Overview
- A San Mateo County judge denied the Los Angeles Innocence Project’s petition in April 2026, ruling the group’s 14 evidentiary claims were “neither new, admissible nor material.”
- The two-part A&E documentary Scott Peterson: The New Evidence premiered July 16–17, 2026 and highlights alleged new witness statements, forensic reanalysis and an alternate burglary and burned-van theory.
- LAIP says the newly publicized materials deserve judicial review and plans to appeal the April ruling to higher state or federal courts in hopes of winning an evidentiary hearing.
- Prosecutors and Laci Peterson’s family reject the new claims, pointing to the 2004 jury verdict, later appellate rulings and Amber Frey’s trial testimony as proof of Peterson’s guilt.
- If the case reaches a higher court the dispute will turn on narrow legal tests for what counts as new and admissible evidence and on whether judges will order live testimony or additional testing.