Peterson Case Goes to Jury

Prosecutors in the Scott Peterson murder trial wrapped up closing arguments Wednesday with a hard choice: either Peterson was framed by strangers, or he killed his pregnant wife and tossed her corpse into San Francisco Bay.

A stone-faced San Mateo County jury began deliberations at noon, capping a five-month trial in which nearly 200 witnesses were called. Peterson, 32, is facing two counts of murder, which carry the ultimate penalty of death by injection.

The bodies of Laci Peterson and her fetus washed ashore in mid-April, about a mile from where the Modesto fertilizer salesman said he went fishing in a new boat on Christmas Eve 2002, the day his wife vanished.

Defense attorneys have argued that Laci Peterson may have been kidnapped, perhaps by members of a satanic cult. However, the defense did not call any witnesses to support that theory.

“The entire defense was based on hearsay,” prosecutor Rick Distaso told the jury. “It is not reasonable that anybody put those bodies in the bay to frame him. It’s not reasonable and you must reject it.”

Distaso countered defense attorney Mark Geragos’ contention that there wasn’t a mark on Peterson consistent with him strangling or smothering his wife, as alleged by the prosecutor. Distaso played a televised interview of the defendant showing some cuts on his knuckles that he said occurred Christmas Eve.

“You can’t tell me there’s no marks on him,” Distaso told the jury. “You’ve got your hands around her neck. She reaches up and scratches him.”

Geragos, in his closing remarks, repeatedly asked the jury not to prejudge his client because the evidence showed him to be a chronic liar who started an affair with a Fresno massage therapist a month before his wife disappeared.

He also insisted there was no physical evidence connecting Peterson to the crime. “If you had blood in the house ... or blood on the boat .... If you had those kinds of things,” he said, “that’s what real murder cases are about.”

As for exactly what may have happened to Laci Peterson, Geragos asked a rhetorical question. “Was she abducted? I don’t know,” he said.

Outside the courtroom, criminal trial analysts praised the prosecution for laying out a meticulous, sometimes emotional argument.

“I think the prosecution had the stronger message going into deliberations,” said Robert Talbot, a law professor at the University of San Francisco.