Wife-killer Scott Peterson must die says jury

Ron Grantski, stepfather to Laci Peterson, holds a newspaper after the jury recommended the death sentence for Scott Peterson. Picture / Reuters

REDWOOD CITY, California - A California jury has recommended that Scott Peterson be put to death for murdering his wife and unborn son, capping a sensational trial that riveted much of the country.

The jurors, who convicted Peterson of murder in November, deliberated for about 12 hours before coming to a unanimous decision that he should die for killing his pregnant, 27-year-old wife, Laci, and unborn son, Conner.

Peterson, who maintained his innocence throughout the trial but did not testify in his own defence, showed no emotion as the verdict was read by a clerk, sitting stone-faced next to defence attorney Mark Geragos.

The panel of six men and six women avoided making eye contact with Peterson, 32, as they entered the packed courtroom, which was ringed by sheriff's deputies.

"Scott Peterson was Laci's husband, Conner's daddy -- the one person who should have protected them. And for him to have done that -- that's it," juror Rochelle Nice said at a press conference after the verdict was read.

Under California law, Superior Court Judge Alfred Delucchi could break with the jury and impose a life prison term when he sentences Peterson on February 25.

But California judges rarely overturn the will of juries in death penalty cases.

Peterson's high-profile lead attorney, Mark Geragos, said he would work to save his client's life and overturn the guilty verdict.

Peterson will be moved in the coming months to California's death row, in San Quentin State Prison.

"Obviously we are very disappointed," Geragos said.

"Obviously, we plan on pursuing every and all appeals, motions for a new trial."

With a lengthy appeals process, death sentences in California can take decades to be carried out.

The state has executed 10 people since 1978 and currently has more than 600 men and women on death row, the nation's largest. The average death sentence in California takes 17 years to be carried out.

The case has transfixed much of America since Scott Peterson reported his pregnant wife missing on Christmas Eve, 2002, telling police that he spent the day fishing in San Francisco Bay and returned that afternoon to find her gone.

Hundreds of people gathered around the courthouse in Redwood City to hear the verdict and the San Francisco Examiner newspaper rushed a special edition onto the streets within minutes, a one-word banner headline of "DEATH" next to a photograph of Peterson.

The bodies of Laci and her baby washed out of San Francisco Bay -- not far from where Scott Peterson told police he had been fishing -- some four months after she vanished, a fact that swayed at least one juror to convict him.

"In my mind, if those bodies had never been found, or found in the desert, or in Yosemite National Park, we wouldn't be sitting here right now," the juror, identified only as Greg, said at a press conference.

In asking the jury to order Peterson's death, prosecutor's called him a "monster".

Geragos had asked the panel to spare him, saying that nothing would be gained by another death and asking to spare his ailing mother further heartbreak.

- REUTERS