Two murder charges, death sentence possible in Modesto case

By BETH FOUHY
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) If two bodies found a mile apart on a Northern California shore turn out to be those of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, the notoriety of the missing Modesto woman's case might bring attention to California's unusually tough fetal homicide law.

Legal experts say prosecutors could charge a suspected killer with double homicide making it a potential death penalty case if DNA testing shows the remains belonged to the eight-months pregnant Peterson and the child she had already named Conner,

The state's so-called fetal homicide law was enacted by the Legislature in 1970, following the severe beating of a pregnant Stockton woman by her estranged husband the year before.

Teresa Keeler, seven months pregnant, delivered a stillborn girl after being repeatedly kicked in the abdomen, and doctors determined the baby had died in utero of a deep skull fracture as a result of the beating.

The case led legislators to amend the state's murder statute to include fetal homicide, and in 1994 the state Supreme Court clarified the law to apply to all fetuses beyond eight weeks gestation. Some two dozen other states have fetal homicide provisions, but many only cover fetuses that are ``viable,'' or can live outside the womb.

Fetal homicide laws have provoked controversy in many states, and a so-called Unborn Victims of Violence bill moving through Congress has been opposed by national abortion rights organizations.

But California's law has received little opposition in recent years, while anti-abortion activists have praised it as one of the toughest provisions of its kind in the nation.

``A case comes up sufficiently rarely that there may not have been the basis of a challenge to the statute, yet,'' said John Philipsborn of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.

In February, the state Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on whether a defendant can be convicted of fetal murder if he did not know the expectant mother was pregnant, the first time in a decade any changes to the law have been seriously contemplated.

Since no arrest has been made in the case, Stanislaus County prosecutors said they would not speculate on what charges might result from it.

But Jeanette Sereno, an attorney and assistant professor of criminal justice at California State University, Stanislaus, said, ``If the prosecutor felt that this was a murder, they would in all likelihood charge the person with the murder of both the mother and child. So what you would have is a double homicide.''

Under California law, a double homicide automatically becomes eligible for a death penalty prosecution. And while prosecutors wouldn't necessarily press for such a sentence, according to Modesto criminologist Stephen Schoenthaler, ``For the last 20 years, since I've been here, all multiple first-degree murders have been charged as death penalty cases.''

Police have questioned Laci Peterson's husband, Scott, about her disappearance, but have not called him a suspect in the case. Scott Peterson said he was fishing at the Berkeley Marina when his wife disappeared on Christmas Eve. The Berkeley Marina is three miles from where the two bodies washed ashore this week.

He has acknowledged having an affair with a Fresno woman last year, but has denied any role in his wife's disappearance and said his wife knew about the affair.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)