Peterson motions focus on GPS, press statements
From Rusty Dornin
CNN
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Scott Peterson
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Scott Peterson's attorney wants tracking evidence suppressed.
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REDWOOD CITY, California (CNN) -- Scott Peterson's attorney is expected to argue Wednesday that the tracking information prosecutors contend reveals Peterson's whereabouts after his wife disappeared is unreliable and unscientific.
Peterson is charged with killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son. Their bodies washed up separately on the shore of California's San Francisco Bay in April 2003.
After Laci Peterson's vanished in December 2002, investigators tracked Peterson's movements with a global positioning system, which uses satellite technology to pinpoint locations.
Mark Geragos, Peterson's defense attorney, plans to argue that the tracking system planted on his client's car malfunctioned, and that the technology is not legitimate science.
The judge also is expected to consider motions on sequestering the jury, excluding Peterson's statements to the media after his wife's disappearance and requesting a separate jury to determine penalty if jurors render a guilty verdict.
Peterson faces the death penalty if convicted.
Jury selection is not scheduled to start until the end of February.
Peterson told police that he was fishing in the bay on the day his wife disappeared and had launched his boat from the Berkeley Marina. The bodies washed ashore just miles from the marina.
Prosecutors have said that the GPS evidence is circumstantial, but indicates Peterson behaved as if he were guilty and drove to San Francisco Bay before his arrests as if afraid someone would find the bodies.
Geragos asked to sequester the jury for the four- to six-month trial, claiming the new venue is more hostile than his hometown of Modesto, California. Geragos successfully argued to relocate the trial from Stanislaus County to San Mateo County last month because of pretrial publicity.
Geragos used a billboard to buttress his argument to cloister the jury at a cost that could approach almost $1 million. The billboard depicts Peterson in an orange jumpsuit after his arrest and asks "Man or Monster."
Geragos wants a separate jury to determine the penalty if Peterson is convicted because, he says, people who qualify for death penalty cases often favor the prosecution.
