The Murder of Laci Peterson

[jrry32]

On 10/17/2017 at 2:24 PM, Eagles23 said:

That would depend what the burden of evidence is in order to win an appeal. If its 'hard' for defendants to win appeals, my stance wont be easily changed

There are multiple standards. For factual findings, it's clearly erroneous. For conclusions of law, it's de novo. For discretionary decisions by the trial judge, it's abuse of discretion.

As for whether it's hard for defendants to win appeals, there's not a straight answer for that. Defendants rarely win appeals, but that's because there generally weren't major errors that demand the conviction be overturned.

On 10/17/2017 at 7:01 AM, Eagles23 said:

Youre right eyewitnesses are generally inaccurate but were talking about like 8 people who saw someone matching Laci's description. It'd be one hell of a coincidence if theyre all wrong. And according to the defense attorney, he was afraid of inconsistencies of minute details between each witness so he didnt have them testify. The drama series also emphasizes that the police barely followed up with any of these eyewitnesses which is obviously a problem. 

I'm calling BS. Mark Geragos was Peterson's attorney. He's an elite defense attorney. If Geragos thought those witnesses were credible, he'd put them on the stand. The jury isn't going to reject their testimony because of very minor differences. Like you said, it's eight people. If they were reliable witnesses, he'd have had them testify.

[incognito_man]

11 hours ago, jrry32 said:

There are multiple standards. For factual findings, it's clearly erroneous. For conclusions of law, it's de novo. For discretionary decisions by the trial judge, it's abuse of discretion.

As for whether it's hard for defendants to win appeals, there's not a straight answer for that. Defendants rarely win appeals, but that's because there generally weren't major errors that demand the conviction be overturned.

I'm calling BS. Mark Geragos was Peterson's attorney. He's an elite defense attorney. If Geragos thought those witnesses were credible, he'd put them on the stand. The jury isn't going to reject their testimony because of very minor differences. Like you said, it's eight people. If they were reliable witnesses, he'd have had them testify.

This is the biggest issue with these series. They latch onto a tiny piece of questionable (at best) 'evidence' and portray it as some sort of novel piece of information that the audience is now privy too. The watchers feel special that they have some sort of insider knowledge. The creators of these shows know what they're doing and are clearly good at it based on the reaction these shows get.

It shouldn't be a tiny minority of people that say "hey, you know the police and defense counsel looked through all of this for weeks and weeks and weeks and found it not credible. Therefore it's likely not credible."

[TVScout]

Geragos:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Geragos

[BobbyPhil1781]

He was working the creepy guy Michael Jackson case at the same time as this one???? No wonder the work was so crappy lol. This dude took on too much.