PETERSON MURDER TRIAL Defense attorney attacks evidence in closing statements

Prosecutors just tried to make the jury hate the defendant, the defense said.
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REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Evidence shows that Scott Peterson killed his wife, Laci, and unborn son -- Mark Geragos, Peterson's Los Angeles lawyer, said as much Tuesday. Or at least, he said, that's the perception.
It's a perception, he added, based on one intolerable thing: a presumption of guilt.
"If you presume that he's guilty, you can always hope to come up with something that supports it," Geragos said. "The evidence shows otherwise."
In his only chance to argue for Peterson's acquittal of murder charges, Geragos chided evidence critical to prosecutors and blasted the investigation that produced it. While conceding his client was not "the smartest tool in the shed," he mocked the prosecution's portrayal of Peterson as a "master criminal."
"At a certain level, this is so absurd, so illogical that it makes absolutely no sense," Geragos said. "The only thing they're banking on is that you're going to hate him and that if you hate him, you're going to abandoned reality."
Peterson watched intently as his lawyer worked with two television monitors to unfurl his argument. His supporters, including his parents, Lee and Jackie Peterson, occupied seats in the gallery behind him.
On the other side of the aisle, Laci's mother, Sharon Rocha, and her partner sat quietly, shaking their heads slightly at times as Geragos spoke.
Arguments
Point by point, Geragos unloaded on the prosecution's case, offering what he said were reasonable explanations of circumstantial evidence that jurors must agree zeroes in on innocence.
Deputy district attorney Rick Distaso spent Monday characterizing Peterson as a man worried that his coming role as a father would crimp his playboy lifestyle. He wanted his pregnant wife out of the way and did just that on Dec. 23 or 24, 2002, when he suffocated or strangled the woman before dumping her body in the San Francisco Bay, Distaso said.
But the evidence, upon common-sense examination, just does not support conviction on two murder counts that could lead to a death sentence or life behind bars, Geragos said.
While prosecutors contend that a dog found Laci's scent at the Berkeley Marina, Geragos said the animal's handler had questionable credentials. Though prosecutors claim Peterson was in financial straits, Geragos said the young couple was making plenty of money and would in a few years inherit piles of cash. And while prosecutors argued Peterson showed little emotion over his missing wife, his neighbors said he appeared distraught and in shock after she vanished, Geragos said.
"Nowhere in the law does it say that if my client does not act like some playbook that he can be convicted," he said.
Geragos also railed against the police investigation, saying leads were not followed and that detectives dismissed possibilities that could have steered suspicion away from Peterson.
What's more, he said, was that evidence pointing to Peterson's innocence was revealed during trial. For example, it was during cross-examination of a computer expert that he learned a computer was never tested to see if Laci used it Dec. 24, 2002, Geragos said.
Changing theories
With each change, discovery and debunked evidence, he said, came a new theory or motive. He killed for his mistress Amber Frey, Geragos said prosecutors first argued. But testimony clearly showed Peterson was out for sex, not a new loving relationship, he said.
And then he killed for money, they said -- at least until an accountant said they had plenty of money.
"There was no motive for him to kill Laci and Conner," Geragos said. "In fact, quite the contrary."
Very simply, he said, Laci and Scott Peterson were a happy young couple expecting their first son when someone stole her away for unknown reasons. She was killed and dumped in an effort to set up her husband, whom police focused on from early on, he said.
Peterson had no history of violence, no early signs of what police contend was his sinister side.
"There is no evidence of him being a bad seed, a cold-blooded killer," he said. "I think you'd see evidence of that. I don't think that anybody's going to believe that one day he just snaps."