Peterson seizes on previous
accusations against detective
By
Harriet Ryan REDWOOD
CITY, California (Court TV) -- A detective accused of embellishing his
testimony at Scott Peterson's murder trial was previously accused of making
inflammatory statements on the witness stand to force a mistrial in a case
where the prosecution's evidence was crumbling. To bolster motions for a
mistrial and dismissal of all charges, Peterson's defense cited Modesto
police detective Allen Brocchini's conduct in a 1998 robbery trial. The defense motions are based
on testimony Brocchini offered last month about a sensational, and ultimately
uncorroborated, tip. A hearing on the motions was
to be held behind closed doors Wednesday morning, but Judge Alfred Delucchi
postponed the hearing to July 29 and lawyers for the media convinced the
judge to conduct most of the proceeding in public. Certain areas of the
argument the judge has already sealed will take place privately. Although Delucchi has kept
court filings about the motions sealed too, comments the judge made in court
Wednesday indicate the thrust of the defense motions concern details of a tip
phoned into Brocchini after the body of Peterson's pregnant wife, Laci,
washed up on the San Francisco Bay shore. Brocchini said the man, Miguel
Espidia, told him Peterson had talked about the best way to dispose of a body
during a 1995 conversation. The detective testified the plan included using
duct tape, like the tape found on Laci Peterson's remains. "He said he would tie a
bag around the neck with duct tape and put weights on the hands, throw it in
the sea. Fish activity would eat away the neck and the hands and the body
would float up. No fingers, no teeth so there could be no
identification," Brocchini quoted Espidia. According to an Associated
Press report, Espidia never mentioned the tape in his recorded interview and
the detective added it to the account on his own. Ultimately, police found
Espidia's story unbelievable and prosecutors have not called him as a
witness. Delucchi did not say in
discussions Wednesday outside the jury's presence whether the portions of the
arguments that are secret include the 1998 case. Peterson's lawyer, Mark
Geragos mentioned the case only obliquely Wednesday, referring to it by its
title in an unpublished 2001 appellate decision, Richardson. A judge declared a mistrial in
that Stanislaus County case because Brocchini, the lead detective, made two
prejudicial comments while testifying against three alleged gang members,
including Richard Richardson, accused of storming into a neighbor's home and
stealing money, food stamps and other items. The prosecution's case was
faltering because the victims, who initially identified the defendants as the
robbers, backpedaled on their identifications during testimony. Brocchini apparently believed
the victims were threatened into changing their accounts and when a
prosecutor asked him about the role of a defense private investigator, he
said, "His job is to interview my witnesses and twist things they
say." A judge quickly struck the
comment from the record. But a few days later, Brocchini ran afoul of the
judge again when he told jurors that he talked to one of the defendants about
another robbery in which "he may or may not have been involved." The mention of an unrelated
crime on the heels of the comment about the private investigator prompted the
defense to ask for a mistrial. The judge granted a mistrial,
and the defendants asked him to go a step further and bar the prosecution
from retrying them because, they said, the detective had purposefully
sandbagged his case because he knew he was losing. "They asserted that this
was done because the prosecution felt the case was slipping away and a
retrial would afford them the opportunity to fix whatever problems arose in
the first trial with the victims and to seek a more favorable judicial
forum," according to the appellate decision. The judge disagreed, saying
Brocchini might have testified out of frustration with his witnesses, but
there was no proof he sabotaged his own case. The appellate court in 2001
agreed with the judge's assessment. After discussions with lawyers
about the July 29 hearing, Delucchi screened videotapes of an ABC television
interview with Peterson. The judge is considering whether to allow
prosecutors to show the jury edited versions of the interviews. As the tape played on a large
projection screen in the darkened courtroom, Peterson stared up at his image
from his seat at the defense table. When he began sobbing on the tape as he
recalled his "glorious" marriage, his father, Lee, in the front row
covered his eyes with his hand. In the afternoon, jurors
returned to court and heard testimony from Detective Dodge Hendee concerning
fruitless searches of the bay floor for evidence. Hendee's testimony will
resume Thursday morning. Peterson, 31, faces the death
penalty if convicted of murdering his wife and the child she was carrying. |