Peterson Appeal Update

Home | E-Mail | Comments

 

Exposing
Jean-Xavier
de Lestrade's
Film


Appeal Update

Michael Peterson

Michael Peterson
Murder Trial

Viciously
Attacked

No Accident

State's Evidence

A Very
Unusual Fall

Mystery Murder

How Many Stairs?

9-1-1

Red Neurons

Too Much Blood

Financial Fire

Bisexual
Revelations

Total Denial

The 1985
Elizabeth Ratliff
Murder

How Many
Staircases?


Kathleen Peterson

Kathleen Peterson

Judge and Jury

Durham,
North Carolina


Reports & Files

Photo Gallery

Message Board

 

Behind
the Website

ONE VOICE

 

Stranger
Than Fiction:
Trial Commentary

More
Peterson Case
Links


 


Michael Peterson entered a guilty plea on Friday, February 24, 2017. Through an Alford plea, in which the notorious fiction writer refused to openly admit to his guilt, Peterson pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge for killing his wife, Kathleen Hunt Atwater Peterson.

New Trial


On December 14, 2011, Judge Orlando Hudson ruled that Peterson would get a new trial. Hudson found that testimony from (former) State Bureau of Investigation agent Duane Deaver may have misled the jury in the 2003 trial.

New Trial


The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday, November 9, 2007, rejected convicted murderer Michael Peterson's appeal for a new trial.

Justice Edward Brady writing for the court announced, "Because we hold that admission of the evidence seized pursuant to the third search warrant was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, that the trial court did not err in admitting evidence concerning the death of Elizabeth Ratliff, and that the prosecutor's closing arguments did not amount to reversible error, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals."

"For the major issues, this is the end of the line. It's one of the reasons I am so disappointed by it," said Tom Maher, Peterson's attorney.

Jim Hardin said, "For all intents and purposes, this case is over . . . I'm very pleased for Kathleen's family. Now they can close the last chapter of this long book. Waiting for this decision has been very stressful for them."

Peterson

On September 19, 2006, it was announced that Mike Peterson had lost in the N.C. Court of Appeals.

However, since one of the three judges dissented, Peterson's attorney may now take the appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court. After that, there is no further place to appeal a conviction.




Read the Supreme Court's Rejection

and

Court of Appeals Decision