| Thursday, July 22, 2004 Defense intensifies its attack on police Scott Peterson's defense attorney redoubled his efforts Wednesday to portray Modesto police as bumbling morons who ignored obvious suspects, mislabeled evidence and failed to notice a microphone battery had gone dead while they interrogated Peterson about Laci's disappearance. Throughout Peterson's double-murder trial in Redwood City, defense attorney Mark Geragos has argued that detectives concluded right away that Peterson was responsible for the disappearance of his wife, Laci, and shaped the facts to fit that conclusion. When a Modesto community services officers admitted that detectives had conducted an entire interview with Scott in January 2003 without realizing that the tape recorder was dead, Geragos had a field day. "Did you ever test it to see if it was working?" Geragos asked. Veronica Holmes, a Modesto police community service officer, testified that police videotaped an interview with Peterson but no batteries were put in a tape recorder, so the footage had no sound. Holmes said a detective had turned on the microphone as a test run and concluded that it was recording. Then, according to Holmes, he forgot to turn it off, so that by the time of the interview the battery unbeknownst to them was dead. Holmes said she placed the tape in her drawer and ``just forgot about it.'' Geragos noted it was just turned over to the defense this year. HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST EVIDENCE PHOTOS |
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| LACI & CONNER MAY JUSTICE PREVAIL |
| GERAGOS |