Mark Geragos, the longtime defense attorney for convicted killer Scott Peterson, is pressing a public case that new evidence should force California courts to take another look at the 2004 murder conviction. The claim comes just weeks after a judge rejected Peterson's latest bid to overturn the case, and as the Los Angeles Innocence Project prepares an appeal.
Peterson was convicted in 2004 for the murders of his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son, Conner. The case became one of the most watched criminal trials of its era. Two decades later, the legal fight over that conviction is far from settled.
On April 27, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge denied Peterson's most recent motion to overturn the conviction. The ruling was a blow to Peterson's defense team, but Geragos signaled almost immediately that the fight would continue. The Los Angeles Innocence Project, which has been involved in Peterson's case, confirmed it plans to appeal the decision, as Fox News reported.
At the center of Geragos's public argument is physical evidence he says was never properly tested or disclosed. The defense has focused on a burned-out van found near the Peterson home following a burglary in the neighborhood around the time of Laci Peterson's disappearance.
Geragos described the van's proximity to the home and raised questions about whether investigators adequately pursued it as a lead.
"There was a van, it was ditched and set on fire very close to the house, within miles."
The defense contends the van should have been forensically examined and that its potential connection to the case was never fully explored. Geragos has also pointed to what he describes as untested DNA evidence and allegations that certain evidence was withheld from the defense during the original trial.
Those claims, if substantiated through the appeals process, could raise questions about whether Peterson received a fair trial under Brady disclosure rules, which require prosecutors to turn over evidence favorable to the defense. Whether any appellate court will find the claims strong enough to warrant relief remains an open question.
Geragos has not been shy about his position. In public statements, he cast doubt on the foundation of the entire conviction.
"I have never seen anything that ties Scott Peterson to a criminal conviction in this case."
That is a striking statement from a veteran criminal defense attorney who has been involved with Peterson's case for years. It goes well beyond arguing procedural error or prosecutorial misconduct. Geragos is challenging the sufficiency of the evidence itself.
The defense's strategy appears to rest on multiple fronts: the burned van, witness reports that Geragos says support an alternative theory, untested DNA, and alleged Brady violations. Each of those threads would need to clear high legal bars on appeal. Courts generally require newly discovered evidence to be material, meaning it must be the kind of evidence that could have changed the outcome at trial.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project's involvement adds institutional weight to Peterson's claims. The organization typically takes cases where it believes credible evidence of wrongful conviction exists. Its decision to appeal the April 27 ruling signals confidence that the defense can present a viable argument to a higher court.
Still, the procedural road ahead is steep. Peterson's conviction has survived prior legal challenges, including a California Supreme Court decision that overturned his original death sentence in 2020 on jury-selection grounds but left the underlying conviction intact. He was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
For the appeal to gain traction, the defense will likely need to show that the evidence it describes, including the van, the DNA, and any withheld materials, was not available or known during the original trial proceedings. Courts are reluctant to reopen settled convictions absent a clear showing that something went wrong at the trial level that deprived the defendant of a fair proceeding.
The Peterson case has always generated fierce public opinion on both sides. Prosecutors built a circumstantial case around Peterson's behavior, his affair with Amber Frey, and the location where Laci's and Conner's remains were recovered, in San Francisco Bay near the spot where Peterson said he had been fishing the day his wife vanished.
Defenders of the conviction argue the evidence, taken together, pointed overwhelmingly to Peterson. Critics, including Geragos and the Innocence Project, counter that the investigation locked onto Peterson early and failed to chase other leads, including the neighborhood burglary and the burned van.
Witness reports that Fox News detailed are also part of the defense's argument. Geragos has suggested these accounts could support the theory that someone other than Peterson was responsible for Laci's disappearance and death. Investigators have not publicly confirmed whether those witness accounts were fully pursued during the original investigation.
The immediate next step is the Innocence Project's appeal of the San Mateo County ruling. The timeline for that proceeding has not been publicly announced. If an appellate court agrees to hear the case, it could order evidentiary hearings or direct the lower court to revisit specific claims.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether the burned van's forensic potential has been exhausted or whether the DNA evidence Geragos references remains viable for testing. Those are questions any reviewing court would need answered before deciding whether the conviction should stand or fall.
Twenty years after a jury found Scott Peterson guilty, the legal system is still being asked whether it got the right answer. That question deserves a serious hearing, not because Peterson has earned sympathy, but because the integrity of the process matters more than any single verdict.
