilot program that began in really last april and has gone on since then. so the numbers that i got were for about a five month period. and what they show is that, you know, the sfpd has been asking people for permission to use their cameras

to watch them in real time so that they can investigate crimes pretty, you know, large range of crimes, like you said. i mean, on the high end, we have murders . and then on the low end, pickpocketing, but really a bulk of what they're doing is trying to use these cameras to, to watch people dealing drugs and arrest them. it sounds like and they said that it helped in terms of making arrests for some killings. yeah. um, apparently we there's the two arrests in particular. there was two deadly shootings in the tenderloin that the police department asked for permission to use cameras in real time to watch local scenes. and those operations, we don't know exactly how, but they they did result in arrests. and we know that one suspect in each of those cases has since been charged. so the police department says that, you know, that these new operations are making a difference for them. >> so who's cameras are these?

they are not necessarily owned by the city, right? >> yeah. so they aren't owned by the city. that's the whole point here. um, but we don't exactly know who owns the cameras because cause when they rolled out this pilot program, they wanted to make sure that people weren't susceptible to retaliation. so when you look at these records, it'll say, you know, the certain it won't say the exact block of a street where the cameras are located. it'll just say bay street, for instance. >> and under the terms agreed to were they able to watch live, just sit there with a bank of monitors and watch? or did it have to be live camera recorded stuff that they can turn to after the fact? if there was a crime suspected? >> it's a good question. so previously, what the sfpd has done in in particular there's these large networks of cameras that are getting set up in downtown areas like union square. what sfpd used to do and what they're still doing is there's a crime that has occurred, and they go to these

networks. they say, hey, can we take a look at your camera footage from this particular time? because we're investigating a crime under this new program, what they can do is go to those same networks. i don't know if they're necessarily going to them, but they can and they can say, hey, we want to investigate a crime. uh- can we watch this in real time as opposed to after the fact, after the fact? all right, michael, i know at the time when this was approved, it was somewhat controversial. >> certainly civil liberties concerns and people worried that, hey, they could use this to track people who go to protest or religious centers. right. but what about now? what are city leaders or critics saying? and is this going to be extended since it was just a pilot? >> you know, i think that's still a concern. um, the data i've seen so far doesn't show that police are using this to track people, but i think advocates are still worried about that possibility. and they also don't know exactly how live monitoring has helped in these arrests, because police haven't shown you know, they're declining to say exactly how

they're using the live monitoring to make the arrests. so those are two concerns. joins now. mayor breed is supportive of this. and she says that she's planning to, uh, seek to extend the program through the board of supervisors. all right, michael barba, keep us posted. >> thank you so much. >> all right. thank you. now a quick update on the segment with thetandard on tuesday that we had ey had an article on this commemorative stamp.w year >> that's gettg a iticism, a lot of criticism in the local chinese american community. many leaders say instead of a dragon, this image reminds them of an evil cow or monkey. the postal service told the standard. it was designed by chinese american artist and its committee had consulted with a professor of chinese american art history. well. we found and reached out to that professor ying chen pong at american university, and she told me i did point out the design flaws, such as the red eyes, which were associated with anger or demonic possession in chinese culture, in that the proportions of the mask did not match the narrow and long face of a typical chinese dragon. in

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