MODESTO, Calif. -- It didn't take long before Scott Peterson's attorney, Mark Geragos, tipped his hand. The target of his defense of the Modesto man accused of killing his wife and unborn child will be the police investigation leading to Peterson's arrest.
Geragos didn't mince words on Monday in court when he characterized the police work in the case as a "voodoo-type investigation."
"In going through the discovery in this matter, it is rife with inadmissible, voodoo-type investigation," he told the court. "We have psychics. We have the Institute of Analytical Research studying microexpressions of people's faces. We have voice stress analyzers -- all of which are totally inadmissible."
Outside the courtroom, Geragos went even further saying Scott was innocent and that as part of his defense he would uncover whom the real Christmas Eve killer of Laci and Connor Peterson was.
The latter comment caught the attention of San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Jim Hammer, who handled the prosecution of the Dianne Whipple Dog Mauling trial.
"He sounded a little like the Iraqi information minister and especially when he said we are going to find the real killer -- a little O.J.esque (referring to the O.J. Simpson trial) right there," said Hammer on Tuesday's Mornings On 2. "It's the PR campaign -- there's the legal maneuvers he's made, changing his guy into civilian clothes. But also he's got to somehow change the tide so people again think there is some doubt about this."
"I think he went way overboard," he added.
But veteran defense attorneys Bob Moore and Gloria Allred disagreed.
"Scott Peterson wasn't acting like an innocent man, he was acting like a guilty man," Moore said on Mornings On 2. "He's got an attorney now who is acting like the attorney of an innocent man. That's his responsibility right now."
"What he needs to do, to the extent he can, is win this in the court of public opinion. If he has to try this case in Stanislaus County, he's going to have to turn people around a little bit so they have an open mind. I think that's what he's really trying to accomplish."
Allred characterized Geragos' much anticipated opening salvo in the case as 'bold."
"Well that was a bold move on his part," Allred said on Mornings On 2. "Not only to say that he wants his client to be found legally innocent, but also factually innocent. And in addition to find the person who did it. That is not a legal requirement for the defense. He may not even have the resources, in fact, to accomplish that goal if he wanted to accomplish that goal."
"It may be a really terrific public relations strategy and ploy. I think frankly that's what it is."
Allred said, however, that the strategy could also backfire.
"The problem is it makes a big splash for one day or maybe two," Allred said. "Then the media is going to require him to live up to that and if he can't live up to it, he's going to have some problems later on."
Moore added that the 'all or nothing' tactic is 'very, very risky.'
"The other question you wonder about is if this is going to be his defense, that he's innocent -- it's a very, very risky tactic," the veteran Bay Area defense attorney said.
"But Moore added that Geragos may not have a choice.
"My thought all along is that the evidence (against Scott Peterson) will be the evidence (from) after the crime has been committed," he said. "Therefore there was going to be a very good defense for perhaps manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter."
"If he's (Geragos) signaling right now that it's an all or nothing defense, it may be that he has found in the evidence that he doesn't have a really good case. He has to go to the mat on this thing and really have to take a win or loss."
Hammer theorized there could be another reason for the all-or-nothing stance.
"It could also mean that police had another suspect and he's hoping to develop that suspect into the real killer," he said.
While the legal debate over the case raged, a California appellate court on Tuesday ruled that the arrest and search warrants in the case and their supporting documents would remain sealed. Several media outlets, including KTVU Channel 2, had requested that the documents be unsealed.
Laci Peterson had been missing since Christmas Eve until her badly decomposed body washed up on shore near Point Richmond on April 14. The 27-year-old Peterson was eight months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.
The day before Peterson's body was found, the fetus of her unborn son Conner washed up on shore about a mile north.
On April 18 police arrested Peterson's husband Scott in San Diego for the murders just before being alerted that the bodies of Peterson and her unborn son had been positively identified through DNA analysis.
Modesto District Attorney Jim Brazelton has said he will likely seek the death penalty for Scott Peterson.
Copyright 2007 by KTVU.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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