Scott Lee Peterson was convicted on November 12, 2004, by a jury in Redwood City, California, of the first-degree murder of his wife, Laci Peterson, and the second-degree murder of their unborn son. The offenses were charged in Stanislaus County, where the couple lived in Modesto in December 2002, and the trial was moved to San Mateo County because of the volume of pretrial publicity. On March 16, 2005, the trial judge sentenced Peterson to death.
The sentence did not stand. On August 24, 2020, the Supreme Court of California unanimously affirmed the judgment as to guilt and reversed the judgment as to the sentence of death, holding that the trial court had wrongly excused prospective jurors who opposed the death penalty in general terms. The district attorney then declined to seek a second penalty trial, and on December 8, 2021, Peterson was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole. His lawyers, now led by the Los Angeles Innocence Project, have continued to challenge the convictions. Their most recent petition, which argued actual innocence, was denied in full by a San Mateo County Superior Court judge on April 27, 2026, and an appeal was announced.
Laci Denise Rocha was born on May 4, 1975, and grew up in Modesto, in California's Central Valley. Family members later described her as gregarious and quick to laugh. She married Scott Peterson in 1997, and the couple later returned to Modesto to live near her family. She was 27 when she died in December 2002. The verdict names their unborn son as the second victim; her family called him Conner.
Peterson was charged in Stanislaus County Superior Court in 2003 with two counts of murder, with special circumstances alleged, and he pleaded not guilty. The case was then moved to San Mateo County because of pretrial publicity, and the trial took place in Redwood City.
The prosecution was brought by the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office, and the defense argued that someone else was responsible. Peterson did not testify.
The trial lasted more than five months, and the presiding judge imposed a gag order on the participants. Two jurors, including the original foreman, were dismissed in the week the verdict was reached, and the remaining panel started its deliberations again from the beginning. The jury of twelve had been sequestered since November 3. After deliberations that resumed on a Wednesday and paused on Thursday for Veterans Day, jurors returned their verdicts on Friday, November 12, 2004.
They found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder for the death of his wife and second-degree murder for the death of their unborn son. The first-degree count carried a sentence of death or life in prison without parole. The second-degree count carried a term of 15 years to life.
The penalty phase began on November 22, 2004, with the judge expecting it to take less than a week. On Monday, December 13, 2004, after about eleven and a half hours of deliberation over three days, the jury recommended that Peterson be put to death. The judge could have reduced the penalty to life without parole, but that was considered highly unlikely, and the defense said it would pursue "every and all appeals, motions for a new trial and everything else."
On March 16, 2005, the trial judge denied a defense request for a new trial and imposed the death sentence. He told the court that he was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Scott Lee Peterson was guilty of first-degree murder, and described the killings as "cruel, uncaring, heartless and callous." The trial judge died in 2008.
Peterson's automatic appeal to the Supreme Court of California took years to reach decision. His first petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed in 2015. On August 24, 2020, the court issued a unanimous opinion of about 100 pages. It rejected his argument that pretrial publicity had denied him a fair trial on the question of guilt, and it rejected his request for a new guilt-phase trial. It found, however, that the trial court had excused for cause thirteen prospective jurors who personally opposed capital punishment but had indicated they could follow the law and vote for a death sentence if the evidence required it. Under United States Supreme Court precedent, the court held, a juror may not be dismissed merely because he or she has expressed opposition to the death penalty as a general matter, and even one such error requires reversal of a death judgment. The court also noted that the prosecutors had not objected as the errors occurred.
The disposition was that the judgment was affirmed as to guilt and reversed as to the sentence of death. Prosecutors had the option of seeking death again at a new penalty trial. Peterson's appellate lawyer said at the time that his client could still pursue claims based on new evidence and, if those failed, bring federal claims.
Within weeks, the same court turned to a second issue. On October 14, 2020, it ordered the San Mateo County Superior Court to decide whether Peterson should receive a new trial because one of the jurors, identified as Juror No. 7, had committed prejudicial misconduct by not disclosing her prior involvement with other legal proceedings. On November 5, 2020, the Supreme Court of California appointed a San Mateo County Superior Court judge to conduct an evidentiary hearing.
On May 28, 2021, the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office announced that it would not seek the death penalty at a retrial of the penalty phase. That left Peterson to be resentenced on the existing murder convictions. The district attorney said the decision followed further review and discussions with Laci Peterson's family.
At the hearing in Redwood City on December 8, 2021, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge, who had taken over the case after the death of the original trial judge, sentenced Peterson to life without the possibility of parole for the murder of his wife. For the murder of the unborn son the judge imposed a term of 15 years to life, to run concurrently. Members of Laci Peterson's family addressed the court. Her mother said Peterson would always be her daughter's murderer and that she saw no sorrow or remorse in him, her sister said he had taken something from her, and her brother described Peterson's conduct as sociopathic and said he had shown no remorse. Peterson's attorney said his client maintains his innocence.
After several hearings and a multi-day evidentiary hearing in 2022, the judge denied the petition on December 20, 2022. She found that the juror was credible and that her nondisclosures on the jury questionnaire were honest mistakes, and the judge concluded that Peterson had not met the legal threshold for habeas relief. The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office announced that he would continue to serve his sentence of life without parole. Peterson's challenge to that ruling went on to a higher court. On May 29, 2025, the Court of Appeal in San Francisco agreed to consider the juror claim, while declining to consider new-evidence claims that Peterson asked it to take up directly and saying that such evidence first had to be presented to the trial court. As of April and May 2026, the juror claim was before the Supreme Court of California.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project took on Peterson's case in 2023. In April 2025 its lawyers filed a petition of nearly 400 pages with the Court of Appeal, together with a 126-page declaration from Peterson in which he maintained his innocence. The petition argued that he had been denied due process and a fair trial because jurors did not hear evidence that could have affected the verdict, that the jury had relied on unreliable scientific evidence, and that police had fixed on Peterson early and ignored other evidence. A judge had already granted the team access to some of the 2004 case files.
In May 2025 the First District Court of Appeal separated the new-evidence and actual-innocence claims and directed Peterson to file them in the trial court. On August 4, 2025, he filed a third petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the San Mateo County Superior Court raising 14 claims. On November 4, 2025, the court ruled on a motion to file exhibits under seal, granting it in part. On January 5, 2026, the defense filed a motion for further post-conviction discovery covering about 230 items, which it later withdrew before a hearing set for May 6. The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office filed a 903-page informal response on January 12, 2026. On March 25, 2026, the court ordered portions of a transcript of an in-chambers meeting from October 2004 unsealed. On April 2, 2026, it denied a renewed request for post-conviction testing; a similar request had been denied on May 29, 2024.
On April 27, 2026, a judge of the San Mateo County Superior Court denied the third petition in a 116-page order. The judge rejected all 14 claims as procedurally barred, without merit, or both, and found that the material offered contained nothing that was new, admissible and material. The order held that the claims, "taken individually or together, fell far short of proving actual innocence." The order also treated several of the claims, among them challenges to expert testimony that the Supreme Court of California had already rejected in 2020, as barred because they had been decided or could have been raised earlier.
The Innocence Project's deputy director said the team was "disappointed by the court's ruling on every level," and described it as showing a profound misunderstanding and misapplication of the law governing habeas petitions. Peterson's attorneys said they planned to appeal to a higher court. The Stanislaus County District Attorney said that Laci Peterson, her son and their family deserved the finality that justice had promised them.
In a statement dated May 12, 2026, the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office said one matter remained pending before the Supreme Court of California: Peterson's appeal of a 2025 ruling on his second habeas petition, concerning the claim of bias by Juror No. 7. The office posted a fact sheet on the case on July 16, 2026. Peterson, who was 53 in April 2026, remains in California serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, and both sets of proceedings, the juror appeal and the planned appeal of the April 2026 order, remain open.
Two points of law run through the case. The first is the treatment of an unborn child as a separate victim. On April 1, 2004, while Peterson's trial was under way, the President signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, which the President described as also known as "Laci and Conner's law." Under the federal statute, anyone who engages in conduct that violates one of the listed federal provisions and thereby causes the death of a child in utero is guilty of a separate offense; the statute defines a child in utero as a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb. It excludes prosecution of a woman for conduct toward her own unborn child, and of anyone for consented abortion or for medical treatment. The federal law applies to listed federal offenses; Peterson was prosecuted under California law, and the second count against him was returned as second-degree murder.
The second is the rule on jury selection in capital cases, on which the 2020 reversal turned. The Supreme Court of California applied United States Supreme Court precedent holding that prospective jurors may not be excluded solely because of general objections to the death penalty, and that even one such error requires reversal of a death judgment. The ruling affected only the sentence; the guilt verdicts were affirmed.
Peterson has consistently denied the murders. His claims of innocence have been heard and rejected at each stage so far. The Supreme Court of California held in 2020 that he had a fair trial on the question of guilt. The San Mateo County Superior Court found in December 2022 that the juror at the center of his misconduct claim was credible and that her answers on the questionnaire reflected honest mistakes. On April 27, 2026, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge held that his actual-innocence claims had not stated a prima facie case for relief.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project disputes those conclusions. It contends that the jury relied on unreliable science, that police overlooked evidence, and that the court's ruling misapplied the law on habeas corpus. Those contentions have not been accepted by any court. According to the prosecution's statement of May 12, 2026, the one claim still undecided is the appeal on Juror No. 7.
May 4, 1975: Laci Denise Rocha is born; she grows up in Modesto, California.
1997: She marries Scott Peterson.
December 2002: The date of the offenses charged in Stanislaus County.
2003: Peterson is charged with two counts of murder, with special circumstances, and pleads not guilty.
April 1, 2004: The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 is signed.
November 12, 2004: A San Mateo County jury convicts Peterson of first-degree murder (his wife) and second-degree murder (their unborn son).
December 13, 2004: The jury recommends a sentence of death.
March 16, 2005: Peterson is sentenced to death.
August 24, 2020: The Supreme Court of California affirms guilt and reverses the death sentence.
October 14, 2020: The court orders the San Mateo County Superior Court to decide whether a new trial is warranted because of Juror No. 7.
May 28, 2021: The district attorney drops the request for a new penalty trial.
December 8, 2021: Peterson is resentenced to life without parole (count one) and 15 years to life, concurrent (count two).
December 20, 2022: The San Mateo County Superior Court denies the juror-based petition.
April 2025: The Los Angeles Innocence Project files a petition of nearly 400 pages with the Court of Appeal.
May 29, 2025: The Court of Appeal declines to consider new-evidence claims directly.
August 4, 2025: Peterson files a third habeas petition with 14 claims.
April 27, 2026: The San Mateo County Superior Court denies the third petition in full.
May 12, 2026: The district attorney's office states that the juror appeal is pending in the Supreme Court of California.
July 16, 2026: The district attorney's office posts its latest fact sheet.