Evadulia Orta, mother of Rojelio Torres, a victim in the shootings at Robb Elementary School holds a photo of her son as she is interviewed with her sister by ABC News, Uvalde, Texas, May 26, 2022. (ABC News)
(UVALDE, TEXAS) — An attorney representing the families of the Robb Elementary School mass shooting victims confirmed to ABC News on Tuesday night that a settlement was reached and approved by a unanimous vote at a city council meeting in Uvalde, Texas.
Josh Koskoff, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit against the city, did not specify the exact terms of the settlement.
The lawsuit responds to the circumstances surrounding the school shooting that took place on May 24, 2022, claiming the lives of two teachers and 19 students.
In addition to a monetary settlement that would be paid out by the city’s insurance, the families were asking for Uvalde Police to adopt new fitness standards for the force and boost officer training, attorneys announced at a press conference in May 2024.
At the time of filing the suit, Koskoff told ABC News that the plaintiffs also were asking the city to maintain the cemetery where many of the victims are buried and to provide an updated accounting of the donations and spending related to May 24.
The plaintiffs were also asking to designate May 24 as an official day of remembrance in Uvalde and to create a committee for a permanent memorial in town.
The attorney confirmed all 21 victims’ families were represented in the lawsuit, but didn’t disclose any others who are listed as plaintiffs.
(CHANDLER, AZ) — Lori Daybell, the mother convicted of murdering two of her children in a so-called doomsday plot, has now been found guilty of conspiring with her brother to kill her fourth husband.
The jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, was handed the case Monday afternoon before reaching a verdict Tuesday afternoon.
Lori Daybell, 51, represented herself in the Phoenix trial. She did not take the stand or call any witnesses.
Dubbed the “doomsday mom,” Lori Daybell has maintained that her brother shot her then-husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, in self-defense in her home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Her brother, Alex Cox, died from natural causes months after the shooting.
She had pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, said the shooting was a ploy for Daybell to get rid of her estranged husband so she could get his $1 million life insurance policy and be with her current husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married four months after the shooting.
Prosecutors further said she invoked their “twisted” religious beliefs as justification for the murder and gave her brother “religious authority” to kill Vallow because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they referred to as “Ned.”
Over two weeks, the state called more than a dozen witnesses, including Daybell’s other brother, Adam Cox, who testified that he had “no doubt” his two siblings conspired to kill Vallow upon learning that his brother had fatally shot him.
In her closing argument, Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Treena Kay said the evidence at the scene showed that Vallow was not shot in self-defense, but was “executed” and the scene “staged.” She recounted text messages sent from Lori Daybell to her husband, Chad, seven days after Vallow was killed, discussing her now-deceased husband’s life insurance policy. Kay said that, upon learning she was no longer the beneficiary of the plan, the defendant messaged Chad that “Ned” probably changed it “before we got rid of him.”
The prosecutor also discussed a text message the defendant sent Alex Cox days before the deadly shooting in which she said they could “be like Nephi,” a prophet in the Book of Mormon who God commanded to kill Laban.
“Lori Vallow wanted the million dollars, and she wanted Chad Daybell, and she and Alex used that twisted religious beliefs they had so that they could kill the evil, possessed Charles and ‘be like Nephi,'” Kay said.
Three jurors who spoke to reporters following the verdict said the text message evidence in the case had stood out while they were deliberating. The jurors said they had no knowledge of Lori Daybell’s prior convictions, which were not discussed during the Phoenix trial.
Members of Vallow’s family expressed relief at the guilty verdict.
“I’m ready to move on,” Vallow’s sister, Kay Woodcock, told reporters outside the courthouse.
“This was thrust upon us, and our lives just went into, like a tornado, for a long time,” she said.
Following the guilty verdict, Lori Daybell agreed to several aggravating factors in the case, instead of having a jury make a finding on them. Among them, she agreed that this was a dangerous offense and that it involved the presence of an accomplice. When asked if she agreed that as a result of her conduct, the victim or the victim’s family “suffered emotional or financial harm,” she said, “Absolutely.”
She will be sentenced following another upcoming trial in Maricopa County, where she is further accused of scheming with her brother Alex Cox to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece.
Three months after the shooting of Vallow, Boudreaux called 911 to report that someone driving by in a Jeep shot at his vehicle outside his home in Gilbert, Arizona.
She has pleaded not guilty in that case.
Both Lori and Chad Daybell were found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of her children, Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who went missing months after Charles Vallow was killed. In separate trials in 2023 and 2024, prosecutors argued the couple thought the children were possessed zombies and murdered them so that they could be together. The children’s remains were found on an Idaho property belonging to Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.
Lori Daybell is currently serving life in prison without parole for the murders of her two children. She has denied killing them.
Chad Daybell was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering the two children, as well as his first wife, Tamara Daybell, and now awaits execution on Idaho’s death row.
(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts woman is on trial again for the death of her police officer boyfriend, after a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the initial murder trial last year.
Karen Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, in January 2022. The prosecution alleges that, following a night of drinking in Canton, Read struck O’Keefe with her SUV outside of a private residence, then left the scene. An autopsy found that he died of hypothermia and blunt force injuries to the head.
Read’s defense attorneys have long centered on allegations that the defendant was the subject of a cover-up.
Read has maintained her innocence. She pleaded not guilty to charges including second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a collision causing death.
During opening statements Tuesday in Norfolk County Superior Court in Dedham, special prosecutor Hank Brennan focused on numerous accounts Read has given in interviews with the media, in which he claims Read makes a series of “admissions.” Brennan announced his intent to present Read’s numerous statements to the media as important evidence in the Commonwealth’s case.
“You are going to hear from her own lips, and many of her statements, her admissions to her extraordinary intoxication. Her admissions to driving the Lexus. Her admissions to being angry at John that night,” he said.
Brennan directed the jury’s attention to a clip of the defendant’s interview from October 2024.
“I didn’t think I ‘hit him,’ hit him,” Read said in the interview. “But could I have clipped him, could I have tapped him in the knee and incapacitated him?”
Brennan told jurors they will see a host of video and DNA evidence during the trial, including what he said is DNA of O’Keefe’s hair recovered from Read’s bumper.
He also pointed to evidence pulled from Read’s Lexus, which he said will show that the defendant’s vehicle reversed at least 70 feet around the time of the alleged murder. Brennan repeatedly highlighted the broken taillight identified on the defendant’s vehicle as evidence that her Lexus struck O’Keefe.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson asserted in his opening statement that Read did not cause the death of O’Keefe.
“There was no collision with John O’Keefe,” Jackson repeated three times.
Jackson said the assertion that O’Keefe was struck by Read’s Lexus SUV is “contrary to science.”
“John O’Keefe did not die from being hit by a vehicle, period,” Jackson said.
Jackson promised to show the jury that the police investigation on which the Commonwealth has based its case is “riddled with errors.”
He made numerous references to personal relationships that investigating officers held with witnesses in this case, including Boston police officer Brian Albert, who owned the residence where O’Keefe was found dead on the lawn.
The attorney also criticized the involvement of former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator in the case. Jackson introduced Proctor as “a longtime family friend of the Alberts who has been disgraced by his own agency,” alluding to his dismissal by state police.
“You’ll see from the evidence in this case that this case carries a malignancy, one that is spread through the investigation,” Jackson said. “It’s spread through the prosecution from the very start, from the jump, a cancer that cannot be cut out, a cancer that cannot be cured, and that cancer has a name. His name is Michael Proctor.”
The attorney promised to show the jury personal text messages between Proctor and his high school friends, in which he made vulgar and sexist comments about Read. Jackson then alleged that Proctor admitted in the same text conversation to seizing the defendant’s cell phone without her permission and searching her phone for nude photos.
Proctor’s family responded to Jackson’s opening statement, calling it “yet another example of the distasteful, and shameless fabrication of lies that embodies their defense strategy” in a statement to ABC Boston affiliate WCVB.
“Jackson is under no oath to tell the truth; he does not have to speak in truths,” the statement continued. “The defense team continues to do anything to deflect from facts of the case and continues to use inappropriate analogies like casting someone as a cancer. We wholeheartedly believe the truth will prevail in this case, and justice for Officer John O’Keefe and his family will be achieved.”
The Commonwealth’s first witness, Timothy Nuttall, a Canton firefighter and paramedic who administered medical aid to O’Keefe, testified that he heard Read say, “I hit him,” at the scene.
“She said, ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,'” Nuttall said. “I remember it very distinctly.”
In his cross-examination, Jackson focused on the witness’ ability to accurately recall details from that morning.
Jackson pointed to an inconsistency between Nuttall’s testimony in Read’s first trial, where he stated that Read said, “I hit him,” twice, and his statements Tuesday in court, where he now claims she repeated the statement three times.
“So your memory is clearer today, now, as you sit here, than it was a year ago, when you testified it was two times?” Jackson asked.
“Yes, sir,” Nuttall said with a nod.
The next witness, Kerry Roberts, testified that she saw Read point to an abnormality in the taillight of her SUV the morning that O’Keefe was found and that she recalled seeing a piece missing.
Roberts will resume her testimony on Wednesday. The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Hours before the proceedings began on Tuesday, roughly two dozen protesters supporting Read gathered near the courthouse. Judge Beverly Cannone ordered a 200-foot no-protest zone around the courthouse in the interest of ensuring a fair trial.
A man “lingering and filming” within the buffer zone was arrested Tuesday morning after police say he ignored multiple requests to leave the zone, Massachusetts State Police said. The Arlington man was expected to be arraigned Tuesday on a trespassing charge, police said.
ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration’s attempt to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua hit another legal roadblock Tuesday with a federal judge in Colorado blocking some removals under the wartime authority.
U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney issued a temporary order Tuesday that prohibits the administration from using the law to deport noncitizens currently within the state of Colorado, further requiring that noncitizens subject to the AEA removal receive at least three weeks’ notice before deportation..
The Trump administration last month touched off a legal battle when it invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged that “many” of the men deported on March 15 lack criminal records in the United States — but said that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a subsequent 5-4 decision, allowed the Trump administration to resume deportations of alleged migrant gang members under the Alien Enemies Act — but said detainees must be given due process to challenge their removal.
The Colorado case is one of several lawsuits challenging the use of the AEA in Colorado, New York, and Texas, in which lawyers have argued that the Trump administration is shortchanging noncitizens by failing to provide them the “reasonable time” promised by the Supreme Court.
Judge Sweeney, in Tuesday’s order, criticized the Trump administration for attempting to remove two men in a manner she said is “deficient and fails to comport with due process.” According to the judge, the notices used by the Trump administration did not provide the men a reasonable amount of time to act on their due process and were only provided in English.
“The Court has grave concerns that Petitioners would be afforded notice that comports with due process to challenge the determination,” she wrote.
The judge also cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Donald Trump’s proclamation invoking the use of the Alien Enemies Act, writing that the plaintiffs were likely to prove that the proclamation violates Immigration and Nationality Act and humanitarian protections.
The Colorado ruling comes as a federal judge in New York is set to hear arguments Tuesday after he temporarily ruled that detained migrants being held in the Southern District of New York could not be deported without due process.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled earlier this month that several alleged Venezuelan gang members could not be deported under the AEA without them first receiving notice and an opportunity for a hearing.
Judge Hellerstein, in his temporary order blocking the deportations, suggested his decision was meant to define the parameters of the Supreme Court’s opinion requiring due process be granted.
The relief Hellerstein granted is limited to approximately a dozen migrants currently detained in a few New York counties.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York is set to hear arguments Tuesday after he temporarily ruled that detained migrants being held in the Southern District of New York could not be deported without due process.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled earlier this month that several alleged Venezuelan gang members could not be deported under the Alien Enemies Act without them first receiving notice and an opportunity for a hearing.
The Trump administration last month touched off a legal battle when it invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged that “many” of the men lack criminal records in the United States — but said that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision earlier this month, allowed the Trump administration to resume deportations of alleged migrant gang members under the Alien Enemies Act — but said detainees must be given due process to challenge their removal.
Judge Hellerstein, in his temporary order blocking the deportations, suggested his decision was meant to define the parameters of the Supreme Court’s opinion.
The relief Hellerstein granted is limited to approximately a dozen migrants currently detained in a few New York counties.
Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia are requesting a conference Tuesday to address what they say is the Trump administration’s “failure to comply” with a court order granting expedited discovery in the case.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis last week slammed Justice Department attorneys over their inaction over Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention and ordered government officials to testify under oath through expedited discovery.
In a letter to the judge Monday night from both the government and Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, lawyers for Abrego Garcia said that the Trump administration has responded to their discovery requests by producing “nothing of substance” and providing interrogatory responses that are “non-responsive.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said the administration has claimed state secrets privilege and governmental privilege “without any foundation for doing so.”
The attorneys also said they invited government officials to meet and confer several times, but the officials declined to meet until Monday evening, “on the eve of depositions.”
Department of Homeland Security Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara was scheduled to be deposed Tuesday morning, according to the letter.
The government, in the same letter, said they have “put forward a good-faith effort to provide appropriate responses to both Plaintiffs’ Interrogatories and Request for Production.”
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who has been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13.
The Trump administration, while acknowledging that Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in error, has said that his alleged MS-13 affiliation makes him ineligible to return to the United States. His wife and attorney have denied that he is an MS-13 member.
Judge Xinis early this month ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, and the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that ruling, “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
The government, in Monday’s letter to the judge, said that any requirement for a more detailed response on the legal basis for Abrego Garcia’s confinement “would be wholly inappropriate and an invasion of diplomatic discussions.”
“Upon Abrego’s repatriation to El Salvador, his detention was no longer a matter of the United States’ confinement, but a matter belonging to the government of El Salvador — which has been explained to the Plaintiffs repeatedly,” the government said. “Their insistence on obtaining any information on ‘diplomatic discussions’ is a facially unwarranted and inappropriate intrusion into the diplomatic process — a matter which the Supreme Court specifically reserved to the Government’s province.”
In a separate filing, attorneys for Abrego Garcia included as an exhibit the government’s objections to the plaintiff’s first set of expedited interrogatories, in which the government says that “disclosing the details of any diplomatic discussions regarding Mr. Abrego Garcia at this time could negatively impact any outcome.”
In the exhibit, the government acknowledges the $6 million that has been made available to the government of El Salvador to be used for its “law enforcement needs,” including for the detention of the Venezuelan migrants that were sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison.
“The United States has not provided any specific assistance with respect to the detention of Abrego Garcia or any other Salvadoran national,” the government said.
(JACKSON, NH) — A 39-year-old man has died in a skiing accident after going off a trail he had been traversing near a ski resort in New Hampshire, police said.
The incident happened on Sunday at the Black Mountain ski area in Jackson, New Hampshire, at approximately 5:51 p.m. when Officer Mike Mosher of the Jackson Police Department responded to a report of a skiing accident from a passerby, according to a statement from the Jackson Police Department.
“The initial report was that a skier had gone off the trail and was seriously injured,” authorities said.
However, when police arrived on the scene, they discovered that the situation was worse than previously reported.
“Mountain ski patrol reported to ‘Upper Maple Slalom’ trail to aid the patient,” police said. “The area of the accident was near the summit. Upon arrival they found an unresponsive adult male with significant injuries on the edge of the snow line to the left of the trail.”
Life saving measures were immediately put into effect as authorities evacuated the man — identified as 39-year-old Eric Page of Bartlett, New Hampshire – to the base area.
“Additional life-saving efforts were provided by Bartlett Jackson ambulance personnel but were unsuccessful and the patient was declared deceased,” police said.
The crash was unwitnessed, according to the Jackson Police Department.
“The New Hampshire medical examiner’s office was notified and ordered the decedent to be taken to Furber and White Funeral Services in North Conway, New Hampshire,” authorities said.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
(COLORADO SPRINGS, CO) — A 13-year-old girl has died after falling approximately 25 feet through the attic floor of an after-school program, police said.
The Pueblo Police Department in Colorado say they received a call on Friday evening at approximately 7 p.m. from somebody at the Rocky Mountain SER after-school head start program, according to ABC News’ Colorado Springs affiliate KRDO.
When they arrived, officers said they found a 13-year-old — later identified as Joeylin Kenley McDonald by her family — dead at the scene, according to KRDO.
While it is currently unclear what led up to her fall, the Pueblo Police Department say they are investigating the incident and that they have not determined whether this is a criminal matter, though police did confirm that she was with a group of juveniles when it happened, according to KRDO.
“Joeylin was the brightest soul in the world,” said McDonald’s aunt, Caitlyn Valdez, in a statement obtained by KRDO. “She is smart, headstrong, beautiful, sassy, sweet, caring and one hell of a hard worker … Mourning the loss of such a beautiful soul will be a daily task for the rest of our lives. Joeylin is one of a kind and will never be forgotten.”
The administration also released a statement following McDonald’s death, saying her death is a “tragic loss within our community.”
“Joeylin was a bright and beloved light in our community, and her sudden passing is a devastating blow to all who knew and loved her,” Rocky Mountain SER said in a statement. “While the exact circumstances of this tragedy remain under investigation, we ask the Pueblo community and beyond to join us in lifting in loving support and deep prayer for Joeylin, her family, friends, and all who are grieving during this unimaginable time.”
McDonald is survived by her five siblings, two parents and extended family.
(NEW YORK) — The wife of pro-Palestinian demonstrator Mahmoud Khalil gave birth to their first child while he remains in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.
Khalil, who is being held at a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, was denied a request for temporary release to meet their son, according to emails reviewed by ABC News.
Khalil’s lawyers requested a two-week furlough, noting that his wife, Dr. Abdalla, had gone into labor “eight days earlier than expected,” an email addressed to New Orleans ICE ERO Field Office Director Mellissa B. Harper shows.
In the email, the lawyers also recommended that Khalil could be placed in ankle monitor and could do check-ins with ICE.
Harper denied the request, writing in an email, “After consideration of the submitted information and a review of your client’s case, your request for furlough is denied.”
Dr. Noor Abdalla released a statement after the birth, saying, “My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud. ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom.”
On April 11, an immigration judge ruled that Khalil is removable after Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a section of the law that deemed him deportable because, the government claimed, his continued presence in the US would have an adverse consequence on foreign policy.
The Louisiana judge has given Khalil’s lawyers a deadline of April 23 to file applications for relief to stop his deportation. The judge said if they failed to make the deadline, she would file an order of removal to either Syria or Algeria.
While a student at Columbia University, Khalil was part of a leadership group protesting the war in Gaza. Khalil took part in negotiations with school administrators demanding the institution cut ties with Israel and divest from Israeli companies. Khalil finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December and is set to graduate in the spring.
He was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his Columbia housing in March.
Andy Alfaro/The Modesto Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) — After investigating the case for more than a year, the Los Angeles Innocence Project has filed voluminous evidence it says shows Scott Peterson did not murder his wife and unborn son in 2002.
In a nearly 400-page petition to the California Court of Appeals, filed Friday night, the LA Innocence Project argued Scott Peterson is innocent and his conviction should be overturned.
Laci Peterson, who was 27 years old and eight months pregnant, disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002. Her body was found in San Francisco Bay in April 2003.
Scott Peterson, now 52, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife and second-degree murder in the death of their unborn son. A jury found him guilty following a six-month trial in 2004.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project claims Scott Peterson was denied his rights to due process and a fair trial because jurors did not hear evidence over two decades ago that they argue could have affected the outcome of the trial, and police and prosecutors did not fairly investigate the case, and even destroyed possibly critical evidence.
“In my opinion, once the police locked onto Mr. Peterson as the prime suspect, they had no interest in finding evidence showing that someone other than Scott may have abducted Laci Peterson because that evidence did not fit with their working theory of the case,” LA Innocence Project director Paula Mitchell stated in the filing. “In addition to ignoring the eyewitness reports, the police turned a blind eye to other exculpatory evidence that would have exonerated Mr. Peterson.”
She said she believes police press releases included information “indicating to the public that police did not believe Mr. Peterson’s alibi, almost from day one.”
“This created a domino effect and ultimately created a tidal wave of media attention focused on Mr. Peterson as the prime suspect in the case,” she continued.
In their filing, the LA Innocence Project claims they have new scientific evidence that shows the date of the death of the Petersons’ unborn child was later than claimed at trial, and that an expert in water movement can prove that Laci Peterson’s body was not dumped where police said it was in December 2004 — two points they say would undermine the prosecution’s case.
“This new evidence undermines the prosecution’s entire circumstantial case against Petitioner, and shows that the jury relied on false evidence, including false scientific evidence, to convict him,” the petition states. One of the attorneys on the case said that in her entire career, she has never seen exculpatory evidence this strong.
The filing also makes multiple claims of new evidence and witnesses involving two crimes they say happened around the same time as Laci Peterson’s disappearance near the Petersons’ home — a burglary at a neighbor’s home and a burned van in Modesto’s Airport District.
Last year, a judge did not let them test for Laci Peterson’s DNA on a bloodstained mattress found in the van, so his attorneys do not know if her DNA is on that mattress. Prosecutors have argued that testing on one of the mattress cloths found male DNA, so no further testing would be required. The LA Innocence Project said it has sought “more precise DNA testing to determine if there is a link to the crimes in this case.”
A judge did grant them access to review some discovery in the case from the trial in 2004, including police interview transcripts and case files.
“Every aspect of the prosecution’s theory as to how the crimes in this case were committed has now been shown to be false,” the petition states.
The petition also includes a 126-page declaration from Scott Peterson, who did not testify during his trial, in which he maintains his innocence and says he was wrongfully convicted of murder.
“It is important to me that whoever killed my wife and son be found and held accountable,” he stated. “If whoever committed such violence against Laci and Conner is still at large they are a danger to public safety. It is also important to me that I clear my name and my family’s name because I did not and could never harm or kill my family.”
The filing asks the court to vacate the judgment and sentences, among other possible forms of relief.
The LA Innocence Project also submitted an application seeking permission from the court to file the oversized petition, as it is in excess of the allowed 25,500 words.
The Court of Appeal said Monday that a decision on the application may take several days. If the application is granted, the court said it will then file the petition and lodge the exhibits. If the application is denied, it will reject the petition but may allow a shorter one to be filed.
The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, said it won’t comment on the petition until it is filed by the court and they read it.
Scott Peterson has previously appealed his conviction, claiming he received an unfair trial based on possible jury misconduct.
A judge denied him a new trial in 2022 following his appeal on stealth juror accusations.
Prosecutors and police who were involved in the original trial have stood behind the 2004 conviction.
Scott Peterson was initially sentenced to death for the murders. In 2020, the California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence, citing that his jury was improperly screened for bias against the death penalty, according to court documents. He was later resentenced to life in prison without parole.
