Rumors leave lives in limbo; Experts say Peterson case shows risks of premature judgment
By M.S.Enkoji -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Saturday, January 25, 2003
In the search for a missing Modesto woman, about the only thing
police will say publicly is that her disappearance on Christmas Eve
is suspicious and they suspect foul play. And her husband isn't a
suspect.
Yet Scott Peterson, a 30-year-old fertilizer salesman, finds himself
immersed in a swirl of suspicion that began soon after the day he
said he last saw his pregnant wife, 27-year-old Laci Peterson.
That swirl intensified Friday when a Fresno-area woman admitted
having had a recent romantic relationship with Scott Peterson.
Premature conclusions about guilt based on little information have
cropped up before, sometimes placing the targets in a longtime limbo
that destroys lives and careers, say those whose job it is to examine
evidence or decide who is a suspect.
"The public gets a couple bits of information, and they condemn him.
There needs to be patience on the part of the public and any suspects
and investigators,
An attorney who represents several people he claims were unjustly
labeled said it is impossible to salvage a reputation stained by
public speculation.
Remember Richard Jewell?
"Richard Jewell was, in fact, a hero," said Lin Wood, an Atlanta
attorney who specializes in libel. "He is never remembered as the
hero; he is always remembered as the one who was accused of the
bombing at Olympic Park."
Jewell was a 34-year-old security guard working the 1996 Olympic
Games in Atlanta when he found a knapsack containing a pipe bomb and
quickly evacuated people. One person was killed.
Within days, his name was leaked as a suspect. Jewell was hounded for
months. Then the U.S. Justice Department cleared him. Still, he
couldn't go to a ballgame without getting heckled. His dream of a law
enforcement career became a public joke.
He has gotten settlements in libel suits and has finally found a job
with a police department in rural Georgia, said Wood. Still, "He's
tainted goods."
Wood also represents former U.S. Rep. Gary Condit of Ceres, and Patsy
and John Ramsey, parents of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, who was found
murdered in their Boulder, Colo., home, in 1996.
Condit's political career unraveled after he balked at revealing his
involvement with a missing former intern. Police have repeatedly said
Condit is not a suspect in the disappearance of Chandra Levy, whose
body was found in a Washington, D.C., park last May. Condit is now
unemployed, said Wood, and no one will hire John Ramsey.
Police continue to search for Laci Peterson, who was expecting her
first child on Feb. 10.
Scott Peterson told police that Laci Peterson was planning to walk
their dog as he departed for a fishing expedition and she wasn't home
when he returned that evening.
Since then, his behavior, his demeanor and his private life have been
fodder for speculation.
Modesto police, who have all but refused to talk about Peterson, said
they were forced to call a news conference Friday because reporters
were calling Frey and asking about her relationship with Scott
Peterson.
After Amber Frey's statement confirming the relationship, police
declined further comment.
Peterson's mother has said she is aghast that people assign guilt
because her son chose to go fishing on a holiday morning.
"My advice would be to any young man -- don't go fishing on a
holiday," said Jacqueline Peterson.
The timing of the fishing trip is, at best, a red flag for
investigators, said legal experts.
"This is what is particularly dangerous: The conjecture and the
discussion can't substitute for real evidence," said Ruth Jones, a
former New York City prosecutor and a professor at McGeorge School of
Law in Sacramento.
Investigators will turn first to those who know the victim, she said,
and it can be a cruel filter.
"Families generally have secrets that will not withstand the light of
day," she said. "It's one thing to admit secrets to the police and
prosecutors. It's another to tell things that are going on the front
page."
In this day of 24/7 cable news where an event plays nonstop,
nationwide, someone caught in sexual misconduct that is connected to
a death has no chance of redeeming his or her reputation, said Wood,
the libel attorney.
"You've got these talking heads who are constantly analyzing and
speculating and so on," he said.
Today, Wood says, if a handsome, wealthy, married politician, driving
home from a party, got in a car accident that killed an attractive
female passenger, the politician's career would end then and there.
In 1969, however, Sen. Ted Kennedy's career was only stalled by the
accident near Martha's Vineyard that killed campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne, Wood noted.
Laci Peterson's family has said police have shown them a photograph
of Scott Peterson with another woman and told them about a $250,000
life insurance policy he took out last summer.
"The reason people are intrigued with economic things and alternative
relationships is those are the elements to create motive, but motive
alone is insufficient to arrest someone," said Jones.
An insurance policy could be evidence, but it could have also been an
expectant father's wise choice, said another McGeorge professor.
"People are often caught up in a web of suspicion when they are doing
something perfectly innocent," said David W. Miller, who specializes
in evidence.
Scott Peterson's decision to avoid public forums means nothing, said Turvey, the
profiler, who is based in Sitka, Alaska.
Turvey was once involved in a case in which the siblings of a murder
victim were seen laughing, yet were blameless.
"They just had no idea how to handle it," said Turvey. The so-
called "right" reaction doesn't mean much, either, he said.
In 1994, Susan Smith, a South Carolina mother of two boys, put on a
nonstop show of public grief, complete with sobs, as she begged for
an unknown carjacker to return her two sons. Within months, she was
on trial for rolling her car -- with the two boys in it -- into a
lake. Separated from her husband, Smith drowned them because they
proved to be extra baggage in her relationship with a man,
prosecutors said.
She is serving a life sentence.
Miller, of McGeorge, suggested that maybe there should be a way to
get an official declaration of innocence for those who have never
even been arrested.
Even if there is a trial, "not guilty" never seems to be enough,
according to the son of the central figure in a celebrated case of
fractured justice.
In 1954, Ohio osteopath Dr. Sam Sheppard told police he was awakened
by his pregnant wife's screams. He told police he struggled with a
bushy-haired intruder who knocked him out.
Sheppard's private life -- including an affair -- exploded into a
sensational trial that later spawned a television series and a movie,
both named "The Fugitive," though Sheppard never ran away.
He was convicted, but in 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a
landmark case that pretrial publicity had prevented him from getting
a fair trial. He was acquitted in a second trial and released after a
decade in prison.
But Sheppard never managed to successfully restart his medical
career, and at one point he turned to pro wrestling and drinking.
"He died a broken man at 46 as a pauper," said his son, Sam Reese
Sheppard, a 55-year-old Oakland dental hygienist.
The younger Sheppard has become an advocate against the death penalty
and for a justice system that publicly acknowledges mistakes.
"Once you're accused," he said, "and wrongfully convicted, there's no
way to clear your name.
"
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