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I would like to go back and review the history. There were days after the trial rested, and it was in the hands of the jury. Several times they came out and asked for a few bits of information (as I recall) and were denied or granted that information. Then there was a long lag when they appeared hung. (as I recall).
A jury isn't "hung" officially until the judge allows them to declare that they were hung, and this judge did not allow that. (Although in reality, imho, they were hung). The judge kept making them deliberate even though they were at a complete impasse and the jury foreman was accused of "refusing to deliberate", although your memory is that he still wanted to deliberate. He refused to budge, as I recall, which made all the other jurors basically want to harm him. As I recall.
At any rate, in my opinion, after days of deliberating they were at a complete impasse and he was removed and replaced by another juror who quickly voted for guilty which was her whole intent the entire time after lying to get on this jury.
There was not a hung jury, there was a problem with the foreman in that he had not made a decision and could not make a decision or function in the role he was assigned. Today that foreman is presented as having voted not guilty and that he was the holdout, that he was removed because he was a holdout. That is simply not true.
Regarding the final juror who was added to the jury, there's nothing to suggest that she was a stealth juror except complaints from the defense. She had made up her mind after listening to all the evidence, similar to the other eleven jurors.
I do not believe the gate was open after Karen Servas closed it. When you say "his notes," I assume you are actually referring to Officer Callahan's notes of what Graybill told him? If so, I see that as being an error in how Officer Callahan received information from Graybill, and that *what he actually heard Graybill say was what he said during trial, which was that OTHER times the gate had been open and McKenzie had barked.
I will yield to this though...what a mess by the Modesto PD, Prosecution, and Defense. Do I think it amounts to an unfair trial because Graybill says he was waiting to be asked specific questions after he already inserted many other details? No.
I'm curious about who is paying for this series. It is very carefully timed to coincide with Scott's appeal, and the fact twisting is so rampant that it is a mistake to label it a documentary. This appears to more of fictional rewriting of the events surrounding Laci's murder according to Scott Peterson, presumably with the hope of generating support for his release.
The link I shared talks about how the tip was handled. Lt Aponte had to call a few times before he got a return phone call. Your summary is pretty close to what was shared in the PWC link. It was not presenting it as new evidence.
In your original post I responded to, you said that the tip was withheld. The Peterson defenders are also presenting it this way. Whether or not he had to call a few times, the tip was followed up on and turned over to the defense in May of 2003- over a year before the trial began. I don't know how many tips they received, but in a case of this notoriety I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the thousands. I do know that they received almost 100 reports of sightings of Laci, and those were spread throughout the USA and even some in foreign countries. It would have been difficult to sort through all of those tips and prioritize them and follow up on them. The deluge of information can make an investigation more difficult for police, I think it's important to remember that.
Well, Scott was an avid fisherman and had driven to the bay to catch a specific fish, sturgeon.
Right up until it was brought out that he didn't have the proper equipment to catch sturgeon. I think someone even said the fish was too big for the size of his boat.
THEN he only went to the bay to try out his new boat, he wasn't really trying to CATCH anything.
Right, he didn't have the right fishing rod or the right type of bait for sturgeon. Actually, when the police asked him what type of bait he used, Scott couldn't recall what type of bait he had used. The police did find unopened lures in his truck though.
I have no idea what to think if Graybill was right, what can you say, the dog opened the gate? Between that and the Aponte tip, would that cause reasonable doubt?
Not in my mind, but those scenarios could have been presented to the jury and they would have decided which scenario they gave more weight too. Just like the jury heard conflicting testimony about Conner's gestational age, and they choose which expert they believed the most.
The Aponte tip I think is a non starter in terms of an appeal, because the defense had access to it before the trial started. They choose not to pursue that avenue as a trial strategy. The fact that the defense lost doesn't mean that you can second guess the trial strategies that Geragos chose. I think the Graybill notes are probably a non starter too. The defense knew about him, had access to him and didn't ask the question about the gate being open or not. This might sound like it would have changed the outcome of the trial, but as the prosecution points out in their response to the appeal, Graybill gave conflicting statements about what he did or didn't do at the Peterson house that day. For example, once he said he delivered a packaged, another time he said the package was delivered the 27th or 28th.
In a jailhouse phone conversation, that information of Todd having an encounter with Laci was not credible.
I agree, this was probably determined by the MDP to be street talk. I like to watch the series Cold Justice, if you haven't seen it you should check it out. On a recent episode they were investigating a tip the police received that a guy was involved in a murder. It was the same type of tip as the Aponte tip, 2nd hand information and few specifics on date and time. They couldn't find any connection between him and the crime. After investigating they determined the rumor got started because this guy had a girlfriend with a similar name to the murder victim. People heard the victim's name and just assumed it was his girlfriend and he did it. People know Todd committed a burglary in the area and that Laci disappeared. It's easy to see how the rumor might get started that Todd was involved in the disappearance. Again, the defense had this information before the trial and chose not to use it.
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