Scott Peterson death penalty, Court on Monday upheld the conviction but overturned

 Scott Peterson death penalty, Court on Monday upheld the conviction but overturned.

The California Supreme Court has rejected Scott Peterson’s claim that he received an unfair trail and affirmed his convictions for the murder of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner, in a case that brought international notoriety to Modesto.

But the court, in a unanimous opinion published Monday, said that because of errors by the trial judge during jury selection, Peterson’s right to an impartial jury during the trial’s penalty phase was undermined. It was during the penalty phase that jurors decided on death for Peterson.

Prosecutors can retry the penalty phase if they wish to seek a death sentence. If they don’t, then Peterson’s punishment becomes life in prison, according to his attorney.

The Supreme Court agreed with Peterson’s attorney that the trial judge had wrongly excluded potential jurors simply because they stated they were opposed to the death penalty without determining whether they could put their beliefs aside and follow the law.

But the court’s seven justices did not agree that the trial judge’s jury selection errors prevented Peterson from receiving a fair trial in which a jury convicted him of murder in 2004.