The organization is “investigating his claim of actual innocence” and claims new evidence “raises many questions into who abducted and killed Laci and Conner Peterson.”
The Los Angeles Innocence Project, which prides itself on providing services to people “convicted of crimes they did not commit,” has taken on Scott Peterson’s case.
In 2004, Peterson was convicted of the 2002 murders of wife Laci and their unborn child and sentenced to death. In 2021, however, he was resentenced to life in prison without parole — before being denied a new trial in 2022.
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According to the LAIP’s motion for post-conviction discovered filed earlier this week, Peterson’s attorneys alleged last year “violations of state and federal constitutional rights and state statutory rights, including … a claim of actual innocence that is supported by newly discovered evidence.”
“In the course of LAIP’s review and after some preliminary investigation, it became apparent to me that numerous items referred to throughout the police reports in Mr. Peterson’s case were not included in the discovery that was provided to the defense at the time of trial,” said Paula Mitchell, director of the Los Angeles Innocence Project said in the filing, per CNN.
“New evidence now supports Mr. Peterson’s longstanding claim of innocence and raises many questions into who abducted and killed Laci and Conner Peterson,” adds the filing, via ABC News.
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According to PEOPLE, the LAIP are “quoting updated witness statements which point to multiple areas of interest including a December 2002 burglary of a Modesto home across the street from the Petersons.” The organization is also hoping to test a blood-stained mattress found in a burned van nearby for Laci’s blood.
On its website, the LAIP describes itself as providing “pro bono investigatory services and legal representation to indigent individuals in Central and Southern California who were convicted of crimes they did not commit.”
The organization also hopes to “bring awareness of the inherent problems within the judicial system to local and state lawmakers so they are better informed and prepared to create a more just system.”
Peterson first reported his wife — who was seven months pregnant at the time — missing on Christmas Eve 2002. The bodies of Laci and their son Conner were found in April 2003.
